REQUIRED IMAGE
Source: Carnegie
Summary
A new narrative about post-Soviet Russia is taking hold in policy, media, and academic circles and shows signs of entrenching as a new conventional wisdom. By this reading, Russia's experiment with democracy has flat-out failed. So misconceived and mismanaged were the political and economic reforms of the 1990s that they have fueled mass disenchantment with democratic norms and brought authoritarianism back into repute. Russians, in short, are said to be giving up on democracy.
In this working paper, Timothy J. Colton and Michael McFaul agree that Russian democratic institutions are performing miserably and that leaders, especially since Putin's ascent to power, have done much to compromise and erode democratic practices. Colton and McFaul's findings suggest, however, that the many and obvious limitations of Russia's political system are not caused by, or consistently reinforced by, popular attitudes toward democracy.
Click on link above for full text of this Carnegie Paper.Carnegie does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees.
A new Carnegie survey of Indian Americans examines shifting vote preferences, growing political ambivalence, and rising concerns about discrimination amid U.S. policy changes and geopolitical uncertainty.
Milan Vaishnav, Sumitra Badrinathan, Devesh Kapur, …
The main source of Russian aggression is a profound mistrust of the West and the firm belief that it intends to inflict a “strategic defeat” on Russia. As long as this fear persists, the war will not end.
Tatiana Stanovaya
Europe’s interests in Syria extend beyond migration management, yet the EU trails behind other players in the country’s post-Assad reconstruction. To boost its influence in Damascus, the union must upgrade its commitment to ensuring regional stability.
Bianka Speidl, Hanga Horváth-Sántha
Despite its reputation as an island of democracy in Central Asia, Kyrgyzstan appears to be on the brink of becoming a personalist autocracy.
Temur Umarov
The Russian army is not currently struggling to recruit new contract soldiers, though the number of people willing to go to war for money is dwindling.
Dmitry Kuznets
