Muddling Through
by Robert Lane Greene
Robert Lane Greene is countries editor at Economist.com.
Only at TNR Online
Post date: 12.02.03
How long does it take for a democracy to emerge from the shadow of totalitarian dictatorship? That's the question facing American policymakers eager to make a success out of the gamble in Iraq. And if the example of another prominent country making the transition from dictatorship--Russia, which holds legislative elections on December 7--is any indication, the answer is: quite some time.
As both Iraq and the former Soviet Union make clear, the legacy of totalitarianism is utterly debilitating. Not only are there no opportunities for political initiative--such as voting, referenda, political protest--in totalitarian societies; there is no room for individual initiative of any kind. (This is the key difference between a totalitarian society and a merely authoritarian society, like Franco's Spain or Suharto's Indonesia.) Free choice turns out to be a habit, not an inborn human trait. The result is that citizens of formerly totalitarian countries must first learn how to make personal decisions; only then can they even begin to contemplate political decisions. The process can be agonizingly slow.
One corollary is that bringing democracy to a former dictatorship is even more difficult when that country has no experience with it earlier in its history. Many post-authoritarian countries in Europe, including Spain, Greece, and Portugal, as well as many of the former Soviet satellites, enjoyed some form of democracy before their detour into dictatorship. As a result, they managed to throw off their dictatorships relatively painlessly, and were comfortably established as democracies after roughly a decade. Notably, the politically worst-off countries of the former Soviet bloc--Romania and Albania, as well as Russia itself--had little or no democratic experience.
These are two major reasons why, twelve years and four major elections after the end of the Soviet Union, Russia is still barely democratic. In a recent book, Russia experts Michael McFaul of Stanford and Timothy Colton of Harvard politely call Russia a "managed democracy." Freedom House, an NGO that rates political and civil liberties across countries, calls Russia just "partly free." My own publication, The Economist, has flatly said that, "The West should stop pretending Russia is a free democracy."
There was plenty of evidence to support these pessimistic assessments in 2003 alone. This year saw two elections, in Chechnya and St. Petersburg, in which the Kremlin flagrantly manipulated the outcome in its candidate's favor. The last truly independent TV news channel was shut down. Despite declarations of victory, the war simmers on in Chechnya. Russia's richest man, oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, was recently locked up--not because of any financial misdeeds, which could have legitimately landed him in the clink (along with the vast majority of Russia's business class), but because he, like two disgraced and exiled oligarchs before him, was using his wealth to influence politics. For the rest of the oligarchs, the deal with the Kremlin is clear: Keep your ill-gotten gains, but stay out of politics if you want to stay out of jail.
It is all in all a pretty bleak picture for democracy, but with two qualifications. First, Putin's group is not the worst in the pool of Russian politicos. During the 1990s, the strongest parties by far were the largely unreformed Communists on the left and a group of ugly nationalists on the right. The country has two liberal parties, but they languish far behind in the polls and may not even make it into parliament in this election. While he's no committed democrat, Putin does seem genuinely committed to cautious but steady economic reform, including privatization and trade liberalization. He has also been pragmatic in foreign affairs. Though he made clear his displeasure with the enlargement of NATO, America's exit from the ABM treaty, and the war in Iraq, Putin accepted these developments as faits accomplis rather than risk a confrontation with America that would have been popular but probably fruitless.
The second thing to keep in mind about Putin is that he isn't personally lacking for democratic legitimacy. He is, in fact, far and away the most popular man in Russia. According to a recent independent poll, 81 percent of Russians have a favorable opinion of him, and 78 percent trust him. Thirty-nine percent can't think of a single bad thing to say about Putin, and 4 percent admit to being "enthralled" by him. More specifically, Putin has cannily avoided becoming personally embroiled in the Khodorkovsky saga. He is admired for his toughness on Chechnya, and for his independent line on Iraq. His popularity will carry the United Russia Party, whose only ideological basis is loyalty to him, to victory in next week's elections. Putin himself will almost certainly win reelection as president next year. (Both elections are expected to be reasonably free and fair.)
Russians are aware of Putin's authoritarian streak--they just don't seem to mind it, at least not the way Westerners think they should. The Pew Global Attitudes survey released in June 2003 shows some revealingly mixed data. Forty-seven percent of Russians approve of the post-communist political changes in the former Soviet bloc, but a sizeable 45 percent disapprove. Just 45 percent agreed that "people are better off in a free market economy," while 51 percent disagreed. That said, 88 percent said that global trade had either a very good or somewhat good effect on their country; 67 percent like cell phones. More people like "globalization" than not, a preference that is especially pronounced among the young. Eighty-five percent of young people see cultural imports as "good." And on and on. From this simple snapshot, Russia appears capable of going either way. But demographics and global forces are probably on the side of increasing democracy and openness--eventually.
The lesson is that even under ideal circumstances (Spain, Portugal), it takes five to ten years to democratize a country fully. Russia (twelve years to get to "partly free") is an example of how long it can take when circumstances are less than ideal. Bush administration radicals intent on setting off a domino chain of democracy in the least democratic region of the world--the Middle East--should take careful note.
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