Pub Date : 2008-04-01DOI: 10.3200/DEMO.16.2.163-182
Fuad B. Aliyev
(ProQuest: ... denotes formulae omitted.)IntroductionSince gaining its independence in 1991, Azerbaijan has started to implement marketoriented reform policies. The transition to the new political-economic order has not been smooth, but instead accompanied by political cataclysms and military conflicts. The World Bank classified Azerbaijan as a war-torn country with a semidemocratic political regime.1The literature on the political economy of transition has grown considerably in the last decade because of the reality of the problem and uncertainty about the future of market reforms throughout the former Soviet states. Various concepts of interconnection between politics and economic reforms have been developed and regional and country explanations of the transition of post-Communist countries.The first question I discuss in this article is: What does "market reform" mean? Because of Shafiqul Islam's clear explanation of the market-reform process, I will follow his theory, which claims there are four interlocking wheels in the transition vehicle: macroeconomic stabilization, liberalization, privatization of the economy, and development of marketsupporting institutional infrastructure.2 The last three wheels he grouped together under the label of "marketization." He also discusses other concepts and theories of political economy of post-Communist transition.However, I focus on how political changes have affected the reform process in Azerbaijan during transition. The trajectory of the post-Communist transition in Azerbaijan can be roughly divided into three stages: (1) first years of independence (1991-94), the state of nature; (2) powerful autocratic regime and stabilization (1994-2003), the state of Heydar Aliyev; and (3) Heydar Aliyev's death and the election of his son Ýlham Aliyev as the new president (post-2003), the post-Heydar Aliyev state. I review all three stages of political development in Azerbaijan and their effects on market reforms, particularly the marketization process. Measures of nominal political stability and market reforms are obtained using the mix of qualitative and quantitative methods and then analyzed. In the end, I show how the centralization of power was helpful in one dimension of reforms-stabilization-but has been an impediment for the other dimension-marketization. Moreover, this article claims that once centralized, it is extremely difficult for a political-economic system in transition to undergo decentralization.Finally, I propose and discuss further public policy steps and examine the "three I's" approach to addressing issues of a post-Communist transition.The Political Economy of Post-Communist TransitionFirst, we must define "market reform" and "transition." According to Adam Przeworski, market-oriented reforms are reforms that aim "to organize an economy that rationally allocates resources and in which the state is financially solvent."3 Islam highlights four "interlocking wheels" of market-oriented reforms:
{"title":"From Stabilization to Marketization: The Political Economy of Reforms in Azerbaijan","authors":"Fuad B. Aliyev","doi":"10.3200/DEMO.16.2.163-182","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3200/DEMO.16.2.163-182","url":null,"abstract":"(ProQuest: ... denotes formulae omitted.)IntroductionSince gaining its independence in 1991, Azerbaijan has started to implement marketoriented reform policies. The transition to the new political-economic order has not been smooth, but instead accompanied by political cataclysms and military conflicts. The World Bank classified Azerbaijan as a war-torn country with a semidemocratic political regime.1The literature on the political economy of transition has grown considerably in the last decade because of the reality of the problem and uncertainty about the future of market reforms throughout the former Soviet states. Various concepts of interconnection between politics and economic reforms have been developed and regional and country explanations of the transition of post-Communist countries.The first question I discuss in this article is: What does \"market reform\" mean? Because of Shafiqul Islam's clear explanation of the market-reform process, I will follow his theory, which claims there are four interlocking wheels in the transition vehicle: macroeconomic stabilization, liberalization, privatization of the economy, and development of marketsupporting institutional infrastructure.2 The last three wheels he grouped together under the label of \"marketization.\" He also discusses other concepts and theories of political economy of post-Communist transition.However, I focus on how political changes have affected the reform process in Azerbaijan during transition. The trajectory of the post-Communist transition in Azerbaijan can be roughly divided into three stages: (1) first years of independence (1991-94), the state of nature; (2) powerful autocratic regime and stabilization (1994-2003), the state of Heydar Aliyev; and (3) Heydar Aliyev's death and the election of his son Ýlham Aliyev as the new president (post-2003), the post-Heydar Aliyev state. I review all three stages of political development in Azerbaijan and their effects on market reforms, particularly the marketization process. Measures of nominal political stability and market reforms are obtained using the mix of qualitative and quantitative methods and then analyzed. In the end, I show how the centralization of power was helpful in one dimension of reforms-stabilization-but has been an impediment for the other dimension-marketization. Moreover, this article claims that once centralized, it is extremely difficult for a political-economic system in transition to undergo decentralization.Finally, I propose and discuss further public policy steps and examine the \"three I's\" approach to addressing issues of a post-Communist transition.The Political Economy of Post-Communist TransitionFirst, we must define \"market reform\" and \"transition.\" According to Adam Przeworski, market-oriented reforms are reforms that aim \"to organize an economy that rationally allocates resources and in which the state is financially solvent.\"3 Islam highlights four \"interlocking wheels\" of market-oriented reforms: ","PeriodicalId":39667,"journal":{"name":"Demokratizatsiya","volume":"113 1","pages":"163-182"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80207352","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2008-04-01DOI: 10.3200/DEMO.16.2.183-200
Gergana Yankova
Abstract: The author explores how incumbents form their preferences when regime types change. The author juxtaposes the perceptions of the Hungarian and the Soviet Communist Party hard-liners during the transition from Communism in 1989-91. During this time, the memory of a historical uprising reduced the incumbents' misperceptions about their popular legitimacy via two mechanisms. First, historical memory functioned as a "public tolerance indicator" because it brought the opposition together and demonstrated the true distribution of political support. Second, the memory of a past uprising served as a "conservative reformer" when it opened up internal party debate about the legitimacy of the regime. The author's argument contributes to the scarce literature on actors' preferences formation under conditions of transitional uncertainty. It also provides a useful analytical bridge between actor-oriented and system-centered approaches to democratization. Keywords: historical memory, Hungary, political legitimacy, post-Communist transition, public opinion, Russia ********** Political actors form their preferences on the basis of their perceptions about their public