Pub Date : 2006-09-01DOI: 10.3200/DEMO.14.4.495-517
Ararat L. Osipian, Alexandr Osipian
Abstract: The 2004 presidential elections in Ukraine attracted the attention of the international community and became known as the Orange Revolution. The Orange Revolution symbolized the birth of civil society in Ukraine and created a feeling of great optimism. However, nearly half of the population voted for Viktor Yanukovych and disapproved of the Orange Revolution. They not only voted for another candidate, but also voted in a totally different manner, making their choice based on different criteria in accordance with a different set of values and orientations. It would be naive to attribute millions of votes for Yanukovych only to falsifications. This article explores the question of why Donbass, Yanukovych's stronghold, almost unanimously voted for him. Donbass is terra incognita for many Ukrainians and the broader international community. A significant number of Ukrainians envision an industrial Donbass based on old stereotypes. This article considers these stereotypes, the history of their development, and their influence on the electoral campaign. It addresses important characteristics such as roots, culture, the concept of the Donbass character, and the mass media's role in shaping public opinion. This article asserts that despite Yanukovych's loss, Donbass business and political elites still have the potential to influence major socioeconomic processes in the country and see their future only within Ukraine. Key words: Donbass, elections, local identity, Orange Revolution, stereotypes, Ukraine Introduction The 2004 presidential election in Ukraine attracted the attention of the international community and became known as the Orange Revolution. This extraordinary event in the political life of the post-Soviet world, along with the preceding socioeconomic and geopolitical transformations in Ukraine, are reflected in a considerable block of literature, of which we would give special credit to the works of Kuzio (1996, 1997, 2002, 2003, 2005), (1) Karatnycky (2005), (2) Matsuzato (2001, 2005), (3) Niculae and Popescu (2001), (4) Shulman (1998, 2002, (5) Stepanenko (2005), (6) Wilson (1995, 2002, 2005), (7) Zimmer (2004), (8) and others. These authors present different aspects of political life and major political events in Ukraine's social, economic, and other contexts. Most of the research until now has focused on the democratic process of the Orange Revolution, while views, and, more important, the reasons why eastern Ukraine consistently votes for its candidate are unknown, at least in the ethno-cultural context of the region. The March 2006 parliamentary election results show that their choice is not accidental, but consistent and well grounded. This article attempts to answer the question concerning the cultural grounds and the role of the media in Donbass's voting pattern. A quote that comes from the work of Niculae and Popescu, published in 2001, perfectly describes the future of political life in Ukraine: Presidential elections of
{"title":"Why Donbass Votes for Yanukovych: Confronting the Ukrainian Orange Revolution","authors":"Ararat L. Osipian, Alexandr Osipian","doi":"10.3200/DEMO.14.4.495-517","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3200/DEMO.14.4.495-517","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: The 2004 presidential elections in Ukraine attracted the attention of the international community and became known as the Orange Revolution. The Orange Revolution symbolized the birth of civil society in Ukraine and created a feeling of great optimism. However, nearly half of the population voted for Viktor Yanukovych and disapproved of the Orange Revolution. They not only voted for another candidate, but also voted in a totally different manner, making their choice based on different criteria in accordance with a different set of values and orientations. It would be naive to attribute millions of votes for Yanukovych only to falsifications. This article explores the question of why Donbass, Yanukovych's stronghold, almost unanimously voted for him. Donbass is terra incognita for many Ukrainians and the broader international community. A significant number of Ukrainians envision an industrial Donbass based on old stereotypes. This article considers these stereotypes, the history of their development, and their influence on the electoral campaign. It addresses important characteristics such as roots, culture, the concept of the Donbass character, and the mass media's role in shaping public opinion. This article asserts that despite Yanukovych's loss, Donbass business and political elites still have the potential to influence major socioeconomic processes in the country and see their future only within Ukraine. Key words: Donbass, elections, local identity, Orange Revolution, stereotypes, Ukraine Introduction The 2004 presidential election in Ukraine attracted the attention of the international community and became known as the Orange Revolution. This extraordinary event in the political life of the post-Soviet world, along with the preceding socioeconomic and geopolitical transformations in Ukraine, are reflected in a considerable block of literature, of which we would give special credit to the works of Kuzio (1996, 1997, 2002, 2003, 2005), (1) Karatnycky (2005), (2) Matsuzato (2001, 2005), (3) Niculae and Popescu (2001), (4) Shulman (1998, 2002, (5) Stepanenko (2005), (6) Wilson (1995, 2002, 2005), (7) Zimmer (2004), (8) and others. These authors present different aspects of political life and major political events in Ukraine's social, economic, and other contexts. Most of the research until now has focused on the democratic process of the Orange Revolution, while views, and, more important, the reasons why eastern Ukraine consistently votes for its candidate are unknown, at least in the ethno-cultural context of the region. The March 2006 parliamentary election results show that their choice is not accidental, but consistent and well grounded. This article attempts to answer the question concerning the cultural grounds and the role of the media in Donbass's voting pattern. A quote that comes from the work of Niculae and Popescu, published in 2001, perfectly describes the future of political life in Ukraine: Presidential elections of ","PeriodicalId":39667,"journal":{"name":"Demokratizatsiya","volume":"14 1","pages":"495-517"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2006-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79618479","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 : 2006-09-01DOI: 10.3200/DEMO.14.4.519-533
Olena A. Yatsunska
