Saving democracy in post-Soviet Russia?

By that logic, there's nowhere in the world right now with fair elections. Just because America has two ruling parties working in tandem rather than one doesn't mean that the opposition isn't marginalized.

United Russia has decisive media control, to the point where no opposition party gets any serious amount of air-time on television (one of the most entrenched forms of media).

Within the last decade, the United States has seen several shifts in the Congressional balance of power as well as presidents from both parties. Russia has seen the same party exercise decisive control over the entire Russian government, even in instances where it was clear that the support of this party was waning. There are, in all systems, advantages to the incumbent party/leader, but the problem is the current Russian government is taking this to a level that is outside the spectrum of ordinary behavior from a democratic government.

Russia is by no means an authoritarian state, but many of the methods used to create the current balance of power are.
 
I agree with HWG.

Russia has democracy and very good one. However Russian powers very concentrated in one hand and dominated by personality, e.g strong President, who can control all government branches - Executive, Legislation and Judicial Branch. IMO most importantly it lacks:

1. Independent strong Judicial Branch. The Judges are very dependent on Kremlin and always becomes tools in hand of Kremlin.

2. Media is dominated by State owned Media. There is many small free TV's, but 2 big State TV, ORTV and RTR is dominates TV market. And most newspapers ally of Kremlin (because of pressure from
 
Er, I may not be Putin's biggest fan but calling him a "tyrant" is a bit much. That aside, what do you mean by "genuine democracy"? By various accounts (including international organizations), Putin won the popular election every time except for the last one which has accusations of wide-spread rigging. Just because Putin isn't best friends with US of A does not mean that he is a dictator whom the Russian people did not elect.

A wise man once said, "Russia has a President and a Prime Minister. One of them is Vladimir Putin. The other has no power."

Putin has been repeatedly elected. Even if voting irregularities occurred, I am sure he would have won anyway, most of the time. The country would certainly look better if it acted a little less heavyhandedly against the opposition.

I was in Russia in the summer of 2006. On the first night we were in the country, we were told that if we happened to come across anything that looked like a protest or a demonstration, it would be better to turn around and go the other way. We were also told that if the police just happened to stop us in ordinary circumstance, say and do nothing because the worst that would happen is that they would drive us around in a car for a few blocks and then drop us off if we didn't offer a bride and they had nothing to hold us for. In other words, we were told that Russia was perfectly safe as long as we didn't act like we were against the goverment.

I realize that beating up the opposition was a fact of life in the Athenian democracy, but I would hope that a modern democracy could be a little more open than that.
 
I agree with HWG.

Russia has democracy and very good one. However Russian powers very concentrated in one hand and dominated by personality, e.g strong President, who can control all government branches - Executive, Legislation and Judicial Branch. IMO most importantly it lacks:

1. Independent strong Judicial Branch. The Judges are very dependent on Kremlin and always becomes tools in hand of Kremlin.

2. Media is dominated by State owned Media. There is many small free TV's, but 2 big State TV, ORTV and RTR is dominates TV market. And most newspapers ally of Kremlin (because of pressure from

Well Putin did try to break up the mass media monopoly but like Kome said that ironically led to some of the worst criticism he's had.

I agree with point 1 an at least semi independent judiciary that does not always kowtow to those in power is vital, but I think you als need a Duma (legislative branch) with real teeth not the rubber stamp machine it's becoming. Currently the Russian president as opposed to the US president almost always gets all his proposed legislation past largely unaltered. US presidents don't even mange that even when their party has a majority due largely to the fact that not all Democratic Senators and Congressmen will automatically always agree with a president of their own party and vice versa for the Republicans.

Personally in the last Russian Election I consider Putin a reverse Bush. Where W. may not have "won" his first election Putin didn't really "win" his last but he did manage to win legitimately all the times he's run before that.

The question is could a better institutional balance in Russia somehow be achieved by having the Duma come out on top in the confrontation with Yeltsin?
 
United Russia has decisive media control, to the point where no opposition party gets any serious amount of air-time on television (one of the most entrenched forms of media).

Within the last decade, the United States has seen several shifts in the Congressional balance of power as well as presidents from both parties. Russia has seen the same party exercise decisive control over the entire Russian government, even in instances where it was clear that the support of this party was waning. There are, in all systems, advantages to the incumbent party/leader, but the problem is the current Russian government is taking this to a level that is outside the spectrum of ordinary behavior from a democratic government.

Russia is by no means an authoritarian state, but many of the methods used to create the current balance of power are.
Good point definitely, but its a bit harder to fix. State controlled media has been a tradition in Russia for over 1000 years. Difficult to just get rid of it, considering it benefits those in power so much. They lose everything by giving up the power to control the media while gaining nothing. Its like Russia deciding spontaneously to give up their UN security council seat.

Yeltsin could have done it, since he ruled by decree, but seemed to be genuienly believing in reforming Russian society. But then we get more oligarch power. Putin and United Russia wont do it, cause they have no reason to .The communists probably wouldnt, since they would want to use it themselves if they're the ruling party. If one of the third parties get into power they might, since the chances of them winning a second election is so low they might as well scorch earth the presidency in favor of the Duma.
 
Good point definitely, but its a bit harder to fix. State controlled media has been a tradition in Russia for over 1000 years. Difficult to just get rid of it, considering it benefits those in power so much. They lose everything by giving up the power to control the media while gaining nothing. Its like Russia deciding spontaneously to give up their UN security council seat.

Yeltsin could have done it, since he ruled by decree, but seemed to be genuienly believing in reforming Russian society. But then we get more oligarch power. Putin and United Russia wont do it, cause they have no reason to .The communists probably wouldnt, since they would want to use it themselves if they're the ruling party. If one of the third parties get into power they might, since the chances of them winning a second election is so low they might as well scorch earth the presidency in favor of the Duma.

I think that's a statement that could describe Russia's problems in general, of course, plenty of historically autocratic states have become democratic, so that isn't a cover-all excuse.
 

Incognito

Banned
...In other words, we were told that Russia was perfectly safe as long as we didn't act like we were against the goverment...
You don't say? What an... un-Western attitude.

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