support. As the Soviet Union began to dissolve in 1989, however, the true extent of the public support for the Communist incumbents in satellite states such as Hungary was unknown because Communist regimes did not hold contested elections. Transitional uncertainty also arose from the undefined institutional rules, the fluid party structure and the unknown reaction of the Soviet Union. Incumbents dealt with uncertainty in different ways. Some party members underestimated the importance and extent of their political legitimacy. These hard-liners stubbornly clung to the old order. Other Communist leaders appreciated the true scale of societal changes, along with the limitations of their power, early on. These politicians took timely steps to democratize and compromise with the opposition. The variance of the incumbents' preferences constitutes a puzzle. Earlier scholarship on democratic transitions has generally treated perceptions as exogenous, leaving the reasons for the disaccord largely unexamined. This study elucidates the development of actors' preferences during transitional periods. The historical memory of a failed antiregime uprising can reduce the incumbents' uncertainty about their political legitimacy by providing those in power with a barometer of public dissatisfaction. Two mechanisms are at work. First, the historical memory of a popular insurrection opens up a debate about the party's legitimacy. During the debate, the more progressive party members criticize the conservative members for their role in defeating the popular uprising. The conservative members then resign, and the party reforms and democratizes. Second, commemorations of past uprisings reveal the strength of the opposition and show the regime's limited public support. The rulers realize that the likelihood of pre
{"title":"Can the Memory of a Historical Uprising Reduce Transitional Uncertainty?: A Comparative Study of Hungary and the Former Soviet Union","authors":"Gergana Yankova","doi":"10.3200/DEMO.16.2.183-200","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3200/DEMO.16.2.183-200","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: The author explores how incumbents form their preferences when regime types change. The author juxtaposes the perceptions of the Hungarian and the Soviet Communist Party hard-liners during the transition from Communism in 1989-91. During this time, the memory of a historical uprising reduced the incumbents' misperceptions about their popular legitimacy via two mechanisms. First, historical memory functioned as a \"public tolerance indicator\" because it brought the opposition together and demonstrated the true distribution of political support. Second, the memory of a past uprising served as a \"conservative reformer\" when it opened up internal party debate about the legitimacy of the regime. The author's argument contributes to the scarce literature on actors' preferences formation under conditions of transitional uncertainty. It also provides a useful analytical bridge between actor-oriented and system-centered approaches to democratization. Keywords: historical memory, Hungary, political legitimacy, post-Communist transition, public opinion, Russia ********** Political actors form their preferences on the basis of their perceptions about their public support. As the Soviet Union began to dissolve in 1989, however, the true extent of the public support for the Communist incumbents in satellite states such as Hungary was unknown because Communist regimes did not hold contested elections. Transitional uncertainty also arose from the undefined institutional rules, the fluid party structure and the unknown reaction of the Soviet Union. Incumbents dealt with uncertainty in different ways. Some party members underestimated the importance and extent of their political legitimacy. These hard-liners stubbornly clung to the old order. Other Communist leaders appreciated the true scale of societal changes, along with the limitations of their power, early on. These politicians took timely steps to democratize and compromise with the opposition. The variance of the incumbents' preferences constitutes a puzzle. Earlier scholarship on democratic transitions has generally treated perceptions as exogenous, leaving the reasons for the disaccord largely unexamined. This study elucidates the development of actors' preferences during transitional periods. The historical memory of a failed antiregime uprising can reduce the incumbents' uncertainty about their political legitimacy by providing those in power with a barometer of public dissatisfaction. Two mechanisms are at work. First, the historical memory of a popular insurrection opens up a debate about the party's legitimacy. During the debate, the more progressive party members criticize the conservative members for their role in defeating the popular uprising. The conservative members then resign, and the party reforms and democratizes. Second, commemorations of past uprisings reveal the strength of the opposition and show the regime's limited public support. The rulers realize that the likelihood of pre","PeriodicalId":39667,"journal":{"name":"Demokratizatsiya","volume":"39 1","pages":"183-200"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78670754","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2008-04-01DOI: 10.3200/DEMO.16.2.143-162
Nicklaus Laverty
Abstract: Civil society played a vital role in the colored revolutions of Georgia and Ukraine, exemplified by the activism of the youth groups Kmara and Pora. As democratic reform has stalled, however, these groups have found themselves increasingly marginalized because of the reemergence of authoritarian practices and elites. Only the renewed inclusion of civil society can restore the democratization process. Keywords: civil society, colored revolutions, democratization, protest, public sphere, social movements ********** Since the collape of the Soviet Union, popular mobilization has played a key part in effecting change in the post-Soviet states. The first instances were seen during the collapse of Soviet power in Eastern Europe, epitomized by the activism of Solidarity in Poland, but as post-Soviet states disappointed expectations of democratic change, such activism has been redirected at the successor regimes, often to great effect. The most recent events that fit this description have been generally referred to as the "colored revolutions," arguably inaugurated with the electoral revolutions in Bulgaria (1996-97), Slovakia and Croatia (1998-99), and the nonviolent ouster of Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia in 2000. (1) Partly inspired by the Serbian example, nonviolent regime changes occurred in Georgia in 2003 (the Rose Revolution), Ukraine in 2004-05 (the Orange Revolution), and Kyrgyzstan in 2005 (the Tulip Revolution). There were also unsuccessful attempts in Uzbekistan and Belarus in 2005 and 2006. These events have captured the attention and imagination of many international observers, who have speculated that the colored revolutions might represent the beginning of a new wave of democratization. This article's purpose is twofold. First, I examine the role of social movements and civil society in sparking the colored revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine, focusing specifically on the activities of the youth groups Kmara ("Enough") and Pora ("It's Time"). Most conventional accounts of the two revolutions focus primarily on the proximate causes (fraud, corruption, etc.) or the nature of the organized political opposition, spending less time on the strategies and tactics employed by civil society and social-movement actors. I will use new social movement theory to explore how these groups took advantage of political opportunities, acquired and used repertoires of contention, and interacted with conventional actors and the media. This requires examining how the post-Soviet period shaped the revolutions' political context. Second, I look at each revolution's aftermath to determine how successful each has been in promoting effective change. Both Georgia and Ukraine experienced problems with democratization because of the new regime's actions while in office (Georgia) or the resurgence of the previous authoritarian elites (Ukraine). It is important to account for these difficulties, and determine what role (if any) civil society has played in the p