IntroductionThe phenomenon of the Orange Revolution will remain the object of analysis for political scientists, sociologists, psychologists, and others for a long time. Were the events of fall-winter 2004 the spontaneous expression of the will of Ukrainians, or was it a carefully prepared action? What types of myths were exploited during the presidential campaign in Ukraine and how did they affect the electorate's choice? What mechanisms were used to implement the myths? Why did one type of myth take root among the people while others did not? What was the mass media's role and the level of their manipulation? Why did the regime's candidate, Viktor Yanukovych, who dominated most of the media, especially TV, lose this election?Analysis of the role of electoral myths and the scale of their application in the 2004 presidential campaign in Ukraine will allow not only a better understanding of the situation in Ukraine during the election, but it will also help determine why millions of Ukrainians went out into streets to protest fraudulent election results.Modern election campaigns are based on a particular myth or a system of myths, which, being a powerful means of influence, help determine particular values and regulations as well as structure the public's vision of the present and future.1 There are many kinds of electoral myths and they all have different goals, which makes it possible to influence, with the help of one or more myths, almost all layers of society.The mass media is a powerful means of inculcating myths into the public's conscience. Myths make it possible to simplify reality and reduce many of the existing contradictions to the primitive formula of the struggle between good and evil. They practically answer the following question: what is right and wrong? Moreover, myths give politicians a hero complex. Myths use images, which make them recognizable, retainable, and whole. Myths are irrational; their environment are human feelings and emotions, mostly want of love and approval, feelings of safety, duty and justice, a fear of uncertainty, and a sense of guilt. If there are no emotions, there is no identification with the hero, no shared feeling.2Finally, myths always meet the expectations of the public and political environment. Myths help create a particular image of a candidate that perfectly suits a particular group of voters. The most typical myths used in election campaigns are the following:1. Image myths-aimed at creating and/or reinforcing a candidate's positive image as well as tarnishing his/her rival's image2. Technological myths-created for the realization of the immediate political tasks3. Eternal myths-actualized at certain moments of an election campaign3All these types of myths were used during the 2004 presidential campaign. Moreover, their inculcating into the public's conscience was determined by the so-called key events of the electoral campaign (see table 1).Image MythsImage forms began to form at the official s
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Pub Date : 2006-09-01DOI: 10.3200/DEMO.14.4.579-600
G. Simons
IntroductionRussian President Vladimir Putin has built his political career on fighting terrorism in Russia. The apparent early "successes" of the 1999 conventional military campaign in Chechnya have been replaced by drawn-out guerrilla warfare, which has become a terror campaign aimed at striking civilian targets in Russia. The mass media are an important instrument for both sides of this conflict, which are fighting for the hearts, minds, and sympathies of their audiences. The focus of this article is to examine how the Russian mass media present the key political actors' messages. This article focuses on matters such as the rhetoric used and the significance of the time and place that the statements were made.The issues and rhetoric that surround terrorism in Russia can be most confusing. In the run-up to the second Chechen War, in 1999, domestic terrorism, perpetrated by Chechens, was considered to be a Russian problem. For their prosecution of "antiterrorist actions" in Chechnya, and alleged human rights violations, the international community criticized Russia. The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, provided the Russian authorities with the opportunity to link Chechen terrorism with the global war on terror, which is being led by the United States. In doing this, the Russian authorities hope to reduce criticism of the Chechnya campaign, a calculation that seems to be working.Rhetoric, and its use through the conduit of the mass media, is an important aspect of society, especially when society is stressed by conflict, which can have a cultural/ideological component to it. It is a war over hearts and minds-that is being waged in the public information space. This is a war that is being fought over the perception of reality, rather than "hard facts." In this information/ideology war, there is a struggle to maintain acceptance and legitimacy for policies and actions. This article is divided into a number of sections that deal with a small section of the broader questions of how and why the mass media issues certain statements. It begins with a brief description of rhetoric and its use, starting with a historical perspective and the use of rhetoric in a more contemporary sense. By doing so, the foundations of analysis for how the various extracts from the mass media are given. Another important aspect that needs to be explained early is the definition of the media's role in the war on terrorism. This section starts with the Western "good practice" definition. However, another definition is also given, the definition of how the Russian authorities view the mass media's role.Some basic facts and figures on Russia's casualties as a result of terrorist acts are given. Then terrorism and terrorists are defined. Because of the emotions and politics that surround this issue, it is particularly contentious and has a tendency to cloud our understanding and judgment. It starts with the Russian authorities definition of terrorists and terrorism, befo
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Pub Date : 2006-09-01DOI: 10.3200/DEMO.14.4.613-626
G. Gill
The political trajectories of the post-Soviet states are varied, with democracy being the outcome in only a minority of these countries. The differ- ent outcomes are striking, given the similarity of starting points. The key to under- standing a democratic outcome lies in the different relationships between old regime elites and civil society-based opposition forces, and the ethnic balance in the country. Nationalism, reflected in the popular front movements, was crucial for a democratic outcome.
