Abstract
During the 1990s American leaders and many others in the West viewed Russia as the most important test case for a transition to democracy. Today the consensus of scholarly analyses in the West concludes that, if Russia did enter a transition to democracy, that transition was not successful. This article attempts to suggest some of the main lessons about democratization that may be derived from the study of the experience of post-communist Russia, seen in a comparative perspective.
The thesis that the first competitive national election after the downfall of an authoritarian regime marks a decisive breakthrough for forces striving for democratization has not proved true for Russia. Yet the withering of democracy and the consolidation of a semi-authoritarian regime followed the period of competitive elections in Russia.
In the early and mid-1990s scholars who had specialized in the study of communist regimes warned that the post-communist states would need to carry out radical economic and social changes as well as sweeping political transformation. In Russia, however, the consequences of a corrupted process of privatization of state assets were enormously damaging for the institutionalization of democracy.
As was shown in a number of countries in the 1970s and 1980s, a strong civil society can play an important role in a nation's transition to democracy. The barriers to the development of civil society within the Soviet system and the conditions causing weakness in social organizations in post-communist Russia made it easier for members of the elite to subvert reform and guaranteed that there would be fewer restraints on the tendency toward more authoritarian control after 2000.
Among post-communist nations, those in which a consensus of most segments of the elite and the public was committed to a radical break with the old system have been much more successful in carrying out marketization and democratization. The combination of historical conditions that had created a strong anti-communist consensus in most of Eastern Europe had not taken shape in Russia. The absence of a fusion of democratization and national liberation in Russia explained the lack of a clear national consensus in favor of political and economic transformation.
One of the main lessons from the course of events in Russia from the early 1990s to the present is that change away from one form of authoritarian rule, which usually has been labeled as a transition to democracy, is not irreversible. Some democratic transitions may prove to be shallow, and the changes in post-communist Russia have provided a good example of a shallow transition. The scholarly literature on transitions to democracy that appeared after the early 1980s departed from earlier writings’ emphasis on the growth of social, economic, and cultural conditions for the institutionalization of democracy in the political system. The experience of Russia may encourage us to return to the study of the long-term trends facilitating or inhibiting the growth of democratic institutions.
Introduction 1
The author would like to thank Valerie Sperling and Andrei Tsygankov for their comments on an earlier version of this essay.
After the middle of the 1970s authoritarian regimes were replaced in many countries, and the political systems in a number of those countries showed signs of becoming more democratic, in some cases experiencing changes of apparently fundamental importance. Most of the nations that experienced the dramatic growth of democratic features in their governmental institutions and political processes in the 1970s and 1980s were in Southern Europe (Spain, Portugal, and Greece) and South America (Brazil, Chile, and others). A large number of scholarly writings attempted to develop comparative generalizations about transitions to democracy based on the evidence gleaned from the transformations that had taken place in those countries. Then in the late 1980s startling changes began in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. In the 1990s, after the Soviet bloc disappeared and the Soviet Union itself fragmented, the leaders of many states that had been under communist rule announced that they were determined to institutionalize the principles of democracy. As a result there was a burst of unbounded optimism concerning the prospects for the triumph of democracy in most of the nations of the world. As Martin Dimitrov has reported, “When the Berlin Wall fell, political scientists were wildly optimistic about the global spread of democracy” (Dimitrov, 2008, 24). Samuel Huntington believed that scores of countries in different regions of the world had been swept up in a “third wave” of democratization (Huntington, 1991). Francis Fukuyama argued that there was no longer any viable alternative to the liberal democratic model for political and economic institutions (Fukuyama, 1992). Larry Diamond published an article titled, “The Global Imperative: Building a Democratic World Order” (1994), and some scholars envisioned a world in which all major states would be liberal democracies (Smith, 2007, 116).
Such optimism proved infectious, and political leaders in the USA were receptive to the influence of superficial interpretations of the writings of academic specialists. It should be noted that the scholars in the field of political science who produced the most influential writings on transitions to democracy (the so-called “transitologists”) hedged their generalizations with qualifications that often were disregarded by journalists and politicians. For example, Guillermo O'Donnell and Philippe Schmitter said that a volume they authored dealt with “transitions from certain authoritarian regimes toward an uncertain ‘something else,’” which could consist of democracy or “a new, and possibly more severe, form of authoritarian rule” (O'Donnell and Schmitter, 1986, 3). 2
It is worth noting that the subtitle of that volume, the single most widely quoted book about democratization by “transitologists,” is “Tentative Conclusions About Uncertain Democracies.”