摘要:公民社会在格鲁吉亚和乌克兰的颜色革命中发挥了至关重要的作用，以青年团体Kmara和Pora的激进主义为代表。然而，随着民主改革的停滞，这些群体发现自己越来越被边缘化，因为专制做法和精英的重新出现。只有重新纳入民间社会，才能恢复民主化进程。关键词:公民社会，颜色革命，民主化，抗议，公共领域，社会运动**********自苏联解体以来，民众动员在影响后苏联国家的变革中发挥了关键作用。第一个例子出现在苏联政权在东欧解体期间，以波兰团结工会的激进主义为代表，但随着后苏联国家辜负了人们对民主变革的期望，这种激进主义又被转向了继任政权，往往产生了巨大的影响。最近符合这一描述的事件通常被称为“颜色革命”，可以说是由保加利亚(1996-97)、斯洛伐克和克罗地亚(1998-99)的选举革命以及2000年塞尔维亚非暴力驱逐斯洛博丹·米洛舍维奇(Slobodan Milosevic)开始的。(1)部分受塞尔维亚例子的启发，2003年格鲁吉亚(玫瑰革命)、2004- 2005年乌克兰(橙色革命)和2005年吉尔吉斯斯坦(郁金香革命)发生了非暴力政权更迭。2005年和2006年在乌兹别克斯坦和白俄罗斯也有过失败的尝试。这些事件引起了许多国际观察家的注意和想象，他们推测，颜色革命可能代表着新一轮民主化浪潮的开始。这篇文章的目的是双重的。首先，我考察了社会运动和公民社会在引发格鲁吉亚和乌克兰的颜色革命中的作用，特别关注青年团体Kmara (Enough)和Pora (It's Time)的活动。大多数关于这两次革命的传统描述主要集中在直接原因(欺诈、腐败等)或有组织的政治反对派的性质上，而较少关注民间社会和社会运动参与者所采用的战略和战术。我将使用新的社会运动理论来探索这些群体如何利用政治机会，获得和使用争论的剧目，并与传统演员和媒体互动。这需要研究后苏联时期是如何塑造革命的政治背景的。其次，我考察了每一次革命的后果，以确定每一次革命在促进有效变革方面取得了多大的成功。格鲁吉亚和乌克兰都经历了民主化问题，因为新政权在执政期间的行为(格鲁吉亚)或以前的威权精英的复兴(乌克兰)。重要的是要考虑到这些困难，并确定公民社会在后颜色革命的政治环境中扮演了什么角色(如果有的话)。如果说对革命的描述过于依赖于对政权和反对派的分析，那么这种解释在革命后的政治发展中甚至更为普遍。这种经验主义的沉默是否意味着公民社会不再寻求在政治进程中发挥积极作用，还是意味着国家正在积极地排除公民社会发挥这种作用?这是否表明革命政府有效地吸纳了公民社会，将其纳入政治社会?我的目的是回答这些问题，以创造一幅更复杂的关于颜色革命所带来的变化类型的图景。本文以及支撑本文的理论框架分为两个部分——前进化和后进化。考察格鲁吉亚和乌克兰革命前的情况，我使用西德尼·塔罗(Sidney Tarrow)的著作《运动中的权力》(Power in movement)所描述的新社会运动理论，为理解民众和政治动员以及这种动员如何影响政治变革提供了一个框架。…
{"title":"The Problem of Lasting Change: Civil Society and the Colored Revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine","authors":"Nicklaus Laverty","doi":"10.3200/DEMO.16.2.143-162","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3200/DEMO.16.2.143-162","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: Civil society played a vital role in the colored revolutions of Georgia and Ukraine, exemplified by the activism of the youth groups Kmara and Pora. As democratic reform has stalled, however, these groups have found themselves increasingly marginalized because of the reemergence of authoritarian practices and elites. Only the renewed inclusion of civil society can restore the democratization process. Keywords: civil society, colored revolutions, democratization, protest, public sphere, social movements ********** Since the collape of the Soviet Union, popular mobilization has played a key part in effecting change in the post-Soviet states. The first instances were seen during the collapse of Soviet power in Eastern Europe, epitomized by the activism of Solidarity in Poland, but as post-Soviet states disappointed expectations of democratic change, such activism has been redirected at the successor regimes, often to great effect. The most recent events that fit this description have been generally referred to as the \"colored revolutions,\" arguably inaugurated with the electoral revolutions in Bulgaria (1996-97), Slovakia and Croatia (1998-99), and the nonviolent ouster of Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia in 2000. (1) Partly inspired by the Serbian example, nonviolent regime changes occurred in Georgia in 2003 (the Rose Revolution), Ukraine in 2004-05 (the Orange Revolution), and Kyrgyzstan in 2005 (the Tulip Revolution). There were also unsuccessful attempts in Uzbekistan and Belarus in 2005 and 2006. These events have captured the attention and imagination of many international observers, who have speculated that the colored revolutions might represent the beginning of a new wave of democratization. This article's purpose is twofold. First, I examine the role of social movements and civil society in sparking the colored revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine, focusing specifically on the activities of the youth groups Kmara (\"Enough\") and Pora (\"It's Time\"). Most conventional accounts of the two revolutions focus primarily on the proximate causes (fraud, corruption, etc.) or the nature of the organized political opposition, spending less time on the strategies and tactics employed by civil society and social-movement actors. I will use new social movement theory to explore how these groups took advantage of political opportunities, acquired and used repertoires of contention, and interacted with conventional actors and the media. This requires examining how the post-Soviet period shaped the revolutions' political context. Second, I look at each revolution's aftermath to determine how successful each has been in promoting effective change. Both Georgia and Ukraine experienced problems with democratization because of the new regime's actions while in office (Georgia) or the resurgence of the previous authoritarian elites (Ukraine). It is important to account for these difficulties, and determine what role (if any) civil society has played in the p","PeriodicalId":39667,"journal":{"name":"Demokratizatsiya","volume":"24 1","pages":"143-162"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74294292","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Russia's Revolution: Essays, 1989-2006, Leon Aron. Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute Press, 2007. 374 pp. $25.00. Although a number of books revisiting the late Soviet period and the first decade of the post-Communist era have been published in the last two years, Leon Aron's Russia's Revolution: Essays, 1989-2006 is by far the most intimate and compelling of these. In Aron's amply cited and well-researched book, the author considers the customary topics of post-Communist political, economic, and institutional reform, while also offering the reader enthralling excursions into less-traveled locales--for example, the newly restored and reinvigorated Russian literary and culinary landscapes. Throughout, Aron reveals the enormity of change that has occurred in post-Communist Russia and, while recognizing fully the setbacks wrought by an expanding authoritarianism under Putin, urges the reader to look past the pockmarked trajectory of late and witness the unquestionable advances that separate today's Russia from the recent Soviet past. Of the twenty-one essays included in the volume, among the best are those depicting the revolutionary, failed reforms of Gorbachev, the closing days of the Soviet Union, and the enormity of the challenge facing Russia's first elected leader. The chapter on glasnost eloquently demonstrates how truly groundbreaking and far-reaching Gorbachev's opening policy salvo was. Additional essays covering the Gorbachev era introduce the reader to many of the icons of this brief revolutionary period, while also highlighting the role of certain serendipitous events that may have altered appreciably the course of reform during this era. In Russia's Revolution Aron also reveals how exceptionally out of touch Gorbachev was with political realities in the waning weeks and months of the Soviet Union. The essays on Boris Yeltsin and his eight-year reign, while calling attention to some of the president's more harmful personality traits and second-term lapses, also illustrate how singularly bold, determined, and essential he was at this point in Russia's history. Moreover, those looking for an in-depth discussion of post-Communist institutional, political, and economic reforms will not be disappointed. Aron devotes more than half of the book to these concerns, documenting along the way both how the post-Soviet transformation diverged from the Western experience and the truly momentous nature of the hoped-for transition to a capitalist democracy. The author also treats the Western reader to an often-unobserved side of the "new Russia" by including essays on Russia's scintillating literary renaissance, the material and moral yearnings of the growing middle class, and a delectable discourse on Russia's traditional and nouveau cuisines. …
