European Democracy at the Russian Crossroads

Introduction

Since 1985, when Mikhail Gorbachev became General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and introduced the policies of glasnost and perestroika, the member states of the European Union have been concerned to support what they perceive as desirable economic and democratic reforms. Democracy in Russia has developed considerably in this period, though not without some notable setbacks. There is now a wide range of political parties in the Russian Federation, some with a presence in many regions of the country. The press has demonstrated a similar political pluralism and has produced some outstandingly courageous, investigative journalism. ₁ Both in the old 'White House' Parliament, and in the one that replaced it, parliamentary deputies have learnt to defend parliamentary power and not to be too acquiescent towards the Presidency. The trade unions also have gradually taken on new tasks: though they still function as social welfare organizations, they are ceasing to act as transmission belts for the policies of central government and--whether 'independent' or 'old'--have begun to defend workers' interests. ₂ There is also a new freedom for religious believers and artists alike.

Gorbachev introduced glasnost to support his fundamental aim of perestroika, or economic restructuring. In 1991, President Boris Yeltsin abandoned socialist restructuring and began to introduce a capitalist market economy. It has become clear, however, that this project has an antinomic relationship with the development of democracy: ₃ the economic collapse and the withdrawal of social welfare safety nets during the last five years has led to wide popular hostility to the economic reform programme, expressed in parliamentary election results. The resistance of the old Parliament to the economic policies of the President--who was supported by Western governments--led, in 1993, to the dissolution of Parliament, its blockading and storming, and then, temporarily, to severe repressive measures and the introduction of a new constitution, centralizing power in the hands of the President. The policy makers of the European Union (EU) had given formal support to both the economic reform programme and the development of democracy in the Federation; however, in 1993, they appeared to prioritize the economic programme. It may well be that coming events in Russia will force the EU Council to choose between support for an authoritarian implementation of (capitalist) marketization and a profound, democratically engendered modification of the economic reforms.

This paper examines the foreign policy of the European Union towards the Russian Federation. It uses democratic theory to do so. It draws on the discussions about political liberaIism, communitarianism, civic republicanism, and theories of Medical democracy in the work of Skinner, Mousse, Rawls and Walzer; the approach adopted in this monograph, however, is completely consonant with none of these. ₄ As the paper examines democratization as an aspect of international socialization, it also draws on works in International Theory, particularly those of R. W. Cox, S. Gill, and S. Strange, which have provided a useful reminder of the importance of political economy when discussing democratic theory. ₅ David Held's account of democracy and cosmopolitan governance has also been very illuminating. ₆

After an initial consideration of the principles and content of EU policy towards the Federation, the paper examines five issues: the relation of the market to democracy; the nature of a pluralist civil society; the contradictions inherent in participatory democracy; the changing character of citizenship; and the importance of the rule of law and human rights for the development of a democratic society. We shall not be addressing security issues as these lie outside the scope of our present investigation.

European Union Policies Towards the Russian Federation

The policies of the EU that are designed to support the development of democracy in the Russian Federation present us with a number of important theoretical and political questions: when may a state's policies be directed towards anther's internal affairs; is the EU developing its foreign policies in a context of international social, other than inter-state, relations; how should democracy be defined and how should we evaluate different and competing democratic agendas; and what are the implications of the EU's policies towards the Russian Federation for the development of democracy there and in the EU itself?

In some traditional schools of International Theory the proper field of foreign policy is seen to be that of external relations between states; foreign policy objectives are not directed towards the internal affairs of another state except in so far as the latter are perceived to impinge upon national security. ₇ But as global interconnectedness has grown, particularly in the fields of international economic relations and communications and the media, theorists have moved from accounts of inter-state relations, first to accounts of interdependence, ₈ then to political economy analyses, ₉ and, finally, to studies of what has been perceived as an emerging international society, that is, transitional social structures, economic relations, processes, movements, and ideologies. ₁₀ International society should be distinguished from the international state system, which is based on inter-state relations; an international society of peoples is coming into being and creating the foundations of a possible cosmopolitan democracy, although the global order is, as yet, far from democratic. ₁₁

EU policy makers believe that developments in Russia will have long term consequences for the stability and democracy of the whole continent, including the EU itself. The EU's foreign policy objective of deepening democratization in the Russian Federation is concerned ipso facto not only with inter-state relations but, it could be argued, wi0h the development of a new form of international society, encompassing all European countries, that would safeguard and develop participatory democracy, human rights, social rights, and democratic forms of citizenship.

The EU Council's paper, Strategy on EU-Russia Relations--Council Conclusions, ₁₂ and the previous EU Commission position and background paper, The European Union and Russia: the Future Relationship, an account of the objectives and priorities governing the policies of the European Union towards the Russian Federation, ₁₃ take this interconnectedness as given. Both documents, especially the Commission's, emphasize the need to support and develop Russian democracy: this democracy is seen as vitally important for the well-being not only of the Federation but also of the European Union and the whole European continent.