During the 1990s the country that was viewed by American leaders and many others in the West as the most important test case for a transition to democracy was Russia. The Clinton administration emphasized that one of its highest priorities in foreign policy was the success of the movement to democracy and a market economy in the states of the former Soviet Union (Christopher, 1993; Talbott, 1993a). US Secretary of State Warren Christopher asserted that “helping the Russian people to build a free society and market economy is the greatest strategic challenge of our time,” and that “Russia was the single most important foreign policy priority” of the Clinton administration (Marsden, 2005, 47). Russia is by far the largest of the former republics of the USSR in both population and land area; indeed, it is the largest country in the world in terms of territory. In addition, its geographical location gives it influence on issues in several regions in which the USA is interested, and it has greater strategic military capability than any other country except the United States. On a deeper level, psychologically, as the main successor of Soviet Union, Russia represents the core of the former superpower that had been the main geopolitical and ideological rival of the USA from the late 1940s until the early 1990s. If the state that had been the core of the superpower that was the main adversary of democracy could, within a relatively short time, be changed into an ideological soul mate of our country, the symbolic implications would be profound.
And yet, as the current decade nears its end, the consensus of scholarly analyses and popular perceptions in the West indicates that, if Russia did enter a transition to democracy, that transition was not successful. From the point of view of those in the United States and Western Europe who had high hopes for the spread of democracy, the most important test case for democratization was largely a disappointment. 3
The interpretation that sees political change in Russia from the early 1990s to the present in terms of a failed transition to democracy is not the only possible framework for perceiving change in that country during that period, of course. The writings of many Russian scholars and the speeches of a number of Russian politicians would frame change in other perspectives. One interpretation that is popular in Russia depicts a breakdown of order in the late 1980s and early 1990s, leading to a “time of troubles” under Boris Yeltsin, followed by a restoration of order and the revival of national pride under Vladimir Putin after 2000.
What lessons about the conditions affecting transitions to democracy can be learned from the study of Russia's experience of apparently unsuccessful democratization in the post-Soviet period? We may ask how much the model for a successful transition to democracy that was created by some scholars in the 1980s has proved applicable to Russia. That model was developed in response to dramatic changes in the political systems of countries in Southern Europe and South America. By the middle of the 1990s there was a debate in scholarly circles about the degree to which generalizations derived from the study of political transformation in those countries might be proved valid with respect to nations that formerly were under communist rule (Bunce, 1995; Schmitter and Karl, 1994). Perhaps enough time has passed to make it possible to shed more light on that question. Also, there is now a substantial scholarly literature on post-communist political trends, which permits us to compare Russia's experience after the disintegration of the Soviet system with that of other nations that formerly were under communist rule. A number of scholars have remarked on the high degree of diversity in the trajectories of change among the post-communist countries, which in the political sphere have produced results ranging from thoroughly authoritarian states to democracies that function much like those of Western Europe (Ekiert and Hanson, 2003, 29, 31; Ekiert, 2003, 91, 94; Pop-Eleches, 2005, 2). In fact, Herbert Kitschelt has concluded that “there is no region or set of countries on earth with a currently larger diversity of political regimes” than is found in the post-communist segment of the world (Kitschelt, 2003, 49). We may expect that revealing insights will emerge from the contrast between political change in Russia and that in other post-communist nations. We should admit, however, that in this article, space does not permit us to attempt an exhaustive discussion of the factors conditioning the results of democratization in Russia in comparative perspective. This article will attempt to contribute to an ongoing discussion by suggesting some of the main lessons about democratization that may be derived from the study of the experience of post-communist Russia, seen in a comparative perspective. 4
One question that this article will not address is that of the impact of the efforts of outside actors, such as foreign governments, international organizations, foundations, and transnational NGOs, on the results of attempted democratization in Russia. A good analysis of democracy promotion in Russia by the Clinton administration of the USA is that of Marsden (2005). This author is preparing an essay evaluating the United States government's policies affecting democratization in Russia.
By the early 1990s those in the West who enthusiastically supported the promotion of democracy attached great importance to the “founding election” in a new democracy. They assumed that in a country that had been under an authoritarian regime, the first election in which different parties competed would be a breakthrough of change, an important starting point in the transition to democracy (Schraeder, 2002, 229), and “the primary indicator of democratic progress” (Marsden, 2005, 135). The institutionalization of electoral competition in a series of elections was thought to be “sufficient to consolidate democracy” (Rose and Shin, 2001, 332). Thomas Carothers has observed that democracy promoters tended “to overestimate the power of elections to produce fundamental political change” (Carothers, 2007, 24). The dominant school of thought in the USA during the 1990s (and to a lesser extent in Western Europe) believed that Russia had gone through a breakthrough toward democratization during the early 1990s, and that Russia subsequently faced the task of consolidating the features of its infant democracy (McFaul, 1999, 117). Michael McFaul and Sarah Mendelson took comfort in the fact that elections had become “the only legitimate means to power in post-Soviet Russia,” and added, “the emergence of electoral democracy, however fragile and flawed, must be recognized as a revolutionary achievement” (McFaul and Mendelson, 2000, 332). After all, post-Soviet Russia had held its first competitive election for its national parliament in December 1993, in which a large number of parties supported candidates.