{"title":"Russia's Revolution: Essays, 1989-2006","authors":"Thomas E. Rotnem","doi":"10.5860/choice.45-1089","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5860/choice.45-1089","url":null,"abstract":"Russia's Revolution: Essays, 1989-2006, Leon Aron. Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute Press, 2007. 374 pp. $25.00. Although a number of books revisiting the late Soviet period and the first decade of the post-Communist era have been published in the last two years, Leon Aron's Russia's Revolution: Essays, 1989-2006 is by far the most intimate and compelling of these. In Aron's amply cited and well-researched book, the author considers the customary topics of post-Communist political, economic, and institutional reform, while also offering the reader enthralling excursions into less-traveled locales--for example, the newly restored and reinvigorated Russian literary and culinary landscapes. Throughout, Aron reveals the enormity of change that has occurred in post-Communist Russia and, while recognizing fully the setbacks wrought by an expanding authoritarianism under Putin, urges the reader to look past the pockmarked trajectory of late and witness the unquestionable advances that separate today's Russia from the recent Soviet past. Of the twenty-one essays included in the volume, among the best are those depicting the revolutionary, failed reforms of Gorbachev, the closing days of the Soviet Union, and the enormity of the challenge facing Russia's first elected leader. The chapter on glasnost eloquently demonstrates how truly groundbreaking and far-reaching Gorbachev's opening policy salvo was. Additional essays covering the Gorbachev era introduce the reader to many of the icons of this brief revolutionary period, while also highlighting the role of certain serendipitous events that may have altered appreciably the course of reform during this era. In Russia's Revolution Aron also reveals how exceptionally out of touch Gorbachev was with political realities in the waning weeks and months of the Soviet Union. The essays on Boris Yeltsin and his eight-year reign, while calling attention to some of the president's more harmful personality traits and second-term lapses, also illustrate how singularly bold, determined, and essential he was at this point in Russia's history. Moreover, those looking for an in-depth discussion of post-Communist institutional, political, and economic reforms will not be disappointed. Aron devotes more than half of the book to these concerns, documenting along the way both how the post-Soviet transformation diverged from the Western experience and the truly momentous nature of the hoped-for transition to a capitalist democracy. The author also treats the Western reader to an often-unobserved side of the \"new Russia\" by including essays on Russia's scintillating literary renaissance, the material and moral yearnings of the growing middle class, and a delectable discourse on Russia's traditional and nouveau cuisines. …","PeriodicalId":39667,"journal":{"name":"Demokratizatsiya","volume":"32 1","pages":"201"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-03-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75214566","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
How Russia Really Works: The Informal Practices That Shaped Post-Soviet Politics and Business, Alena V. Ledeneva. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006. 288 pp. $22.95. How Russia Really Works covers the informal practices in politics, business, media, and the legal sphere in Russia in the 1990s. It contributes to a growing body of research in comparative politics on informal institutions. Alena Ledeneva's main thesis concerns the "paradoxical role" of informal practices in post-Soviet Russia: They are both supportive and subversive of formal rules and informal norms; "they accommodate change but also represent resistance to change" (3). Ledeneva's concept of informal practices, equally grounded in formal rules and informal norms and focusing on players, helps to explain players' dual role. She defines informal practices as "regular sets of players' strategies that infringe on, manipulate, or exploit formal rules and that make use of informal norms and personal obligations for pursuing goals outside the personal domain" (22). The actors involved are closed circles of professional elites who share a body of know-how that is largely unavailable to the general population. Rather than assuming that actors invariably follow a set of identifiable unwritten rules, Ledeneva emphasizes that their strategies involve bending both formal rules and informal norms, or following some and breaking others, and thus illuminate their creativity and mastery in navigating between the two domains. Between 1997 and 2003, the author conducted sixty-two in-depth interviews with fifty respondents representative of economic elites and various people in possession of know-how. She controlled for regional variation to the best of her ability, with her findings mainly applicable to large cities. Chapters 2-7 constitute the empirical core of Ledeneva's book. Chapter 2 examines the informal practices associated with competitive elections in post-Soviet Russia, which spawned a variety of manipulative technologies referred to as "black PR" (chernyi piar). The author examines PR practices in Russia from a comparative perspective and argues that the specifics of PR practices in Russia, such as a greater scale of manipulation, stem from certain defects of formal institutions--weakness of political parties, lack of independent media, and disrespect for the law. A comparative perspective is also employed in chapter 3 in the analysis of compromising information (kompromat) to attack political opponents and business competitors. The prominence of kompromat in Russia is contrasted with lustration campaigns (the legal process of exposing collaborators with the secret police in previous regimes) in Central and Eastern Europe, revealing the continuity of political power in Russia. …