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Pub Date : 2006-09-01DOI: 10.3200/DEMO.14.4.477-495
Taras Kuzio
Abstract: The November-December 2004 Orange Revolution led to the election of Viktor Yushchenko as Ukraine's third president. Yushchenko's presidency has been associated with a number of important democratic gains, such as the holding of free and fair elections, a free media, an active civil society, the dissociation of oligarchs from a corrupt relationship with the authorities, and a more robust commitment to Euro-Atlantic integration. The Orange Revolution went into crisis in September 2005, when the Tymoshenko government was removed, culminating in the victory of the Party of Regions, led by Viktor Yanukovych, in the March 2006 elections. Following five months of coalition negotiations, a revived Orange coalition was replaced by first an Anti-Crisis and then a National Unity coalition, with a government led by Prime Minister Yanukovych. The signing of a "Universal" agreement by President Yushchenko, Prime Minister Yanukovych, and three other parliamentary parties, aims to maintain Ukraine's democratic gains through the continued pursuit of Yushchenko's domestic and foreign policies. The Orange Revolution has reached a crossroads, with either the consolidation of further reforms begun by the Orange Revolution, or a return to the policies pursued in the Kuchma era. Key words: democratization, Orange Revolution, Our Ukraine, PR, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, Universal Crisis, Viktor Yushchenko, Yulia Tymoshenko ********** Ukraine is in the second year of an Orange coalition following the election of Viktor Yushchenko as president in January 2005. President Yushchenko came to power on the back of the Orange Revolution, ostensibly the fifth democratic revolution in a postcommunist state. (1) The Orange Revolution and Yushchenko's electoral victory have brought a number of positive developments, such as media freedom, greater civil society activity, free and fair elections, the breaking of ties between oligarchs and organized crime, and lower levels of corruption and rent seeking at the senior levels. (2) These developments led to the New York-based Freedom House to upgrade Ukraine from "semi-free" to "free" in 2006, the first CIS state to be moved into this category. These positive developments, which place Ukraine on a different trajectory than Russia and the bulk of the CIS, (3) are not in doubt. What is potentially in doubt is to what degree these positive developments could be rolled back after the return of Viktor Yanukovych as prime minister in August 2006, following six months of crisis that placed a dark shadow over Ukraine's first free and fair election on March 26, 2006. Ukraine's Orange coalition fell into crisis in September 2005 and has not reunited; Yanukovych's return to the government in August 2006 has led to an irreversible split in the Orange coalition. Negotiations to rebuild an Orange parliamentary coalition took place over three months following the March 2006 parliamentary elections. However, following the defection of th
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Pub Date : 2006-09-01DOI: 10.3200/DEMO.14.4.545-562
Sarah Kendzior
IntroductionOn May 16, 2006, a group of scholars, policy experts, and journalists convened at the Hudson Institute in Washington, DC, for the unveiling of a video that promised to reveal the truth about the violent events in the city of Andijon, Uzbekistan, one year before. "This video demonstrates that the organizers of the uprising may not have been, as some have claimed, 'peaceful Muslims,'" proclaimed the cohosts of the event, Zeyno Baran of the Hudson Institute and S. Frederick Starr of the Central Asia Caucasus Institute, in an invitation to colleagues.1 According to Baran and Starr, this new video, which had been made available to them by the Uzbek embassy, would put to rest reports declaring the Andijon events to be a Tiananmen Square-style massacre of defenseless citizens by the Uzbek government. Proof of the falseness of this allegation, they claimed, lies in the fact that the video "shows clips recorded by members of Akromiya (a Hizbut Tahrir splinter group) during the uprising in Andijon on May 14, 2005."2Roughly twenty-six minutes long, the video consisted of three main parts: clips of remorseful Akromiya members pleading for the forgiveness of the government; conversations with alleged witnesses and victims; and an interview with Shirin Akiner, a professor and close colleague of Starr who has condemned Akromiya and supported Uzbek President Islam Karimov's claim that the use of force was necessary. Titled "Andijan Tragedy: The Course of Investigation," the Englishlanguage documentary was shown to an audience composed largely of Westerners, many of whom remained doubtful of the video's veracity given the policies of the Karimov administration toward independent Muslims. Had an average Uzbek television viewer been in attendance, however, he or she might have been skeptical for wholly different reasons. "Andijan Tragedy: The Course of Investigation" is known, in Uzbekistan, as Qabohat (Villainy), a state-produced propaganda video about the attacks that Uzbek television played repeatedly during the summer of 2005. A comparison of the video with English-language transcripts of Qabohat, made available by Eurasianet.org last summer, shows that the two contain many identical segments,3 a fact mentioned by neither Starr nor Baran.The creation and promulgation of "Andijan Tragedy: The Course of Investigation" is only the latest move by certain Uzbek and international scholars, policy analysts, and state propagandists against Akromiya, the alleged Islamic terrorist group blamed for the attacks in Andijon. According to these individuals, Akromiya armed the militants, Akromiya gave the orders, Akromiya was responsible for the deaths of Uzbek citizens in Andijon.4 There is one significant problem with this theory. Akromiya, by the accounts of many Uzbek and international human rights groups, political organizations, journalists, citizens, and accused Akromists themselves, does not exist.In researching Akromiya, one is struck not only by the pauci