If one competitive national election is a sign of a breakthrough to democracy, then Russia should have made a good start on the road to democracy by the time the votes from its first multiparty election were counted. And yet, even though various parties competed in parliamentary elections in Russia in 1993, 1995, 1999, 2003, and 2007, and elections for the presidency took place in the post-communist period in 1996, 2000, 2004, and 2008 (with real competition in 1996 and some competition in 2000), Russia has moved toward greater authoritarianism during the last several years. The decline in political pluralism is reflected in the fact that in election results the ruling United Russia Party has steadily increased its dominance, as it won more than 64 percent of the vote for the lower house of the national parliament (the Duma) in December 2007, and has received over 70 percent of the vote in each of the last two presidential elections. The transfer of presidential power from Vladimir Putin to Dmitrii Medvedev during 2007–2008 was managed smoothly within the highest level of the political elite, so that the results of the presidential election in 2008 were carefully predetermined. The stage of the first competitive elections was followed by the withering of democracy and the consolidation of a semi-authoritarian regime.
Earlier writings about transitions to democracy assumed that during the period of a breakthrough, the main threat to greater pluralism would be the potential of a coup by forces seeking to restore the old authoritarian system who would eliminate competitive elections if they were successful in seizing power. The assumption that the danger of such a coup “hangs like a sword of Damocles over the possible outcome” of a transition to democracy (O'Donnell and Schmitter, 1986, 23) reflected the fact that in Southern Europe and South America the prevalent form of an authoritarian regime had been one in which the military held power. In sharp contrast, in post-communist Russia a group from the ruling circles, consisting of Vladimir Putin and his closest supporters, has concentrated almost unchecked power in its hands, and has continued parliamentary and presidential elections, but has mastered techniques that make it possible for the ruling faction to manipulate the mass media, political parties, and public opinion so thoroughly that the outcome of a national election is always a foregone conclusion. Andrew Wilson's highly insightful work, Virtual Politics, describes those techniques in vivid detail (Wilson, 2005), and that book has enriched our knowledge of the means that are used to substitute the appearance of competition for real pluralism in Russian politics. Wilson shows that Putin did not invent the techniques of manipulating the voters to predetermine the results of elections; Boris Yeltsin and others, including regional chief executives and the leaders of some other post-Soviet states, began to develop those techniques in the 1990s. As Wilson puts it, “the Putin era has only perfected techniques that were already common under Yeltsin, and already common elsewhere in the former USSR” (2005, 39), and “the Yeltsin and Putin eras can be plotted at different points on the same learning curve” (266). Wilson adds that under Putin, “the Kremlin has simply got better at fixing elections” (ibid.). Alexander Lukin agrees that during the post-Soviet years, “elections became more and more fraudulent and subject to manipulation” (Lukin, 2009, 87). 5
It also is true that, in addition to public relations gimmicks and illegal actions, a genuinely high level of approval from the Russian public has been a very important asset for Putin and his associates.
The model of change offered by those who had examined the experience of countries that had carried out transitions to democracy in the 1970s and 1980s in Southern Europe and South America focused primarily on the goals and actions of groups in each nation's political elite (Smith, 2007, 130; Schmitz, 2004, 406). That approach contrasted sharply with decades of previous research that had emphasized the importance of building up the economic and social prerequisites for democracy (Carothers, 1997, 92; Smith, 2007, 126–127). Thomas Carothers summarizes the outlook embodied in the new model: “So long as the elites in a country embraced the democratic ideal—something elites everywhere seemed to be doing—democracy would spring into being” (Carothers, 1997, 92). Political leaders in the USA focused intently on interactions within the national political elite when they looked at political events in post-Soviet Russia. The pronouncements of high-ranking officials in the Clinton administration who played the principal role in shaping policy toward Russia revealed a strong tendency to dichotomize factions in the political elite of that country between those who were seen as favoring democracy and those who were on the side opposed to democracy. President Clinton and others typically depicted the struggle going on in Russia as if it were a confrontation between the forces of light and the forces of darkness. Strobe Talbott, the main official in the administration specializing on policy toward Russia, spoke of a Manichean struggle between supporters and opponents of democracy in that country: “On the one side … were the forces of the past, of the old Soviet Union and the old Soviet system … On the other side were the forces of the new Russia, personified by President Yeltsin, committed to democracy, reform, respect for human life, and civic pride” (Talbott, 1993b). A similar perspective was found in the writings of some scholars, although in a bit more sophisticated and complex form. The Clinton administration asserted repeatedly that Boris Yeltsin was committed to democracy and a market economy and placed its bet on him as the person who would lead Russia into the community of democratic nations. That administration saw the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and extreme nationalists like Vladimir Zhirinovsky as posing the main potential threat to reverse the changes introduced by Yeltsin.
With the wisdom of hindsight we can realize that the actual character of the changes that were generated by the Yeltsin leadership was highly mixed. On the one hand, Yeltsin was determined to prevent the Communists from returning to power; he did allow greater freedom of expression than Russia had known before (though in that area he continued changes that Mikhail Gorbachev had initiated in the Soviet Union); he did permit rapid growth in the number of political parties legally operating in Russia; and he did make a commitment to abandoning major parts of the Soviet economic model. In their totality, though, the changes that occurred under the Yeltsin administration presented a very mixed picture. In many areas there was a wide gap between Yeltsin's statements on fundamental principles and the changes that took place in practice while he was president of Russia. To borrow from the language of the Soviet Marxists, in Yeltsin's legacy there was a lack of unity of theory and practice. We have already mentioned the beginning of techniques of manipulation of voters and elections under Yeltsin's leadership in the 1990s.