{"title":"How Russia Really Works: The Informal Practices That Shaped Post-Soviet Politics and Business","authors":"Anna U. Lowry","doi":"10.5860/choice.44-4693","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5860/choice.44-4693","url":null,"abstract":"How Russia Really Works: The Informal Practices That Shaped Post-Soviet Politics and Business, Alena V. Ledeneva. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006. 288 pp. $22.95. How Russia Really Works covers the informal practices in politics, business, media, and the legal sphere in Russia in the 1990s. It contributes to a growing body of research in comparative politics on informal institutions. Alena Ledeneva's main thesis concerns the \"paradoxical role\" of informal practices in post-Soviet Russia: They are both supportive and subversive of formal rules and informal norms; \"they accommodate change but also represent resistance to change\" (3). Ledeneva's concept of informal practices, equally grounded in formal rules and informal norms and focusing on players, helps to explain players' dual role. She defines informal practices as \"regular sets of players' strategies that infringe on, manipulate, or exploit formal rules and that make use of informal norms and personal obligations for pursuing goals outside the personal domain\" (22). The actors involved are closed circles of professional elites who share a body of know-how that is largely unavailable to the general population. Rather than assuming that actors invariably follow a set of identifiable unwritten rules, Ledeneva emphasizes that their strategies involve bending both formal rules and informal norms, or following some and breaking others, and thus illuminate their creativity and mastery in navigating between the two domains. Between 1997 and 2003, the author conducted sixty-two in-depth interviews with fifty respondents representative of economic elites and various people in possession of know-how. She controlled for regional variation to the best of her ability, with her findings mainly applicable to large cities. Chapters 2-7 constitute the empirical core of Ledeneva's book. Chapter 2 examines the informal practices associated with competitive elections in post-Soviet Russia, which spawned a variety of manipulative technologies referred to as \"black PR\" (chernyi piar). The author examines PR practices in Russia from a comparative perspective and argues that the specifics of PR practices in Russia, such as a greater scale of manipulation, stem from certain defects of formal institutions--weakness of political parties, lack of independent media, and disrespect for the law. A comparative perspective is also employed in chapter 3 in the analysis of compromising information (kompromat) to attack political opponents and business competitors. The prominence of kompromat in Russia is contrasted with lustration campaigns (the legal process of exposing collaborators with the secret police in previous regimes) in Central and Eastern Europe, revealing the continuity of political power in Russia. …","PeriodicalId":39667,"journal":{"name":"Demokratizatsiya","volume":"70 1","pages":"202"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-03-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"91126455","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2008-01-01DOI: 10.3200/DEMO.16.1.97-112
Taras Kuzio
The democratic breakthroughs and revolutions of 1998-2004 for Slovakia, Croatia, Serbia, Georgia, and Ukraine constituted a second phase of their transformation as postcommunist states. All five countries experienced different national revolutions that prevented the simultaneous pursuit of nation-state building and democracy immediately after communism's collapse. After the dissolution of the Czechoslovak state, Slovakia had to come to terms with being an independent state that would coexist with a large Hungarian minority. Croatia's war of independence monopolized the first half of the 1990s and the Serbian threat only receded after the re-taking of Krajina in 1995. From 1988-99, Slobodan Milo?evic dominated Serbia. His plans for a greater Serbia, which ultimately led to NATO's bombing campaign in 1999, resulted in unprecedented war crimes, chaos, and havoc in the former Yugoslavia. Georgia entered the post-Soviet era dominated by ethnic nationalism that led to civil war and the loss of two separatist enclaves. Ukraine was a leading country seeking the dismantling of the USSR in 1991, and 91 percent of Ukrainians overwhelmingly endorsed a referendum on independence. But national independence came without democracy as the state was hijacked until 2004 by the former "sovereign communists," turned centrists, under Leonid Kravchuk and Leonid Kuchma. Throughout the 1990s, Ukraine's elites felt threatened by internal threats from the anti-state and antireform communists, who were the largest political force until the 2002 elections, and externally from Russia, which refused to recognize Ukraine's borders until 1997-99.The democratic opposition perceived the Slovak '98 OK Campaign as Slovakia's opportunity to complete the Velvet Revolution that escaped the country in 1989-90 and remove Vladimir Mec iar's populist nationalism that had, until then, dominated postcom-munist Slovakia. The Croatian opposition also sought to distance itself from the nationalist 1990s in favor of "returning to Europe" through domestic democratic reforms. Georgia's opposition sought to overcome a failed and dismembered state, amid deep levels of stagnation under Eduard Shevardnadze. Georgian analyst Nodia believes that "our revolution in 2003 reminded us of the Eastern European revolution of 1989" when a new generation of non-communist elites came to power.1 A similar sense of unfinished revolution permeated Ukraine's Orange Revolution that, for its leaders and supporters, represented the democratic conclusion to the national revolution of 1991.This article is divided into two sections. The first section analyzes ten causal factors that contribute to democratic breakthroughs and revolutions in Slovakia, Croatia, Serbia, Georgia, and Ukraine. These factors differ in their degree of intensity for all five states. The absence of all, or some, of these factors will prevent successful democratic revolutions in Russia, Belarus, Azerbaijan, and other CIS states. The ten factors inclu
{"title":"Democratic Breakthroughs and Revolutions in Five Postcommunist Countries: Comparative Perspectives on the Fourth Wave","authors":"Taras Kuzio","doi":"10.3200/DEMO.16.1.97-112","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3200/DEMO.16.1.97-112","url":null,"abstract":"The democratic breakthroughs and revolutions of 1998-2004 for Slovakia, Croatia, Serbia, Georgia, and Ukraine constituted a second phase of their transformation as postcommunist states. All five countries experienced different national revolutions that prevented the simultaneous pursuit of nation-state building and democracy immediately after communism's collapse. After the dissolution of the Czechoslovak state, Slovakia had to come to terms with being an independent state that would coexist with a large Hungarian minority. Croatia's war of independence monopolized the first half of the 1990s and the Serbian threat only receded after the re-taking of Krajina in 1995. From 1988-99, Slobodan Milo?evic dominated Serbia. His plans for a greater Serbia, which ultimately led to NATO's bombing campaign in 1999, resulted in unprecedented war crimes, chaos, and havoc in the former Yugoslavia. Georgia entered the post-Soviet era dominated by ethnic nationalism that led to civil war and the loss of two separatist enclaves. Ukraine was a leading country seeking the dismantling of the USSR in 1991, and 91 percent of Ukrainians overwhelmingly endorsed a referendum on independence. But national independence came without democracy as the state was hijacked until 2004 by the former \"sovereign communists,\" turned centrists, under Leonid Kravchuk and Leonid Kuchma. Throughout the 1990s, Ukraine's elites felt threatened by internal threats from the anti-state and antireform communists, who were the largest political force until the 2002 elections, and externally from Russia, which refused to recognize Ukraine's borders until 1997-99.The democratic opposition perceived the Slovak '98 OK Campaign as Slovakia's opportunity to complete the Velvet Revolution that escaped the country in 1989-90 and remove Vladimir Mec iar's populist nationalism that had, until then, dominated postcom-munist Slovakia. The Croatian opposition also sought to distance itself from the nationalist 1990s in favor of \"returning to Europe\" through domestic democratic reforms. Georgia's opposition sought to overcome a failed and dismembered state, amid deep levels of stagnation under Eduard Shevardnadze. Georgian analyst Nodia believes that \"our revolution in 2003 reminded us of the Eastern European revolution of 1989\" when a new generation of non-communist elites came to power.1 A similar sense of unfinished revolution permeated Ukraine's Orange Revolution that, for its leaders and supporters, represented the democratic conclusion to the national revolution of 1991.This article is divided into two sections. The first section analyzes ten causal factors that contribute to democratic breakthroughs and revolutions in Slovakia, Croatia, Serbia, Georgia, and Ukraine. These factors differ in their degree of intensity for all five states. The absence of all, or some, of these factors will prevent successful democratic revolutions in Russia, Belarus, Azerbaijan, and other CIS states. The ten factors inclu","PeriodicalId":39667,"journal":{"name":"Demokratizatsiya","volume":"25 1","pages":"97-109"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89834867","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