2006年5月16日，一群学者、政策专家和记者聚集在华盛顿的哈德逊研究所，公开一段视频，承诺揭露一年前发生在乌兹别克斯坦安集延市的暴力事件的真相。“这段视频表明，起义的组织者可能并不像一些人所说的那样，是‘和平的穆斯林’，”该活动的共同主持者，哈德逊研究所的泽诺·巴兰和中亚高加索研究所的s·弗雷德里克·斯塔尔在对同事的邀请中宣称根据Baran和Starr的说法，这段由乌兹别克大使馆提供给他们的新影片，将会让那些宣称安集戎事件是乌兹别克政府对手无寸铁的公民进行的天安门广场式屠杀的报导平息。他们声称，证明这一指控不实的证据是，该视频“显示了2005年5月14日安集戎起义期间Akromiya(解放集团的一个分支)成员录制的片段”。该视频长约26分钟，主要由三个部分组成:Akromiya成员懊悔地请求政府原谅的片段;与据称证人和受害者的谈话;以及对斯塔尔的亲密同事、教授希林·阿基纳(Shirin Akiner)的采访。阿基纳谴责了阿克罗米亚，并支持乌兹别克斯坦总统伊斯兰·卡里莫夫(Islam Karimov)关于有必要使用武力的说法。这部英文纪录片名为《安集延悲剧:调查的过程》(Andijan Tragedy: The Course of Investigation)，观众主要由西方人组成，鉴于卡里莫夫政府对独立穆斯林的政策，其中许多人仍然怀疑视频的真实性。然而，如果一个普通的乌兹别克电视观众在场，他或她可能会因为完全不同的原因而持怀疑态度。“安集延悲剧:调查过程”在乌兹别克斯坦被称为Qabohat(邪恶)，这是一部国家制作的宣传视频，讲述了2005年夏天乌兹别克斯坦电视台反复播放的袭击事件。去年夏天，Eurasianet.org网站提供了这段视频和Qabohat的英文文本，将其与之比较，可以发现两者包含许多相同的片段，这是斯达和巴兰都没有提到的事实。“安集延悲剧:调查过程”的创作和出版，只是某些乌兹别克和国际学者、政策分析人士和国家宣传人员针对所谓的伊斯兰恐怖组织“阿克罗米亚”(Akromiya)的最新举措，该组织被指对安集延的袭击负责。根据这些人的说法，阿克罗米亚武装了武装分子，阿克罗米亚下达了命令，阿克罗米亚对安集戎乌兹别克公民的死亡负有责任。根据许多乌兹别克和国际人权组织、政治组织、记者、公民以及被指控的阿克罗米主义者自己的说法，阿克罗米亚并不存在。在研究Akromiya的过程中，人们不仅对该群体的资源匮乏感到震惊，而且对这些少数资源的组成也感到震惊。与其他中亚激进伊斯兰组织，如伊斯兰解放党或乌兹别克斯坦伊斯兰运动(IMU)不同，在2005年5月之前，Akromiya几乎完全没有受到乌兹别克斯坦和国际学者和政策制定者的注意和审查。虽然像伊斯兰解放党这样的组织已经开发了精心设计的网站，并分发文献来推进他们的目标，赢得追随者，但阿克罗米亚除了该组织同名领导人阿克罗姆·约尔多舍夫(Akrom Yo'ldoshev)的一篇作品外，没有任何公开的材料。虽然像IMU这样的组织的暴力行为是对中亚安全的真正威胁，但Akromiya自1992年所谓的成立以来一直处于休眠状态，只是突然被要求对安集戎大屠杀负责。鉴于在2005年之前，Akromiya作为一个组织力量的地位微不足道(如果它确实作为一个组织存在的话)，Akromiya可用的资源很少，这引起了人们对该组织公众形象可靠性的严重担忧。…
{"title":"Inventing Akromiya: The Role of Uzbek Propagandists in the Andijon Massacre","authors":"Sarah Kendzior","doi":"10.3200/DEMO.14.4.545-562","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3200/DEMO.14.4.545-562","url":null,"abstract":"IntroductionOn May 16, 2006, a group of scholars, policy experts, and journalists convened at the Hudson Institute in Washington, DC, for the unveiling of a video that promised to reveal the truth about the violent events in the city of Andijon, Uzbekistan, one year before. \"This video demonstrates that the organizers of the uprising may not have been, as some have claimed, 'peaceful Muslims,'\" proclaimed the cohosts of the event, Zeyno Baran of the Hudson Institute and S. Frederick Starr of the Central Asia Caucasus Institute, in an invitation to colleagues.1 According to Baran and Starr, this new video, which had been made available to them by the Uzbek embassy, would put to rest reports declaring the Andijon events to be a Tiananmen Square-style massacre of defenseless citizens by the Uzbek government. Proof of the falseness of this allegation, they claimed, lies in the fact that the video \"shows clips recorded by members of Akromiya (a Hizbut Tahrir splinter group) during the uprising in Andijon on May 14, 2005.\"2Roughly twenty-six minutes long, the video consisted of three main parts: clips of remorseful Akromiya members pleading for the forgiveness of the government; conversations with alleged witnesses and victims; and an interview with Shirin Akiner, a professor and close colleague of Starr who has condemned Akromiya and supported Uzbek President Islam Karimov's claim that the use of force was necessary. Titled \"Andijan Tragedy: The Course of Investigation,\" the Englishlanguage documentary was shown to an audience composed largely of Westerners, many of whom remained doubtful of the video's veracity given the policies of the Karimov administration toward independent Muslims. Had an average Uzbek television viewer been in attendance, however, he or she might have been skeptical for wholly different reasons. \"Andijan Tragedy: The Course of Investigation\" is known, in Uzbekistan, as Qabohat (Villainy), a state-produced propaganda video about the attacks that Uzbek television played repeatedly during the summer of 2005. A comparison of the video with English-language transcripts of Qabohat, made available by Eurasianet.org last summer, shows that the two contain many identical segments,3 a fact mentioned by neither Starr nor Baran.The creation and promulgation of \"Andijan Tragedy: The Course of Investigation\" is only the latest move by certain Uzbek and international scholars, policy analysts, and state propagandists against Akromiya, the alleged Islamic terrorist group blamed for the attacks in Andijon. According to these individuals, Akromiya armed the militants, Akromiya gave the orders, Akromiya was responsible for the deaths of Uzbek citizens in Andijon.4 There is one significant problem with this theory. Akromiya, by the accounts of many Uzbek and international human rights groups, political organizations, journalists, citizens, and accused Akromists themselves, does not exist.In researching Akromiya, one is struck not only by the pauci","PeriodicalId":39667,"journal":{"name":"Demokratizatsiya","volume":"148 1","pages":"545-562"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2006-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89230701","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 : 2006-05-01DOI: 10.3200/DEMO.14.3.435-460
L. Aron