This section of the article will concentrate on the character of the transformation of Russia's economy that was guided by Yeltsin's policies. In the early and mid-1990s, when some scholars were debating the possible differences between earlier transitions to democracy and the path that lay ahead for the post-communist states of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, those who had specialized in the study of communist regimes warned that the post-communist states would need to carry out radical economic and social changes as well as sweeping political transformation (Bunce, 1995, 121). In the countries that had embarked on transitions to democracy in the 1970s and 1980s, the institutions of capitalist market economies had already been in place before dramatic political change had begun, but the post-communist states that wanted democracy and a market economy would attempt to move toward both at the same time. That observation has proved to be particularly pertinent. The central thesis of the literature of the 1980s on transitions to democracy was that pacts between factions in the elite were of crucial significance in bringing the end of authoritarian rule and the breakthrough to democracy (Bunce, 2004, 220). A pact based on compromise, “bridging” the differences between moderate defenders of authoritarianism and moderate leaders of the democratic opposition, was thought to be most favorable for a successful transition from authoritarian to democratic governance.
As the record of experience of post-communist change accumulated, however, empirically grounded works by Joel Hellman and Michael McFaul demonstrated that the thesis of the importance of pacted transitions for ushering in successful democratization was inapplicable to the post-communist countries (Hellman, 1998; McFaul, 2002). Valerie Bunce remarks that what we discover among post-communist states is “that the opposite strategy—that is, breakage, not bridging—emerges as the most successful approach to political and economic transformation” (Bunce, 2004, 222). Steven Fish has shown a strong relationship between the degree of economic transformation and the degree of political transformation among countries formerly under communist rule (Fish, 1998, 1999, 2005). Post-communist countries in which reformers committed to radical political and economic changes gained control usually made successful transitions to democracy, while the nations in which there were pacts between moderate reformers and members of the old ruling elite typically got bogged down in incomplete change, stalemating the movement toward democracy (and creating greater potential for movement back toward more authoritarian rule). Bunce has observed that “in the post-communist world, there is a very high correlation between democratization and economic reform” (Bunce, 2004, 223), and that among post-communist countries, the relationship between democratization and successful market reform is “robust and positive” (Bunce, 2001, 54, 59).
In the political sphere, as we have seen, Russia falls in the category of the cases of compromised and incomplete democratic transitions. The relationship between economic transformation and democratization in post-communist countries that has been identified in comparative perspective by scholars such as Hellman, McFaul, Bunce, and Fish can help us understand the political consequences of the form of economic reform in Russia in the 1990s. Though Boris Yeltsin made an emphatic commitment to fundamental economic transformation on the level of theory, he made a series of compromises in practice that prevented his economic reforms from reaching some of their central goals. Most importantly, the integrity of the privatization of state economic enterprises was undermined when the Yeltsin administration, under political pressure, allowed people with political skills and connections to exploit the process of distribution of shares in those enterprises to amass assets for their own purposes (Gill and Markwick, 2000, 213). In the first major stage of privatization during 1992 and 1993, factory directors were able to gain control of most of the shares that were supposed to belong to the workers in their enterprises (Rutland, 1994, 1109, 1113, 1124; Appel, 1997, 1427; Goldman, 2003, 81–82). As Dimitri Simes says, “the principal beneficiaries of privatization were the remnants of the old nomenklatura and speculators out to make a quick ruble” (Simes, 1999, 146–147). During the next few years the transfer of massive state assets to bankers and industrialists who were close to the government accelerated, aided by scams such as the “loans for shares” program (Appel, 2004, 97). Thus within a short time, privatization “created a powerful small circle of fabulously wealthy business elites—the so-called ‘oligarchs’” (Appel, 2004, 104).
As it had been envisioned by US Secretary of State Warren Christopher, privatization in Russia was supposed to create millions of independent property owners and foster the growth of a middle class with a commitment to continued reform, (Marsden, 2005, 75). In reality, however, the manner in which privatization took place insured that the new economic elite of Russia was created by the state and remained closely tied to the state (Easter, 2008, 212; Gustafson, 1999, 111–112; Rutland, 2001, 19). Not only did the oligarchs depend on the state for their status; they also had great influence in the national and regional governments (Rutland, 2006, 77), as signified in part by the fact that some of them periodically occupied high-ranking posts in the national government (Gill and Markwick, 2000, 219), and played a role in decisions about the choice of executive leaders (Goldman, 2003, 139). Olga Kryshtanovskaya and Stephen White affirm, “it began to appear as if the state itself had been ‘privatized,’ and that all important decisions were being made by a small group of financial magnates” (Kryshtanovskaya and White, 2005, 294). The oligarchs, some of whom controlled media outlets, became an indispensable part of Yeltsin's base of support. Their financial contributions and their manipulation of television coverage helped to deliver victory for Yeltsin in the Russia presidential election of 1996 even though his popularity had fallen drastically. The oligarchs were also a source of funding for political parties and the governors of the regions. In short, “the oligarchy and its allies represented a fusion of financial and industrial capital with direct access to government” (Sakwa, 2008, 468).