IntroductionThe permanent question during Putin's first term was "Who is Mr. Putin?" As a trained KGB agent, he was all things to all people. He appealed to Russian nationalists and the Orthodox Church, but he also saw and nurtured Western leaders. Unlike Yeltsin, Putin did not antagonize the communists, but he also appealed to economic liberals with more market reforms.1 His open-to-all attitude did not seem convincing. It looked like a waiting game. Everybody wondered what Putin would do when he had consolidated power.Systematic Establishment of Political AuthoritarianismOnly in one regard was Putin completely clear: he was a political authoritarian, but he did not say so. He muzzled the media, starting with television and proceeding with one newspaper after the other. He had brought the State Duma under control, partly through democratic means, partly through gross corruption. The regional governors were brought to heel by all means.2 Putin's loyalty to the KGB and its predecessors was unwavering, demonstrative, and frightening.The clearest indication of Putin's direction was his appointments. They all came from a very narrow stratum of former colleagues in St. Petersburg, mainly from the KGB. (KGB people are called siloviki in Russian? which means people belonging to the power ministries-the KGB, the military, and the police.) Putin's associates were both from the FSB and the foreign intelligence service (SVR), but the FSB people dominated.3The fundamental question is: What kind of Russia has Putin created? Before the presidential elections in March 2004, as in 2000, Putin thrived on the postrevolutionary contempt for politics and refused to debate any competitor, but he actually made a public policy declaration on television. He surprised with a Jeffersonian declaration of freedom:We must continue work to create a genuinely functioning civil society in our country. I especially want to say that creating a civil society is impossible without genuinely free and responsible media. . . .I firmly believe that only a developed civil society can truly protect democratic freedoms and guarantee the rights and freedoms of the citizen and the individual. Ultimately, only free people can ensure a growing economy and a prosperous state. . . .I would like to stress once more that the rights and freedoms of our people are the highest value that defines the sense and content of the state's work.Finally, we will most certainly complete the transformations currently underway in the judicial system and the law enforcement agencies. I think this is a truly important area that is decisive for building up real democracy in the country and ensuring the constitutional rights and guarantees of our citizens.4Putin did none of this. As usual, when he said something, he was preparing to do the opposite. He is known for two political concepts. The first is "managed democracy" and the second is the later "sovereign democracy." In 2002, Putin denied ever having used the e
{"title":"Putin's Lurch toward Tsarism and Neoimperialism: Why the United States Should Care","authors":"A. Åslund","doi":"10.3200/DEMO.16.1.17-26","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3200/DEMO.16.1.17-26","url":null,"abstract":"IntroductionThe permanent question during Putin's first term was \"Who is Mr. Putin?\" As a trained KGB agent, he was all things to all people. He appealed to Russian nationalists and the Orthodox Church, but he also saw and nurtured Western leaders. Unlike Yeltsin, Putin did not antagonize the communists, but he also appealed to economic liberals with more market reforms.1 His open-to-all attitude did not seem convincing. It looked like a waiting game. Everybody wondered what Putin would do when he had consolidated power.Systematic Establishment of Political AuthoritarianismOnly in one regard was Putin completely clear: he was a political authoritarian, but he did not say so. He muzzled the media, starting with television and proceeding with one newspaper after the other. He had brought the State Duma under control, partly through democratic means, partly through gross corruption. The regional governors were brought to heel by all means.2 Putin's loyalty to the KGB and its predecessors was unwavering, demonstrative, and frightening.The clearest indication of Putin's direction was his appointments. They all came from a very narrow stratum of former colleagues in St. Petersburg, mainly from the KGB. (KGB people are called siloviki in Russian? which means people belonging to the power ministries-the KGB, the military, and the police.) Putin's associates were both from the FSB and the foreign intelligence service (SVR), but the FSB people dominated.3The fundamental question is: What kind of Russia has Putin created? Before the presidential elections in March 2004, as in 2000, Putin thrived on the postrevolutionary contempt for politics and refused to debate any competitor, but he actually made a public policy declaration on television. He surprised with a Jeffersonian declaration of freedom:We must continue work to create a genuinely functioning civil society in our country. I especially want to say that creating a civil society is impossible without genuinely free and responsible media. . . .I firmly believe that only a developed civil society can truly protect democratic freedoms and guarantee the rights and freedoms of the citizen and the individual. Ultimately, only free people can ensure a growing economy and a prosperous state. . . .I would like to stress once more that the rights and freedoms of our people are the highest value that defines the sense and content of the state's work.Finally, we will most certainly complete the transformations currently underway in the judicial system and the law enforcement agencies. I think this is a truly important area that is decisive for building up real democracy in the country and ensuring the constitutional rights and guarantees of our citizens.4Putin did none of this. As usual, when he said something, he was preparing to do the opposite. He is known for two political concepts. The first is \"managed democracy\" and the second is the later \"sovereign democracy.