Ideas of Revolutions and Revolutionary IdeasVelikie Revolutsii ot Kromvelya do Putin [Great Revolutions from Cromwell to Putin], Irina Starodubrovskaya and Vladimir Mau. second, augmented edition. Moscow: Vagrius, 2004. 511 pp.In this magisterial, path-breaking book, which for the first time seeks to explain the origins and the course of the latest Russian Revolution by placing it in the context of the great revolutions past, Irina Starodubrovskaya and Vladimir Mau have produced an intellectual equivalent of a deliciously dense and rich multi-layered chocolate cake: like its physical counterpart, it is both impossible to consume in one sitting and hard to stop eating.There are four conceptual layers, each containing the authors' answers to one of the four fundamental questions they pose: What are the commonalities in how revolutions come about, unfold, and end? What are the deficiencies of scholarly approaches to the study of revolutions, and how can they be synthesized and amended? How can these amended causal schemes help explain what happened in Russia between 1985 and 2004 and what will happen after? And finally, how will the experience of the Russian Revolution contribute to the existing body of theorizing on revolutions?For those who have grappled with these issues as part of education or in their own work, an overview of the literature undertaken to answer the first question is an excellent refresher. The reader new to these topics will find this a fine introduction to what is known as "structuralism" in history, the many variations of which are centered on what might be called grand material ("objective") causes-be they, to cite a few examples given by the authors, Barrington Moore's economic imperative of "getting grain to the classes that ate bread but did not grow wheat";1 the state's inability to react adequately to military pressure from other states and to peasants' mobilization in protest in Theda Skocpol's explanation;2 Jack Goldstone's demographic changes;3 or the emergence of rival groups claiming the state's political and economic resources and mobilizing the opposition, as described by Charles Tilly.4 In turn, these underlying tectonic metafactors affect the interests of multitudes (usually socioeconomic "classes") whose defense of their economic and, by extension, political interests, results in political upheavals.Like the works of Skocpol and Tilly, The Great Revolutions falls into what might be called the Marxist-statist subdivision of structural analysis. While they reject Marx's philosophy of history (with class wars and revolutions as stages toward the inevitable triumph of classless communism) and emphasize the relative autonomy of state bureaucracies as political actors (in contrast to Marx's notion of their being nothing more than the "committees" for carrying out the agenda of the economically dominant class), the key methods and the tools of analysis are unmistakably those of Marxist historical materialism. (As Vla
{"title":"Ideas of Revolutions and Revolutionary Ideas","authors":"L. Aron","doi":"10.3200/DEMO.14.3.435-460","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3200/DEMO.14.3.435-460","url":null,"abstract":"Ideas of Revolutions and Revolutionary IdeasVelikie Revolutsii ot Kromvelya do Putin [Great Revolutions from Cromwell to Putin], Irina Starodubrovskaya and Vladimir Mau. second, augmented edition. Moscow: Vagrius, 2004. 511 pp.In this magisterial, path-breaking book, which for the first time seeks to explain the origins and the course of the latest Russian Revolution by placing it in the context of the great revolutions past, Irina Starodubrovskaya and Vladimir Mau have produced an intellectual equivalent of a deliciously dense and rich multi-layered chocolate cake: like its physical counterpart, it is both impossible to consume in one sitting and hard to stop eating.There are four conceptual layers, each containing the authors' answers to one of the four fundamental questions they pose: What are the commonalities in how revolutions come about, unfold, and end? What are the deficiencies of scholarly approaches to the study of revolutions, and how can they be synthesized and amended? How can these amended causal schemes help explain what happened in Russia between 1985 and 2004 and what will happen after? And finally, how will the experience of the Russian Revolution contribute to the existing body of theorizing on revolutions?For those who have grappled with these issues as part of education or in their own work, an overview of the literature undertaken to answer the first question is an excellent refresher. The reader new to these topics will find this a fine introduction to what is known as \"structuralism\" in history, the many variations of which are centered on what might be called grand material (\"objective\") causes-be they, to cite a few examples given by the authors, Barrington Moore's economic imperative of \"getting grain to the classes that ate bread but did not grow wheat\";1 the state's inability to react adequately to military pressure from other states and to peasants' mobilization in protest in Theda Skocpol's explanation;2 Jack Goldstone's demographic changes;3 or the emergence of rival groups claiming the state's political and economic resources and mobilizing the opposition, as described by Charles Tilly.4 In turn, these underlying tectonic metafactors affect the interests of multitudes (usually socioeconomic \"classes\") whose defense of their economic and, by extension, political interests, results in political upheavals.Like the works of Skocpol and Tilly, The Great Revolutions falls into what might be called the Marxist-statist subdivision of structural analysis. While they reject Marx's philosophy of history (with class wars and revolutions as stages toward the inevitable triumph of classless communism) and emphasize the relative autonomy of state bureaucracies as political actors (in contrast to Marx's notion of their being nothing more than the \"committees\" for carrying out the agenda of the economically dominant class), the key methods and the tools of analysis are unmistakably those of Marxist historical materialism. (As Vla","PeriodicalId":39667,"journal":{"name":"Demokratizatsiya","volume":"133 1","pages":"435-460"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2006-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86251878","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 : 2006-05-01DOI: 10.3200/DEMO.14.3.317-346