The consequences of the corrupted process of privatization of state assets were enormously damaging for the institutionalization of democracy in Russia. After the end of the 1990s, Joseph Stiglitz observed that “privatization, as it was imposed in Russia … undermined confidence in government, in democracy, and in reform” (Stiglitz, 2002, 159). The majority of Russians felt that they had been deceived by a process of privatization that had failed to produce the benefits that had been promised to them (Appel, 2004, 90). As a result of insider privatization, the broad majority of Russians did not feel themselves to be stakeholders in the new economic system, while they saw a class of “new Russians” flaunting their newfound wealth (Appel, 1997, 1434). Most Russians found that their living standards were declining sharply, while a small minority became conspicuously better off (Appel, 2004, 98; Goldman, 2003, 3). Surveys that were taken several years after the Yeltsin government had launched economic transformation revealed that most Russians believed that privatization had mainly benefited members of the old nomenklatura class and organized crime groups (Gustafson, 1999, 42). Opinion surveys demonstrated that the course of privatization had been accompanied by “declining hopes and skepticism toward the overall direction of the economic transformation” (DeBardeleben, 1999, 456). The power and privileges of the oligarchs, along with the growth of organized crime and corruption in the 1990s, undermined the legitimacy of the political regime headed by Boris Yeltsin, and made most Russians skeptical about the merits of democracy in the style in which it was presented in Russia. Western leaders, particularly in the Clinton administration, had portrayed Yeltsin as leading the drive for democracy and a market economy, but in balance Yeltsin's legacy damaged the potential for successful democratization in Russia and helped to set the stage for the consolidation of more authoritarian control under Putin.
The weakness of Russian civil society
The most influential Western scholars who wrote about transitions to democracy in the 1980s focused primarily on maneuvering and agreements at the level of political elites (Bermeo, 1990, 361). The generalizations offered by those scholars on the basis of changes that had taken place in some countries in Southern Europe and South America placed little emphasis on pressures from the masses and activity by popular organizations, such as labor unions, in democratic transitions (Collier, 1999, 5, 5, 110; Edles, 1995, 362). Some of the literature on democratization suggested that too much mass mobilization and pressure from below could endanger the success of a democratic transition (Bermeo, 1997, 305). 6
O'Donnell and Schmitter (1986, 48, 54) did acknowledge that in some countries, once a movement toward democratization had become evident, there had been a surge of activism by social groups that had exerted “strong pressures to expand the limits of mere liberalization and partial democratization.” They did not see popular pressures as a major factor behind the initial decisions that had created an opening for democratization.
Similarly, Wood (2000, 17) says of democratization that “nearly all transitions combine elements ‘from above’ with elements ‘from below.’”
The trend should encourage us to reexamine the assumptions, common in earlier writings, that organizations in civil society would not play much of a role in a transition to democracy, and that the strength of civil society was not particularly relevant to the chances for successful democratization. The Western conception of civil society refers to the sphere of the largely independent and self-directed organizational activity of citizens (Diamond, 1999, 249). It has been described as “a space of citizen-directed collective action, located between the family and the state, and not directed solely toward private profit” (Henry and Sundstrom, 2006, 5). With the wisdom that comes from broader comparative experience that has accumulated since the 1980s, we now can see how much the authors of democratic transition theory took for granted the relatively high level of development of the organizations of civil society in the countries from which their generalizations had been derived. In general the growth of independent social organizations under states controlled by communist parties was far more limited than in the nations of Southern Europe and South America that moved toward democracy. In Russia, where the Soviet model had been invented and where it had been in place longer than anywhere else in the world, the ruling party and state had created a network of organizations that permeated the entire society and was directed in detail by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Evans, 2006). Since no legal, independent, organized groups were permitted, there was no civil society in the Soviet Union, according to the usual Western conception. Nevertheless, there was a burst of optimism concerning the possibility for the rise of civil society in the Soviet Union in the late 1980s when, as a part of reforms introduced by Mikhail Gorbachev, “informal” groups appeared and proliferated quickly. That phenomenon was followed by the emergence of the Democratic Russia political movement, a quasi-party that supplied active assistance for Boris Yeltsin's victory in the presidential election in the Russian republic of the USSR in 1991 (Sakwa, 2008, 130). The base of support for most of the informal groups proved to be shallow, however, and the Democratic Russia movement fragmented and disappeared within a short time.
As was shown in a number of countries in the 1970s and 1980s, a strong civil society can play an important role in a nation's transition to democracy. Pressure from the bottom up can interact with initiatives from the top down to build momentum for institutional change. Once such a transition has begun, independent social organizations with substantial numbers of loyal members can be valuable assets to members of the political elite who encounter opposition to further change. Also, vigilance by vigorous organizations outside the state can help to keep the leaders of the transition on track if they begin to betray their ideals. That did not happen in Russia when the Yeltsin administration allowed the privatization of state assets to be hijacked by avaricious insiders, and when the oligarchs achieved dominance of political parties, the media, and the government. Perhaps surprisingly, in the face of sharply declining economic security during the 1990s, most of the population of Russia withdrew from political life and became cynical about parties and politicians (Gill and Markwick, 2000, 249). During that decade most citizens of Russia immersed themselves in the struggle for survival as individuals or families, and had little hope for positive political changes.