\" In 2002, Putin denied ever having used the e","PeriodicalId":39667,"journal":{"name":"Demokratizatsiya","volume":"8 1","pages":"17-25"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72683091","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Demokratizatsiya is in constant change, just like the region it studies. Founded by undergraduate students in a dorm room with the help of three visionary deans at American University (AU), it quickly became a normal, professional publication. It began as a biyearly publication that soon thereafter expanded to a quarterly. After two years on its own but in partnership with AU, Moscow State University, the International Freedom Foundation and later the American Foreign Policy Council, the journal became part of Heldref Publications--created by scholars from the American Political Science Association concerned about the survival of worthy scholarly journals. After years with the same familiar look, Demokratizatsiya recently changed its format to make it more suitable for newsstands and bookstores. It fluctuates between hard scholarship and policy-relevant scholarship, reflecting the five "stakeholder" groups that shaped it: Western Sovietologists, NIS scholars, Western policymakers, NIS policymakers, and scholars from other disciplines coming in contact with the NIS. Sociologists, political scientists, historians, legal experts, economists, and policymakers make the journal interdisciplinary. Our online edition (through Metapress) has been more successful than anticipated--even surpassing the print version. The students who were instrumental in founding the journal--Kelly Adams, Vasilios Fotopoulos, Ruth Pojman, David Bain, Paula Orlikowski, Frederick Williams, Chris Dwyer, and Steve Cruty (later joined by Peter Serenyi, Grant Benson, Natalia Melnyczuk, Laurence Olson, Rangarajan Soundararajan, John Knab, Chris Corpora, Shinjinee Sen, Dmitri Iudine, Birgit Brauer, Svetlana Bagaudinova, Liesl Heeter, Kelly McKenna, Brian Simon, Craig Coulter, James Stevens, Ross Phelps, Timothy Scott, and Glenn Bryant, among others)--paid the price of their youthful indiscretion by moving on to bigger and better NIS-related katorga (hard labor). Five years ago I also mentioned the instability of cadres in the journal, as its editors are highly successful and mobile types who get big appointments and have to rotate out of their editorial responsibilities. Those of us familiar with the business world see this as normalno (as the Russians see their society becoming, according to Richard Rose in this issue). The journal practices what it preaches, subject to the classic formula of democracy: predictable publication every three months, but unpredictable outcomes! Because it is blind peer reviewed and its editorial leadership decentralized, the journal can essentially run itself. But there is also room for editorial leadership and individual editors nonetheless have left their indelible marks, which proved fortuitous because they are outstanding scholars who predicted defining trends very early. If there is one expert who can say "I told you so," it is our former executive editor J. Michael Waller, whose articles on the KGB since 1992 predicted to a tee the phenomenon we
{"title":"Introduction to the Fifteenth Anniversary Issue","authors":"Fredo Arias-King","doi":"10.3200/DEMO.16.1.5-8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3200/DEMO.16.1.5-8","url":null,"abstract":"Demokratizatsiya is in constant change, just like the region it studies. Founded by undergraduate students in a dorm room with the help of three visionary deans at American University (AU), it quickly became a normal, professional publication. It began as a biyearly publication that soon thereafter expanded to a quarterly. After two years on its own but in partnership with AU, Moscow State University, the International Freedom Foundation and later the American Foreign Policy Council, the journal became part of Heldref Publications--created by scholars from the American Political Science Association concerned about the survival of worthy scholarly journals. After years with the same familiar look, Demokratizatsiya recently changed its format to make it more suitable for newsstands and bookstores. It fluctuates between hard scholarship and policy-relevant scholarship, reflecting the five \"stakeholder\" groups that shaped it: Western Sovietologists, NIS scholars, Western policymakers, NIS policymakers, and scholars from other disciplines coming in contact with the NIS. Sociologists, political scientists, historians, legal experts, economists, and policymakers make the journal interdisciplinary. Our online edition (through Metapress) has been more successful than anticipated--even surpassing the print version. The students who were instrumental in founding the journal--Kelly Adams, Vasilios Fotopoulos, Ruth Pojman, David Bain, Paula Orlikowski, Frederick Williams, Chris Dwyer, and Steve Cruty (later joined by Peter Serenyi, Grant Benson, Natalia Melnyczuk, Laurence Olson, Rangarajan Soundararajan, John Knab, Chris Corpora, Shinjinee Sen, Dmitri Iudine, Birgit Brauer, Svetlana Bagaudinova, Liesl Heeter, Kelly McKenna, Brian Simon, Craig Coulter, James Stevens, Ross Phelps, Timothy Scott, and Glenn Bryant, among others)--paid the price of their youthful indiscretion by moving on to bigger and better NIS-related katorga (hard labor). Five years ago I also mentioned the instability of cadres in the journal, as its editors are highly successful and mobile types who get big appointments and have to rotate out of their editorial responsibilities. Those of us familiar with the business world see this as normalno (as the Russians see their society becoming, according to Richard Rose in this issue). The journal practices what it preaches, subject to the classic formula of democracy: predictable publication every three months, but unpredictable outcomes! Because it is blind peer reviewed and its editorial leadership decentralized, the journal can essentially run itself. But there is also room for editorial leadership and individual editors nonetheless have left their indelible marks, which proved fortuitous because they are outstanding scholars who predicted defining trends very early. If there is one expert who can say \"I told you so,\" it is our former executive editor J. Michael Waller, whose articles on the KGB since 1992 predicted to a tee the phenomenon we ","PeriodicalId":39667,"journal":{"name":"Demokratizatsiya","volume":"50 1 1","pages":"5-8"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81038106","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The word normal is ambiguous in English. It can refer to acting in accord with a given standard of behavior, a norm, or it can refer to the way the average person behaves. In societies in which citizens and institutions act as they ought to, this makes social life both predictable and acceptable. However, what is normalno in Russia is much more problematic. Some scholars have argued that the autocratic institutions of tsarist and Soviet times survived because Russian subjects regarded the state's demands as normal in both the normative and the positive senses.1 However, the Soviet regime has been characterized as a "dualistic" hourglass society because of a conflict between the norms of the Communist regime and how people actually behaved.2 Vladimir Shlapentokh has recommended managing the resulting tension by adopting the approach of a herpetologist, studying life in A Normal Totalitarian Society as dispassionately as one might study the behavior of other parts of the animal kingdom.3The dissolution of the Soviet Union created the classic structural conditions for anomie in Durkheim's sense of the breakdown of the norms and institutions of polity, economy, and state. The upheavals that followed meant that Russians could not go about their everyday lives normally because they had been socialized to live in the Soviet era. People were forced to cope amidst the turbulence of a society that had not yet established routines of what was normal in the statistical sense. Most Russians have coped by adopting and adapting networks and strategies that were familiar in Soviet times.4By definition, a period of turbulence-and the transformation of Russia's polity, economy, and society was certainly that-can