Theories of Democracy in Comparison: The Russian Case. Output-oriented Legitimacy, Defect Democracy, Political Culture, Path Dependence and Public Opinion

Kommentare

• 

  Gast

  This academic article captivates the reader firstly by its intriguing scientific puzzle, secondly by having a very clear and easy to follow structure that promotes its readability and finally and most importantly by its result. This article is a valuable contribution to the scientific debate about the nature of Russian society and the explanatory power of specific theories of democracy.
  
  After stating his research question, describing the puzzle to be solved and the prevailing assumptions to be questioned, the author proceeds by referring to four theoretical assumptions which are firstly outlined and secondly cross-referenced to the case at hand. At this point the author succeeds to comprehensibly outline the main premises of five theories: Robert Dahl’s Polyarchy to discuss democracy as such; Glaser’s Three-Criteria Theory and Scharpf’s Dimensions of Legitimation to analyse Legitimacy; Lippmann’s Public Opinion to explain the manufacture of consent; Path dependence to show that “history matters”; and finally Berg-Schlosser’s Input/Output-Dualism along with chosen indicators of Democracy to show that existing democracies vary greatly.
  
  The third chapter presents the reader with a detailed discussion of the chosen case with a focus on three results, taken from antecedent research. These results function as a way to structure the research question and are the core assumptions to be tested in posterior chapters: The Russian system is not a democracy; Russians strive for democracy; Russians support president Putin. At this point the author already provides an insightful connection between his theoretical discussion and the findings of preceding empirical research, conducted in Russia. It should be laudatory mentioned that the author doesn’t fail to criticize the methods employed by field researchers who studied the Russian society. Such criticism is for example the fact that conceptual differences are often an obstacle that reduces the validity of scientific findings. The Triple-S Pattern employed by the author to explain the reality of Russian politics, not only proves to be a successful counter-narrative to prevailing scientific dogma, but also a prolific tool for theoretical democracy-analysis.
  Finally the author proceeds by evaluating these assumptions with reference to empirical data, he succeeds to present the reader with an interpretation that is new to the scientific community. This article is therefore a valuable contribution, not only to the discussion of theories of democracy, but also towards the explanation of the enigma of Russian society. It succeeds in transgressing the prevailing dogma of condemning the Russian society as inherently authoritarian by nature, by presenting a fascinatingly different explanation.
  
  It should be critically mentioned, however that this article lacks an explicit account for regional differences in the mind-set of the Russian populace. Not enough emphasis is put on the fact that it can be legitimately questioned whether “the Russians” as a unifiable category even exist. This criticism is especially important with regard to the validity-assessment of certain opinion polls measuring people’s strife for democracy in Russia. Also this article doesn’t put enough emphasis on a pragmatist approach pursued by some segments of the Russian populace with regard to uprisings, social movements and protest, as the demonstrations in the year 2004 have shown. This criticism, however can be defused by the fact that the main focus of this article concerns the question of democracy theories and the quest to find an explanation for the “Russian paradox”. With regard to his stated aim the author succeeds without exception.

  am 8.9.2015