K. Matsuzato
Abstract: The postcommunist countries that chose semipresidential regimes can be divided into three territorial units. First, the Commonwealth of Independent States countries chose semipresidentialism as a natural evolution of Communist executive diarchy and an instrument to run clientelist politics. New European Union countries (Poland and Lithuania) largely lacked these conditions but found other reasons for semipresidentialism: as a counterbalance against populist tendencies in postcommunist politics and as a mechanism to "cultivate" newcomers in politics. It is in the border regions between Eurasia and Europe (in this article Armenia and Moldova) where semipresidential regimes cannot consolidate and continue to experience constant constitutional instability. The Orange Revolution in Ukraine resulted in constitutional amendments that violated constitutional procedural requirements and thus provided another example that the apparent "enlargement of Europe" tends to destabilize constitutional processes. Key words: clientelism, EU expansion, institutional choice, Orange Revolution, postcommunist transition, semipresidentialism Introduction The collapse of Communist regimes provoked scholarly interest in semipresidentialism not only because the overwhelming majority of postcommunist countries chose this type of regime, (1) but also because the collapse of Communist regimes provided another source of semipresidential constitutional arrangements, namely, executive diarchies existing under Communist one-party regimes. As Maurice Duverger noted, semipresidentialism is somewhat similar to Soviet administrative law, in that executive power is divided into strategic and managerial functions. In the Soviet Union, these functions were run by the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the government, respectively. (2) Moreover, when semipresidential regimes emerged, particularly in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries, the political elite recognized that this regime fit the clientelistic characteristics of their countries' politics. Under semipresidentialism, the president enjoys abundant potential to manipulate elite clans by exploiting his prerogative to appoint and dismiss prime ministers. Thus, if a number of countries in various parts of the world consciously imported the 1962 French constitution, the evolution of Communist executive diarchies into semipresidential regimes would be an indigenous, natural process. (3) It is symptomatic that the term semipresidentialism entered the lexicon of the political and judicial sciences of postcommunist countries only after they adopted semipresidential constitutions. In a previous article on Ukrainian semipresidentialism, I described this typically Eurasian, natural development from Communist executive diarchy to postcommunist semipresidentialism. (4) Yet this was not the only possible scenario for postcommunist countries. It is true that the Communist method of dividing strategic and man
{"title":"Differing Dynamics of Semipresidentialism across Euro/Eurasian Borders: Ukraine, Lithuania, Poland, Moldova, and Armenia","authors":"K. Matsuzato","doi":"10.3200/DEMO.14.3.317-346","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3200/DEMO.14.3.317-346","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: The postcommunist countries that chose semipresidential regimes can be divided into three territorial units. First, the Commonwealth of Independent States countries chose semipresidentialism as a natural evolution of Communist executive diarchy and an instrument to run clientelist politics. New European Union countries (Poland and Lithuania) largely lacked these conditions but found other reasons for semipresidentialism: as a counterbalance against populist tendencies in postcommunist politics and as a mechanism to \"cultivate\" newcomers in politics. It is in the border regions between Eurasia and Europe (in this article Armenia and Moldova) where semipresidential regimes cannot consolidate and continue to experience constant constitutional instability. The Orange Revolution in Ukraine resulted in constitutional amendments that violated constitutional procedural requirements and thus provided another example that the apparent \"enlargement of Europe\" tends to destabilize constitutional processes. Key words: clientelism, EU expansion, institutional choice, Orange Revolution, postcommunist transition, semipresidentialism Introduction The collapse of Communist regimes provoked scholarly interest in semipresidentialism not only because the overwhelming majority of postcommunist countries chose this type of regime, (1) but also because the collapse of Communist regimes provided another source of semipresidential constitutional arrangements, namely, executive diarchies existing under Communist one-party regimes. As Maurice Duverger noted, semipresidentialism is somewhat similar to Soviet administrative law, in that executive power is divided into strategic