The answer to the question posed by the title of Saint Louis University Political Science Professor Ellen Carnaghan’s January 2007 PS: Political Science and Politics article “Do Russians Dislike Democracy” is much more complicated than a simple yes or no. Carnaghan starts out by observing that numerous polls show overwhelming popular support for democracy, albeit in the abstract, among the populace of Russia. She then contrasts this with the Russian electorate’s continuing propensity toward sustained support for much more authoritarian leaders.
So it could be said that Russia’s view of democracy is a love-hate relationship.
However, it gets even more complex than this. Carnaghan accurately points our the fact that the Russian people’s politically schizophrenic perspectives on democracy might be potentially explicable by Russia’s inexperience with liberal representative forms of government. To support this, she mentions that those Russians who are more intellectually sophisticated, that is to say more educated and more literate, have substantially higher levels of support for democracy, particularly when exactly what democracy means is explained to them, than the more general populace at large.
However, it gets even more complex than this. Carnaghan accurately points our the fact that the Russian people’s politically schizophrenic perspectives on democracy might be potentially explicable by Russia’s inexperience with liberal representative forms of government. To support this, she mentions that those Russians who are more intellectually sophisticated, that is to say more educated and more literate, have substantially higher levels of support for democracy, particularly when exactly what democracy means is explained to them, than the more general populace at large.
In Carnaghan’s article, the Russian governmental system’s tendency to authoritarianism is most epitomized by the first decade of the 21st century’s on-again-off-again Presidency of Vladamir Putin. The different manners in which Putin is authoritarian are numerous. Not least among these are his banning of the direct election of powerful local government leaders in favor of those appointed by him personally and his systematic restructuring of the rules that govern the government itself in order to simultaneously deemphasize the power and influence of more provincial forms of representation while consolidating government power into an ever-smaller and ever-more exclusive select group of friendly oligarchs. With impressively minimal ripples elsewhere in the global community of nations, Putin has managed to restore the centralized concentration of executive authority to the Kremlin as existed in the first decade of the twentieth century under the Romanov Czars, but has taken a starkly divergent approach to pro-Kremlin popular media propaganda than did Joseph Stalin. In the place of brightly-colored posters depicting images of an autocrat with megalomaniacal narcissistic self-delusions of phantom popular unanimity, Putin has taken to the photographic and video mediums with, albeit unabashedly staged, depictions of the Prime Minister-become-President engaged in a myriad of extraordinarily manly and macho activities, such as hunting wild animals, deep sea scuba diving, and piloting aircraft.
In a word, even in the 24-hour social media environment of the 21st century, Putin has, quite successfully, made authoritarianism sexy.
In a word, even in the 24-hour social media environment of the 21st century, Putin has, quite successfully, made authoritarianism sexy.
This goes a long way towards explaining Carnaghan’s point about more politically informed Russian voters having a much lower opinion of Putin’s oppressive and repressive political policies. As is, to a more subtle, though perhaps no less substantive, extent, the case here in America, those less informed about politics and government are more liable to be easily mislead by aesthetically pleasing visuals from national celebrities, be they in the media or in political parties.
Hence, much as those with less education in this country tend to throw their support behind often-inexperienced politicians with, by any measure, radical and fanatical policy agendas purely because they find the candidates in question to be amicably relatable, less intellectual Russians are shown in polling to have much higher levels of support for authoritarian autocrats such as President Putin, doubtless due in no insignificant proportion to Putin’s routine of riding horses and firing weapons whilst shirtless.
Hence, much as those with less education in this country tend to throw their support behind often-inexperienced politicians with, by any measure, radical and fanatical policy agendas purely because they find the candidates in question to be amicably relatable, less intellectual Russians are shown in polling to have much higher levels of support for authoritarian autocrats such as President Putin, doubtless due in no insignificant proportion to Putin’s routine of riding horses and firing weapons whilst shirtless.
Fortunately, I am, today more than ever before in my lifetime, extraordinarily pleased to proclaim that I myself am most definitively not one amongst those least intellectual voters. I would therefore very much like to say that, even if I were to be Russian, with the novelty of liberalism in that country that Carnaghan iterates, I still would not be so easily fooled by Putin’s machismo antics.
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