Putin: Consummate Illiberal or Embryonic Anti-Liberal?
2004; George Washington University; Volume: 12; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.3200/demo.12.1.5-8
ISSN1940-4603
Autores Tópico(s)Soviet and Russian History
ResumoPutinology has become a popular theme in Demokratizatsiya. Virginie Coulloudon concludes that Putin's was a reflection of a wide segment of the elite who believed economic reforms could be implemented better through top-down governance.1 Eugene Huskey argues that this verticality may create more discipline in the short-term, but its long-term effects still vague and potentially negative.2 John Squier argues that Putin's goal is gosudarstvennost', or strengthening of the which is neutral and eventually, in theory, could help the horizontal, civil-society forces.3 Theodore Karasik recalls the Andropovite and siloviki banners raised by Putin early in his administration to create a new national ideal based on great-power ideology.4 Thomas Granville adds that Putin was pursuing derzhavnost' and the recentralization of the state as an end in itself (eschewing perhaps more practical and ultimately more beneficial federal models).5 Nikolas Gvosdev's assessment is one of managed democracy, where he compares Putin's rule to Mexico under the Industrial Revolutionary Party (PRI)-a facade of clouding elite manipulations, corruption, and unrepresentative government.6 Following this corporatist vein, Donald Jensen uses a form of Graham Allison's bureaucratic politics paradigm to argue that Putin is forced to balance several competing interests he inherited to carve his policy.7 Robert Orttung evaluates Putin's federal reforms as a use of the law for political purposes rather than the implementation of the rule of law8 (although, as Robert Sharlet argues, not without meeting stiff legal resistance at all levels9). Gordon Hahn agrees, adding that the Putin federal reforms are creating again an unstable tectonic inside the Russian state, with potentially perilous implications, including the rise of Muslim radicalism in Russia.10 Emil Pain notes that Russia's electorate expects democratic regression from Putin after having sensed that democracy was responsible for Russia's malaise.11Many of these authors losing faith in the idea that Putin's vertical derzhavnost' or gosudarstvennost,' will have a positive overriding aim over time. Also, many years before Putin came to power, several Demokratizatsiya authors-most notably J. Michael Waller-repeatedly, prophetically, and unfashionably at the time, raised the specter of a KGB warning of its danger to early Russian democratic development.12In this and upcoming issues, contributors discuss a more anti-liberal (as opposed to simply illiberal) side of Putin.In an interview, Grigory Yavlinsky, founder and leader of Yabloko (the main liberal Russian party) discusses Putin's anti-liberal imperial ideology.Mikhail Beliaev studies Russia's regions, in a broader context of literature from other post-Communist transitions to question the effectiveness of Putin's strong hand tactics to bring economic prosperity.John Dunlop's analysis of the influential Eurasianist, or Evrazilstvo (a phenomenon first described in Demokmtizatsiya in 1992 by Victor Yasmann13), proponent Aleksandr Dugin and his influence on key players in Russia follows.Despite his current popularity, the odds against Putin ushering in lasting prosperity or legality, as Beliaev concludes here. With rare exception, all the post-Communist leaders who hailed from the Communist structures and who did not follow in office a non-Communist leader were associated with state failure, corruption, illegality, and economic stagnation.14 Putin hails from similar structures as did his predecessor and others, including Ion Iliescu, Vladmir Meciar, Leonid Kravchuk, Leonid Kuchma, Alyaksandr Lukashenka, Nursultan Nazarbaev, Mircea Snegur, Islam Karimov, Slobodan Milosevic, and Franjo Tudjman.In elections, media, civil society, and relations with the United States, Putin's Russia has regressed in comparison to the late Gorbachev period. Nikolai Zlobin argued for the best interests of Putin's Russia as a dignified junior partner of the United States,15 but this possibility appears to be receding amid Putin's miscalculations and his growing unpopularity in Washington. …
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