and managerial functions. In the Soviet Union, these functions were run by the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the government, respectively. (2) Moreover, when semipresidential regimes emerged, particularly in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries, the political elite recognized that this regime fit the clientelistic characteristics of their countries' politics. Under semipresidentialism, the president enjoys abundant potential to manipulate elite clans by exploiting his prerogative to appoint and dismiss prime ministers. Thus, if a number of countries in various parts of the world consciously imported the 1962 French constitution, the evolution of Communist executive diarchies into semipresidential regimes would be an indigenous, natural process. (3) It is symptomatic that the term semipresidentialism entered the lexicon of the political and judicial sciences of postcommunist countries only after they adopted semipresidential constitutions. In a previous article on Ukrainian semipresidentialism, I described this typically Eurasian, natural development from Communist executive diarchy to postcommunist semipresidentialism. (4) Yet this was not the only possible scenario for postcommunist countries. It is true that the Communist method of dividing strategic and man","PeriodicalId":39667,"journal":{"name":"Demokratizatsiya","volume":"200 1","pages":"317-346"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2006-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75516506","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 : 2006-05-01DOI: 10.3200/DEMO.14.3.407-434
Thomas Ambrosio
Abstract: This article explores how the Russia-Belarus relationship has countered external forces that have been shown to promote democratization. It seeks to answer the following questions: According to the democratization literature, what external factors make democratization more likely? How have Russia-Belarus ties countered these factors? And, how best can the United States and the European Union promote democratization in Belarus? Key words: authoritarianism, Belarus, democratization, European Union, external variables, Russia ********** These aren't "color" revolutions--they're banditry under the guise of democracy ... this banditry is imposed and paid for from outside, is carried out to benefit individuals who don't care about their countries and peoples, and interests only those who have imperialist ambitions and are trying to conquer new markets. (1) --Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka Russia's relationship with Belarus is closer than that of any other ex-Soviet republic. In the mid-1990s, a process of reintegration was proposed, with a Russia-Belarus union state as its eventual goal, leading to full political, military, and economic integration. However, disputes over the structure of the union, as well as the uneasy relationship between Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka and Russian President Vladimir Putin, have stymied any substantive progress. Although quite successful on the military front, the Russia-Belarus union, the cornerstone of Russia-Belarus relations, has been seen by scholars as an overall failure. (2) This article argues, however, that the relationship between Minsk and Moscow, and the promises of an eventual union between the two states, has been a political success for both Lukashenka and Putin. Both presidents have used this process to protect Belarus from the efforts of the European Union (EU) and the United States to spread democracy in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. In effect, the relationship between the two countries is an antidemocratic alliance aimed at insulating Belarus from political reforms. Grounded in the democratization literature, this article explores how the Russia-Belarus relationship has countered external forces that have been shown to promote democratization. It seeks to answer the following questions: According to the democratization literature, what external factors make democratization more likely? How has the nascent Russia-Belarus union countered these factors? How best can the United States and the EU promote democratization in Belarus? In addition to answering these questions, this article makes a contribution to the democratization literature by illustrating how external forces can be instrumental in promoting or preserving authoritarianism, as well as creating an international environment where there is actually a disincentive to democratize. Moreover, this article will assert that the Kremlin leadership derives significant benefits from preventing democrati
{"title":"The Political Success of Russia-Belarus Relations: Insulating Minsk from a Color Revolution","authors":"Thomas Ambrosio","doi":"10.3200/DEMO.14.3.407-434","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3200/DEMO.14.3.407-434","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: This article explores how the Russia-Belarus relationship has countered external forces that have been shown to promote democratization. It seeks to answer the following questions: According to the democratization literature, what external factors make democratization more likely? How have Russia-Belarus ties countered these factors? And, how best can the United States and the European Union promote democratization in Belarus? Key words: authoritarianism, Belarus, democratization, European Union, external variables, Russia ********** These aren't \"color\" revolutions--they're banditry under the guise of democracy ... this banditry is imposed and paid for from outside, is carried out to benefit individuals who