only be sustained for a limited period of time. At some point the void created by the repudiation of the Communist party-state and the command economy is filled by new institutions that require people to behave differently if they are to eat enough, enjoy their leisure, and get the benefits to which they are entitled from public services. Moreover, transformation has brought opportunities that people can seize to better their conditions. For example, by saving money in the knowledge that the shops will have goods if a person can pay the market price or studying English in the expectation that this will lead to a better job.5Two decades after the abrupt start of glasnost and perestroika, Russians have had time to learn, for better or worse, what is now statistically normal in their society. However, the regime's failure to live up to the values that Russians hold about what makes a normal society has led to widespread dissatisfaction with the institutions to which they have had to adapt.6The ambiguity of contemporary Russian life is expressed in the hybrid characterizations that international organizations and many area-studies experts use to describe it. Westerners use compound labels to emphasize values inherent in European norms and deviations from them,
{"title":"Is Russia Becoming a Normal Society","authors":"R. Rose","doi":"10.3200/DEMO.16.1.75-86","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3200/DEMO.16.1.75-86","url":null,"abstract":"The word normal is ambiguous in English. It can refer to acting in accord with a given standard of behavior, a norm, or it can refer to the way the average person behaves. In societies in which citizens and institutions act as they ought to, this makes social life both predictable and acceptable. However, what is normalno in Russia is much more problematic. Some scholars have argued that the autocratic institutions of tsarist and Soviet times survived because Russian subjects regarded the state's demands as normal in both the normative and the positive senses.1 However, the Soviet regime has been characterized as a \"dualistic\" hourglass society because of a conflict between the norms of the Communist regime and how people actually behaved.2 Vladimir Shlapentokh has recommended managing the resulting tension by adopting the approach of a herpetologist, studying life in A Normal Totalitarian Society as dispassionately as one might study the behavior of other parts of the animal kingdom.3The dissolution of the Soviet Union created the classic structural conditions for anomie in Durkheim's sense of the breakdown of the norms and institutions of polity, economy, and state. The upheavals that followed meant that Russians could not go about their everyday lives normally because they had been socialized to live in the Soviet era. People were forced to cope amidst the turbulence of a society that had not yet established routines of what was normal in the statistical sense. Most Russians have coped by adopting and adapting networks and strategies that were familiar in Soviet times.4By definition, a period of turbulence-and the transformation of Russia's polity, economy, and society was certainly that-can only be sustained for a limited period of time. At some point the void created by the repudiation of the Communist party-state and the command economy is filled by new institutions that require people to behave differently if they are to eat enough, enjoy their leisure, and get the benefits to which they are entitled from public services. Moreover, transformation has brought opportunities that people can seize to better their conditions. For example, by saving money in the knowledge that the shops will have goods if a person can pay the market price or studying English in the expectation that this will lead to a better job.5Two decades after the abrupt start of glasnost and perestroika, Russians have had time to learn, for better or worse, what is now statistically normal in their society. However, the regime's failure to live up to the values that Russians hold about what makes a normal society has led to widespread dissatisfaction with the institutions to which they have had to adapt.6The ambiguity of contemporary Russian life is expressed in the hybrid characterizations that international organizations and many area-studies experts use to describe it. Westerners use compound labels to emphasize values inherent in European norms and deviations from them,","PeriodicalId":39667,"journal":{"name":"Demokratizatsiya","volume":"10 1","pages":"75-86"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87395670","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2008-01-01DOI: 10.3200/DEMO.16.2.131-142
L. Aron
"Like Providence in reverse, the Russian government seeks to arrange for the better not the future, but the past."-Aleksandr HerzenIt is very much in the Russian and, even more so, Soviet political tradition for rulers to deprecate their predecessors. As they ascend the power ladder, the would-be Kremlin occupants must profess complete loyalty to the current leader to succeed. Once in power, the country's new masters bolster their authority by dissociating themselves from previous leaders. Along with Russia's weak political institutions, which undermine the transitions' legitimacy, such repudiations almost inevitably result in the personalization of power, as the new occupants mold the political, social, and economic systems to their liking. Hence, Russian and-and especially-Soviet history have often resembled a succession of distinct personal political regimes-indeed, sometimes different states under the same name.Thus, at first blush, this Kremlin's castigation of the 1992-99 period, which is portrayed as an unmitigated disaster, is not unusual. It is described as a time of gratuitously and maliciously inflicted humiliation, of "a failed state," and, most of all, of "chaos."2 Advanced relentlessly, many Russian commentators (who quickly recovered their Soviet skill of line-toeing), and some leading Western media, editorialists, and pundits, have adopted this line of argument.3 The fact that a booming economy has sprung from the alleged calamities of the preceding years, like Athena who appeared fully armed from Zeus's head, does not trouble the latter.4For all its conformity to national tradition, the "chaos" propaganda campaign has several features that do not fit the usual pattern. First, President Vladimir Putin was-and continues to be-very popular, and does not need to gain additional legitimacy at his predecessor's expense. In the 1990s, moreover, the breadth and intensity of public criticism of the government (in newspapers, on television, and in the parliament) were unprecedented in Russian, let alone Soviet, history. All the many warts and boils, real and imagined, of the Boris Yeltsin regime were exposed and lanced at the time. Indeed, many Russian pollsters believe that much of Putin's popularity is due to his not being the late Yeltsin: very sick, often inebriated, and increasingly unsteady and erratic in public. Thus, harping on the very real failures and hardships of the Yeltsin years can hardly be expected to lower the public's opinion of them more than it already is.A plausible explanation is that the chaos mantra's aim is much higher. As often happens in Russia, the past is invoked to shape the present and the future. In this case, the denunciations of the 1990s may, the Kremlin hopes, help manage the tense transition ahead (or the risks of Putin's decision to rewrite the constitution and run again) and, more importantly, establish the direction that Russia should take in the long run. No one disputes that in the 1990s, Russia w
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