open Democracy News Analysis - The new Russia: a model state, George Schöpflin - Comments

max_bougriy on "The new Russia: a model state"

max_bougriy — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 11:43:15 +0000

Just to follow Jean's question on combining political sensitivity with long-term strategy. I think the key to understanding contemporary Russia is to understand its 'strategy' as a country. Russia needs to be 'pulled together' from the crisis of he early 90s and reinstate itself as an important country in the world. The country needs to be efficiently managed.

We should recognize that Russia has presently a certain competitive advantage in the world of sitting on oil and natural gas resources. Therefore, it can threaten Ukraine, for example. To win, Ukraine just needs to be smarter than Russia and more creative. And Ukraine is in a way smarter and more creative, because Russia has not succeeded to date in raising natural gas prices sharply.

We have more democracy in Ukraine than in Russia, for instance, but see how painful it is for us to move away from a Soviet-type bureaucracy. We sacrifice government efficiency. And Ukraine is right, I believe, in its cause, but we are able to be as 'transitionary democratic' as we are only because we are a much smaller and rather monoethnic country. I am sure that Russia would have fallen apart had it allowed more democracy than it now has.

I would argue that the key democratic propositions in the article are more present in Russia than they were in the former Soviet Union

* that citizens should be able to make inputs into the power of the state

- paradoxically, Russian government is elected by a democratic vote, even though there are falsifications

* that power should be exercised with the consent of the governed

- probably 90% of the Russians that I know support Vladimir Putin's governance

* that power should be transparent and accountable

- I would argue that it is transparent. Everyone says, for instance that you cannot do big business without consulting the Kremlin government. This is transparency in a way.

* that tax money should be spent with the benefit of the citizens in mind.

- it is more and more so, I believe

On the other hand, watch the recent movie Charlie Wilson's War and you would see how deep is Americans' negative attitude towards Russia and the former Soviet Union.

But Western Europe is also scared that Russia would charge it higher gas prices and therefore betrays its democratic European neighbors. It says 'no' to Ukraine's democratic aspirations to join the EU. This is another face of the coin, where the hatred to Russia turns into sudden love.

jean on "The new Russia: a model state"

jean — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 23:36:00 +0000

Jean-Ollivier
the article evidences one of the main problems of real democracy : the qualifications required for a proper exercise of power are not the same as those required to a proper access to it. This has been true for some time. Nowadays, alas, qualifications required to exert power seem antinomic to those required to access to it.
Moreover, sovereign ou managed democracies, or any kind of soft dictatorship have an advantage in terms of expected maturity : they consider themselves as "eternal" and thus may develop a long-term policy. (Just think of the Paul Rogers's remarks about Al-Qaeda's time frame (circa 50 years)compared to GW Bush or tony Blair's (circa five years) or of Andreï Gromyko's competitive edge (Russian minister of Foreign affairs for decades) compared to any Foreign affairs minister in Europe ?
Therefore, there is a need for a "tabula rasa" brainstorming on how we may combine political sensitivity to the Zeitgeist (politics) with long-term non-demagogic strategy (policy). Typically a task for openDemocracy...

Peter Presland on "The new Russia: a model state"

Peter Presland — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 17:18:03 +0000

Some useful insights but I had to smile at this:

"Vladimir Putin does not have to pay much regard to the electorate which can (to the degree necessary) be "fixed" once every four years by using money and media manipulation"

Remove "Vladimir Putin" and I'd say that's a pretty accurate description of the situation in the USA (and, perhaps to a slightly lesser extent, the UK too) where, so far as the epoch defining issues surrounding foreign policy are concerned (control of oil and other resources, population growth and climate change), it makes precious little difference which party is 'elected' to power. The tenets of western dominated and enforced 'globalised corporatocracy' being the sine-qua-non of 'electoral success' and power for any political party

The new Russia: a model state, George Schöpflin

opendemocracy — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 16:58:40 +0000

The new Russia is changing in a number of unpredictable ways, but it is beginning to challenge the west in an area hitherto thought sacrosanct - respect for democracy. Even as the country prepares to vote in the presidential election of 2 March 2008, the character of this change is increasingly evident both in Russia's domestic political system and in the exercise of its power abroad.

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