don't care about their countries and peoples, and interests only those who have imperialist ambitions and are trying to conquer new markets. (1) --Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka Russia's relationship with Belarus is closer than that of any other ex-Soviet republic. In the mid-1990s, a process of reintegration was proposed, with a Russia-Belarus union state as its eventual goal, leading to full political, military, and economic integration. However, disputes over the structure of the union, as well as the uneasy relationship between Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka and Russian President Vladimir Putin, have stymied any substantive progress. Although quite successful on the military front, the Russia-Belarus union, the cornerstone of Russia-Belarus relations, has been seen by scholars as an overall failure. (2) This article argues, however, that the relationship between Minsk and Moscow, and the promises of an eventual union between the two states, has been a political success for both Lukashenka and Putin. Both presidents have used this process to protect Belarus from the efforts of the European Union (EU) and the United States to spread democracy in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. In effect, the relationship between the two countries is an antidemocratic alliance aimed at insulating Belarus from political reforms. Grounded in the democratization literature, this article explores how the Russia-Belarus relationship has countered external forces that have been shown to promote democratization. It seeks to answer the following questions: According to the democratization literature, what external factors make democratization more likely? How has the nascent Russia-Belarus union countered these factors? How best can the United States and the EU promote democratization in Belarus? In addition to answering these questions, this article makes a contribution to the democratization literature by illustrating how external forces can be instrumental in promoting or preserving authoritarianism, as well as creating an international environment where there is actually a disincentive to democratize. Moreover, this article will assert that the Kremlin leadership derives significant benefits from preventing democrati","PeriodicalId":39667,"journal":{"name":"Demokratizatsiya","volume":"25 1","pages":"407-434"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2006-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74719585","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 : 2006-05-01DOI: 10.3200/DEMO.14.3.361-406
N. Abdullaev, Simon Saradzhyan
Abstract: This article focuses on Russia's antiterrorist campaign in 2000-04 to discern and analyze dynamics in the trade-offs between security (1) and liberties. An analysis of these trade-offs in four separate regions of the Russian Federation demonstrates that enhancing the powers of the security apparatus at the expense of liberties may help reduce the threat of terrorism in the short-term, as local agents of terror divert part of their operations to freer regions. However, such a strategy eventually backfires at the local level, as suppression of liberties generates political resentment, one of the root causes of terrorism. (2) The repressive laws and practices presented by the authorities as the price the public has to pay in the war on terror can bring only limited short-term gains in this war, while producing a lasting detrimental effect on freedoms and civil liberties in Russia. Moreover, given the fact that Russia is in a state of transition, the intended and unintended effects of the authorities' antiterror policies in the researched period, and beyond, could determine the course of Russia's political development. Key words: civil liberties, political violence, Putin, regions, Russia, terrorism ********** This article begins by outlining our methodology, including an explanation of the criteria used to select the research period and the regions (3) to be studied, as well as a list of the watch points used to evaluate the scale of terrorist threats, the effectiveness of authorities' responses to these threats, and the impact on civil liberties. This article has an overview of the horizontal escalation of the terrorist threat in Russia, the authorities' responses to this escalation, and the impact of their responses on liberties in 2000-04. The empirical data covering the regions in question--the Chechen Republic (Chechnya), the Republic of Dagestan, Moscow, and St. Petersburg--came not only from open sources, but also from interviews with experts and officials, inquiries with relevant government agencies, and extensive field research. This article explains why official antiterrorist efforts largely failed in three of the four regions over the researched period, and has policy recommendations on what authorities should do to break the vicious circle of suppression and resentment. The recommendations are followed by appendixes that list and describe the most significant terrorist attacks in the Chechen Republic, the Republic of Dagestan, Moscow, and St. Petersburg in 2000-04. Methodology Definition of Terrorist Attack There are differences in the expert and academic communities as to what constitutes a terrorist attack. This article uses the definition that is common among experts on this subject: an act of political violence that inflicts harm on noncombatants, but is designed to intimidate broader audiences, including official authorities, and is an instrument of achieving certain political or other goals. Researched Period The terroris
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