Despite the increase in the freedom to form nongovernmental organizations in Russia after the fall of the Communist Party and the Soviet state, civil society in Russia was weak after the end of the old regime, as almost all independent organizations were marginal in terms of their social base, their financial assets, their impact on society, and their influence in politics (Evans, 2002). On the level of popular attitudes, part of the cultural legacy of the Soviet system was pervasive distrust of social organizations and even of the whole public sphere. In addition, the deep decline in the economy made it impossible for most citizens to give financial support to such organizations even if they had been willing to. Finally, the evolution of the political system placed a premium on exploiting personal connections with individuals in positions of power, rather than the drawing support from sizable groups in society (Fish, 2001, 22). After 1991 the Yeltsin leadership deliberately discouraged the mobilization of Russian citizens for organized political actions other than voting in elections—and Yeltsin's lieutenants were not very successful in gaining support from citizens in parliamentary elections. Relying heavily on dominance by the institution of the presidency and making deals with the oligarchs and governors, Yeltsin sought to introduce change almost exclusively from the top down. And yet, as Steven Fish has pointed out, in every post-communist state “where democratization did not happen or was initiated and then reversed, a top-down dynamic has been at work” (Fish, 2005, 186). Fish adds that “strong, autonomous societal organizations and networks may not always be democracy's allies, but their absence is almost always democracy's enemy” (Fish, 2005, 187). 8
Valerie Bunce (2008, 30) also emphasizes the importance of a “robust and pluralist civil society” for a successful post-communist transition to democracy.
In recent years a number of scholars writing about post-communist states have begun to search for the historical roots of the patterns of change and continuity that have been evident during the past two decades. That trend in scholarly works reflects dissatisfaction with earlier writings which had attempted to explain the divergence in the trajectories of post-communist states in terms of statistical relationships between potential independent and dependent variables, all of which had been measured by various organizations, offering information that was readily available. When researchers found that the countries in which noncommunist parties won clear victories over communist parties in the first competitive elections were likely to achieve the most thorough political and economic transformation, their finding was interesting, though not surprising, and it was dismissed by one scholar as “not much of an insight” (Kitschelt, 2003, 72). The disclosure of such statistical relationships left unexplained “the why of the why”—the more fundamental question of “why some countries managed to remove their communists from power and why others did not” (Kopstein and Reilly, 1999, 614). The factors that serve as proximate explanatory variables may be seen as “intervening links in a causal chain that leads from the deep attributes to the political outcome” (Møller and Skaaning, 2009, 316). Herbert Kitschelt has commented, “Shallow explanations provide … high statistical explanatory yields but little insight into the causal genealogy of a phenomenon” (Kitschelt, 2003, 68). Deeper causes may account for what is happening with both the proximate independent variable and the dependent variable in an apparent empirical relationship. Grigore Pop-Eleches suggests that the results of initial competitive elections “may be signals about the nature of historical legacies, which drive the long-term prospects of democracy” for post-communist states (Pop-Eleches, 2007, 921).
A growing number of studies have attempted to identify the influence of crucial differences in the historical experiences of nations that formerly were under communist rule. Pop-Eleches argues persuasively that “historical legacies have to constitute the starting point for any systematic analysis of democratization in the post-communist context” (Pop-Eleches, 2007, 909). Similarly, Grzegorz Ekiert contends that “historical legacies determine the available alternatives and make some institutional choices more likely” in post-communist countries (Ekiert, 2003, 93). Among those who examine historical backgrounds, some scholars attach primary importance to the experiences of the period of communist rule in various countries (Ekiert, 2003, 92–93; Kopstein, 2003, 233), while others trace the sources of post-communist differences back to the historical legacies of those countries before the creation of communist regimes (Kopstein, 2003, 239; Pop-Eleches, 2005, 15, 25). All of those scholars would agree that historical, cultural, and geographical factors play a large role in accounting for the divergence in the political and economic paths of post-communist nations, which has become more pronounced from the early 1990s to the present (Pop-Eleches, 2007, 914).
