Is Russian political culture a serious obstacle to democratization?

Résumé du document

From the end of the Cold War to nowadays, Russia has endeavored to reform itself so as to exit from a situation of crises. Mikhail Gorbachev attempted to give a new start to the economy of the Soviet Union, to reform its plethoric administration and take steps towards a more democratic, transparent political system; these reforms led to the disintegration of the country, the dismantling of Communism and the birth of the Russian Federation. Boris Yeltsin, the first president of the new state, put in place the basis of a market economy (with only partial success). Since 2000, his successor Vladimir Putin says he wants to renovate the institutions, regulate wild capitalism and integrate the national economy within world economic structures. Therefore, the History of contemporary Russia can a priori be perceived as a search for “normality” – a normalisation that notably implies some progress in terms of democracy.

Extraits

[...] What undemocratic elements did they inherit from the Soviet legacy, and what influence can they have on the democratisation of the country ? One of the paradoxes of Russian politics is that although Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin were democratically elected et have followed constitutional rule, their style of leadership is reminiscent of the one of former Soviet leaders. Their political speeches can be distinguished by their axiology, that is to say by the fact they tend to divide political alternatives between two antagonistic worlds : one good, and one bad. [...]

[...] First of all, Russian society has considerably evolved since Czarism or the times of the “Mongol yoke”. Stalin and his successors have set the basis for a modern, urban and educated society. In many regards, Soviet society from the 1970s to 1991 was comparable to the one of Western societies : despite governmental propaganda and a complete difference in political and economic structures, people of both Blocs roughly shared the same aspirations comfortable life) and values (individualism). If Czarism's end can be chiefly explained by external reasons (the First World War), the crumble of the USSR is mainly due to the end of most of the support it got from a weary of the shortcomings of its regime and whose values were not so different from those of Western Europeans as a study by William L. [...]

[...] - Nicolai Petro, The Rebirth of Russian Democracy : An Interpretation of Political Culture, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press - Vladimir Putin, Millenium Manifesto”, Nezavisimaya gazeta December 1999. - Richard Sakwa, Russian Politics and Society, Routledge, 3rd edition - Courrier international n°725, 23-29 September 2004, Poutine : après Beslan, le temps de la dictature Courrier international n°725, 23-29 septembre 2004, Poutine : après Beslan, le temps de la dictature Richard Sakwa, Russian Politics and Society, “Cultural transformation”, p Routledge, 3rd edition Michael MacFaul, The Quality of Russian Democracy Russia's Unfinished Revolution, Cornell University Press Milan Kundera, New York Review of Books, April Marquis Astolphe de Custine, La Russie en 1839 ou Lettres de Russie, Paris, Solin, 1ère édition ; Leo Hartog, Russia and the Mongol Yoke, Londres, British University Press ) Nicolai Petro, The Rebirth of Russian Democracy : An Interpretation of Political Culture, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press ; James Alexander, Political Culture in Post-Communist Russia: Formlessness and Recreation in a Traumatic Transition, New York, St Martin's Press William L. [...]

[...] De Custine viewed Russian moujiks as “infantilised” by the Czar Little Father”, or a term that one could also use to describe Soviet citizens, insofar as all their life was ruled by the state. A natural respect for the state as the only legitimate source of power, justice and truth (which Sakwa calls and a distrust for democracy would be the result of such a past. Now a partial de-legitimisation of the state, together with the existence of a strong civil society of a network of associations, trade unions and interest groups able to promote the interests of citizens to the central state is one of the basis of modern democracy. [...]

[...] Is Russian political culture a serious obstacle to democratisation? From the end of the Cold War to nowadays, Russia has endeavoured to reform itself so as to exit from a situation of crises. Mikhail Gorbachev attempted to give a new start to the economy of the Soviet Union, to reform its plethoric administration and take steps towards a more democratic, transparent political system; these reforms led to the disintegration of the country, the dismantling of Communism and the birth of the Russian Federation. [...]