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Imitation Democracy
- The Development of Russia's Post-Soviet Political System
- Narrated by: Rich Miller
- Length: 6 hrs and 9 mins
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Summary
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia under Yeltsin and Putin implemented a political system of "imitation democracy," marked by "a huge disparity between formal constitutional principles and the reality of authoritarian rule." How did this system take shape, how else might it have developed, and what are the prospects for re-envisioning it more democratically in the future?
These questions animate Dmitrii Furman's Imitation Democracy, a welcome antidote to books that blandly decry Putin as an omnipotent dictator, without considering his platforms, constituencies, and sources of power. With extensive public opinion polling drawn from throughout the late- and post-Soviet period, Furman offers a definitive account of the formation of the modern Russian political system, casting it into powerful relief through comparisons with other post-Soviet states.
Peopled with grey technocrats, warring oligarchs, patriots, and provocateurs, Furman's narrative details the struggles among partisan factions, and the waves of public sentiment, that shaped modern Russia's political landscape, culminating in Putin's third presidential term, which resolves the contradiction between the "form" and "content" of imitation democracy, "the formal dependence of power on elections and the actual dependence of elections on power."
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- Alex
- 09-03-23
Very interesting exploration of Russia in the 90s
I was a little skeptical of this book based on the title, which seems to condemn Russia's political system. But the work is very objective. According to the foreword, Furman was a Russian liberal who uncharacteristically looked for what his faction may have done wrong for the disasters of the 1990s, instead of trying to blame others. You learn a lot about Russia and the Russian political system. For example, that Western countries, 'democrats' and 'liberals' in Russia were complicit in Yeltsin's destruction of democracy because of their fear of communists, that the current Communist Party of Russia consists of third-rate forces from the Soviet era because most of the top echelons became wealthy capitalists. And that Putin, far from being an 'evil mastermind' who destroyed Rusisa's democracy, was just the logical culmination of the development of the 1990s. According to Furman, the same would have occurred under any of the other people Yeltsin was considering as his successor.
Some criticisms may include that the author seems to believe in some sort of Whig history, that societies inevitably develop towards "democracy". Also that there is no critical evaluation of the concept, or the question of whether Western countries advocating for it are actually ruled by the people. It may also be a little out of date, as it was written in 2009 (but it holds up well). But these are very minor flaws. The afterword by Tony Wood was also a little strange: it lacked the nuance and objectivity of Furman's work and even referred to the current war in Ukraine as the "criminal" invasion.
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