Among post-communist nations, those in which a consensus of most segments of the elite and the public was committed to a radical break with the old system have been much more successful in carrying out marketization and democratization (Orenstein, 2001, 43). Valerie Bunce (2006, 607) points out that in some countries in Eastern Europe “democratic breakthroughs” were based on a “widespread societal consensus that produced early and sustained economic reforms and democratic deepening.” Such an overwhelming consensus among social groups in favor of fundamental change was not present in Russia in the early 1990s. That crucial contrast between Russia and the countries in Eastern Europe that have gone farther in institutionalizing democratic processes can be explained primarily by differences in historical legacies. As Bunce puts it, in the countries in Eastern Europe that have made successful transitions to democracy, “a liberal agenda combined with a nationalist agenda” (Bunce, 2003, 178). In some countries in Eastern Europe, such as Poland and Hungary, there was the historical memory of intervention by Tsarist Russia to block their striving for national liberation. In most of the region, the imposition of communist regimes after the Second World War ensured that in the minds of the local population those systems would be associated indelibly with Soviet domination. As a result, the people of Eastern European countries felt closer to the West, and to Europe in particular, than ever before (Brown, 1991, 262). Bunce observes that “state socialism had created in some countries a popular consensus around democratization, if only because democracy represented the polar opposite of the authoritarian regime” (Bunce, 2001, 57). In the post-communist period, democracy and a market economy represented not only a different way of life, but also the promise of integration with the West and independence from Russia, creating a fusion of liberal ideology and nationalism. In several countries in Eastern Europe after 1989–1991, the replacement of the old order was simultaneously “a process of national liberation” (Bunce, 1995, 120), which generated more determined support for a course of radical change (Bunce, 2000, 719).
In Russia, however, there was a lack of a consensus at the elite and popular levels about the desired character of political and economic transformation (Bunce, 2004, 229; Easter, 2008, 225; Goldman, 2003, 68). The combination of historical conditions that had created a strong anti-communist consensus in most of Eastern Europe had not taken shape in Russia. The Russians did not have a reason to believe that the Soviet system had been forced on them by a foreign power, or to see that system as blocking aspirations for national independence. In Russia, the predominant attitude toward a rapprochement with the West was much more ambivalent (Appel, 2004, 170), and the majority of citizens had no desire to cast their future with Europe. 9
In 2000, a survey by the Levada Center asked a representative sample of Russians, “Which historic road should Russia follow?” Only 15 percent of the respondents opted for the “European road,” and 18 percent favored a return to the Soviet model, while 60 percent said that Russia should follow “its own unique road” (Lukin, 2009, 83). A survey that was taken in 2005 found that 31 percent of Russians thought that Russia's future lies with the countries of Western Europe, while 69 percent said that their country's future lies with “countries in the CIS,” meaning other states that formerly were part of the Soviet Union (Rose and Munro, 2008, 53).
In post-communist Russia, on the other hand, there was no consensus among the public in favor of the movement to a market system (Simes, 1999, 152; Goldman, 2003, 65–66). Alexander Lukin reports that the substantial degree of disillusionment with the Soviet system among the population of Russia “was caused not by a desire to live in a Western-type society, but rather by a desire to live in a system that was different from the Stalinist system” (Lukin, 2009, 67). Surveys of the Russians showed not only that there was no overwhelming rejection of the old political and economic system, but also that there was a lack of general agreement in favor of a new set of institutions. 10
In 1992, when major economic reform began under Yeltsin, 50 percent of Russians gave a positive evaluation of the political system that had existed “before the start of perestroika” (before the Gorbachev period), and 62 percent gave a positive assessment of the economic system that had been in place at the same time. In sharp contrast, only 14 percent approved the political system that was operating in 1992, and only 10 percent positively evaluated the “current economic system” of that year (Rose and Munro, 2002, 63; Rose et al., 2004, 203; Rose, Mishler, and Munro, 2006, 154). The percentage of respondents giving a positive evaluation of the old (Soviet) political and economic system increased steadily during the 1990s, which says something about the population's reaction to the changes that took place in that decade. In each year from 1992 on, “the percentage of Russians [who were] positive about the former communist regime has always been greater than that endorsing the current regime” (Rose et al., 2006, 132). On public opinion in Russia about the communist regime and the new regime, as expressed when radical economic reform began under Yeltsin, see also (White, Rose, and McAllister 1997, 181–182).
The evidence presented in this article makes it clear that the model of transition derived from changes that had occurred in a number of countries in Southern Europe and South America in the 1970s and 1980s did not hold up well when it traveled to Russia and the other post-communist states. Perhaps the one point made by transitologists that has proved to have the most general applicability is that in a period of instability, the actions of political elites are of particular importance. Instability enhances the opportunity for political leaders to engage in the restructuring of political institutions and policies. Having acknowledged that insight from the transitologists, we must add that their point of view was limited by distinctive historical conditions and geographical boundaries much more than they realized. Almost all the transitions that were the basis of their model took place in nations that had been ruled by the military (Geddes, 1999, 131); none took place in a country that had been under a single-party regime that subdued the state and the military as thoroughly as in the Soviet Union. In each of the nations where those earlier transitions took place, the basic institutions of a market economy had already developed before a political transition began. In no country in Southern Europe or South America that moved toward democracy had social organizations been as thoroughly controlled by a single ruling party as in most of the nations under communist rule, and in none of those countries that had gone through earlier transitions had the growth of civil society been blocked as firmly as in the Soviet Union. The key thesis of the transitological literature, that of the positive effects of pacts between moderate reformers and moderate defenders of the old order, has proved inapplicable in relation to the post-communist states.
