Boris Makarenko is president of the Center for Political Technologies and a professor at the social sciences faculty of the Higher School of Economics.
The 2016 parliamentary campaign isn’t just a test run for the 2018 presidential race. Russia’s political regime is in search of a governing model that will help it sustain the status quo for the foreseeable future.
There are two kinds of lessons that revolutions can teach: either you democratize to avoid a revolution in the conditions when the public sees no other way to attain liberty, or revolutions will open a way to it.
The slow down in the spread of democracy can be attributed to high oil prices, Islamic extremism in some democratic countries, and the success of the authoritarian model of economic and political development in China.