One of the main lessons from the course of events in Russia from the early 1990s to the present is that the change away from one form of authoritarian rule, which usually has been labeled as a transition to democracy, is not irreversible. Some democratic transitions may prove to be shallow (Ottaway, 2003, 165), and the changes in post-communist Russia have provided a good example of a shallow transition. The introduction of democratic institutions of government and competing political parties may not prove to be a breakthrough to democracy. The metaphor of a breakthrough implies a decisive change with lasting results, even if that is not asserted explicitly. Stable democracy depends on the existence of a multi-layered infrastructure, including not only competing political parties, independent mass media, and protection for individual rights, but also—on a deeper level—supportive economic and social institutions. In most countries that have made successful transitions from authoritarianism to democracy in recent decades, large parts of that infrastructure had come into being as a result of gradual economic and social changes before the old authoritarian regime entered its last years.
As was mentioned earlier in this article, the scholarly literature on transitions to democracy that appeared after the early 1980s departed from the emphasis of the writings of the previous decades, which had focused on the growth of social, economic, and cultural conditions for the institutionalization of democracy in the political system. In recent years the limitations built into the approach of the transition paradigm have become apparent. The experience of Russia, which leaders in Western Europe and North America had regarded as the most important test case for democratization in the 1990s, may prompt us to return to the study of the long-term trends facilitating or inhibiting the growth of democratic institutions. Thomas Carothers has urged that we do so: “As the third wave has aged, … and many ‘transitional countries’ have fallen short of early hopes, the importance of underlying conditions and structures for democratic success has become increasingly apparent” (Carothers, 2007, 24). 11
Thomas Carothers had offered a similar warning earlier: “Recent events highlight the folly of ignoring the broad set of social, political, and economic factors bearing on democratization” (Carothers, 1997, 93). A number of scholars continued to ignore his warning, however.
President George W. Bush said in September 2003, “I respect President Putin's vision for Russia: a country at peace with its neighbors and with the world, a country in which democracy and freedom and rule of law thrive” (McFaul, 2005, 33).
In the 1990s the transition paradigm that had been created in the 1980s seized the imagination of the leaders and the public in some Western countries, and especially in the USA. Now it is time for that model to lose its grip on our consciousness. That is one of the main lessons to be learned from the disappointment of earlier expectations for a transition to democracy in post-communist Russia. In light of the course of recent change in that country, one might expect that the illusions encouraged by that model would have been left behind by scholars who specialize in the study of the politics of Russia, but there are signs that some prominent scholars who write about Russia are still thinking within the frame of reference of the transition paradigm. It was understandable that as late as 2000, Michael McFaul and Sarah Mendelson could assert that Russia was “midstream” in a radical transformation as it moved toward democracy and a market economy (McFaul and Mendelson, 2000, 348). It was surprising, however, that in 2005, after Vladimir Putin had been in power for several years, McFaul urged that the United States should try to strengthen “those reformers still fighting for democracy” in Russia, because “over the long run, strengthening those forces will help to democratize Russia” (McFaul, 2005, 400). His words provide an example of a scholar who was promoting an illusion by trying to persuade his audience that Russia was still in a transition to democracy and that support for the pro-Western segment of the Russian intelligentsia offered a realistic prospect for the successful completion of that transition. In reality, the liberal intelligentsia constitute a small minority in their own society, and their ideas have not won widespread support among the majority of Russians (Fish, 1996, 107; Gill and Markwick, 2000, 255; Rose, Munro, and Mishler, 2004, 213). Relying primarily on that section of society to bring political change in Russia has brought disappointment in the past, and it is sure to bring disappointment in the future if Western leaders persist in that habit. That approach is not received well by the majority of Russians. It makes Westerners appear to be either naive (well-meaning but clueless) or cynical (disguising ulterior motives), and neither reading of our actions is likely to inspire much trust.
It is time to stop looking at Russia as if it were in the middle of an incomplete transition. There was a transition in Russia, but it did not go where many Western scholars had hoped. We should heed the advice that the late James Millar sagely offered several years ago: “The transition is over. Get over it” (Millar, 2000). A growing body of scholarly literature in the field of comparative politics seeks to delineate the dynamics of semi-authoritarian regimes (Brownlee, 2007; Ottaway, 2003; Smith and Zeigler, 2008; Zakaria, 1997). That trend reflects the fact that many of the supposed transitions to democracy proved to be shallow, like that in Russia. Increasingly, scholars writing about semi-authoritarian or “hybrid” regimes recognize that many of those regimes are likely to persist for a long time (Rose and Shin, 2001, 333; Diamond, 2002, 23). It is worth noting, however, that during the last few years there has been an increase in research on the factors affecting stability and instability in semi-authoritarian states. The study of contemporary Russian politics should draw insights from that literature and add to our knowledge of the character of semi-authoritarian political systems. Some recent writings on the regime that was crafted by Vladimir Putin have begun to do that (March, 2009; Robertson, 2009). An approach to Russia that is informed by “historically grounded realism”(Pop-Eleches, 2007, 925) is likely to yield information that is more useful for scholars, the public, and political leaders.