A number of different definitions may be given of democracy. Some emphasize individual economic nights; others participatory political democracy. Some give pride of place to citizenship and others to social rights. These theoretical. and ideological differences are revealed in the approaches taken to the Federation by both analysts and policy makers in the West. There are those who provide a limited definition of democracy," ₁₄ emphasizing individual economic rights--marketization--over civic, political, social and cultural rights. But the definition employed by EU policy makers is fuller and more complex; it concerns itself not only with individual economic rights but also with other perceived aspects of democratization: the safeguarding of human rights; the development of a pluralist civil society and the freedom of the media; the maintenance of political democracy; and the achievement of improved living standards and political stabilization. These aims are given equal weight (it would seem) with that of developing a (capitalist) market economy integrated into the international economic system. Therefore, as stated above, the EU appears to be directing its foreign policy towards the creation of a specific form of international society.

Western states have not usually insisted on this strategy of linking economic and democratic objectives; frequently, they have found it useful to develop trade with repressive states that have high levels of inequity and very little political democracy, ₁₅ and have not seriously attempted to adopt, as a central foreign policy objective, the achievement of political democracy and human rights in these states. For it is both theoretically and empirically possible to separate democratization from marketization: successful market economies need not be, and frequently are not, political democracies. ₁₆

Doubtless there are those in the European Union who are not overly concerned about the development of political democracy in the Russian Federation, as long as market reforms are successful, and who may well be prepared to sacrifice the former in order to safeguard the latter. However, it seems that there is considerable political pressure from within the Union--from the European Parliament, EU political lobbies, and from some of the governments of member states that are themselves responding to public pressure on these issues--to pursue all the publicly reiterated EU foreign policy objectives: those about defending political democracy as well as those about the introduction and extension of a market economy in the Russian Federation.

This commitment in the EU to the strengthening of political democracy in the Federation may also be partly due to ideological positions developed during the Cold War and adopted by parliamentarians and the general public: the struggle with the USSR and the Soviet bloc was widely perceived as a defence of the Western democratic system and as a response to a nuclear threat posed by a 'totalitarian' state. (The economic aspects of that bi-polar conflict--access to the large and potentially huge Soviet import/export market, and in particular to Siberian Far North oil, gas and minerals--tended to be played down in favour of the political, ideological and security dimensions of the conflict.) The achievement of a pluralist political democracy in the Federation may now be seen as a safeguard against the reactivation of nuclear confrontation: it is believed that democratic states are more peaceful in nature; that democracy enables humans to achieve a higher potential and more happiness than other forms of political governance; and that democracy is more responsive to need.

There is no conclusive proof, as Cohen has suggested, that democratic states are more peaceful. ₁₇ As for claims that democracy creates conditions for the achievement of higher human potential and is more responsive to perceived need, these may well be true, but are not self-evidently so: the largest Western democracy, the United States of America, has a large number of pauperized citizens. However, if formal political democracy is set in opposition--as it sometimes is--to other human goods, such as the eradication of hunger, eliminable disease, poverty, and illiteracy, then one of the most cogent arguments in its defence is vitiated. For where the introduction or strengthening of political democracy is perceived to be focused upon elite objectives, such as access to luxury consumer goods, and is thought to ignore the primary needs of the population, then certain inevitable and structural contradictions emerge; this is the case, to a growing extent, in the Russian Federation. ₁₈ If a community identifies existing 'democratic' systems as unable to satisfy the perceived needs of substantial sections of the population--because political representatives need the support of wealthy elites in order to be elected, or because the institutions of democracy have no economic leverage and their power remains largely symbolic--then democracy may well be discredited, and totalitarianism--if it promises to satisfy perceived needs--becomes attractive. Political democracy is still supported by the majority of political elites in the Federation, both left and right. However, with the increase in severe deprivation and the marked socio- economic differentiation since 1991, it is subject to increasing criticism.

Structural contradictions emerge when political democracy is neither truly participatory nor representative. However, if the electorate is able to make an impact on the political process and elections are not dominated by wealth and privilege (as is the case in some Western democracies) then political democracy is preferable to totalitarianism precisely because it enables human beings more easily and effectively to identify, first of all primary, and later more sophisticated, perceived needs, both material and spiritual; then to agree social aims; and, finally, to develop methods of achieving these by mobilizing community solidarity and promoting the acceptance of individual responsibility.

Political dialogue which identifies priorities is more successfully carried forward in a political environment that has a well developed civil society with pluralist values. But a democracy needs not only a civil society and a system of political participation sensitive to concerns wider than those of the political and economic elites, and in which elected representative have some access to, and control over, political and economic power; it also needs to develop a concept of citizenship which is open and inclusive, not based on narrow nationalist, ethnic, religious or political designations. This is particularly important in the Russian Federation, where a number of ethnic groups and nationalities claim citizenship.

Recent EU statements on EU-Russia Relations

The November 1995 communication from the Council of the European Union--Strategy on EU-Russia Relations--Council Conclusions-- ₁₉ is the Council's final position following discussion of a paper from the Commission, The European Union and Russia: the Future Relationship. ₂₀ There are some interesting shifts in emphases between the two papers: some may be stylistic, some substantial. Points from the backgroumd paper have been incorporated into the Council document and given greater emphasis: for example, the EU's concern to ensure stability not only in the Federation but also in Europe as a whole. Strategy on EU- Russia Relations begins by stating that

[g]ood relations between the EU and a democratic Russia are essential to stability in Europe. The EU is therefore committed to establishing a substantial partnership with Russia in order to promote the democratic and economic reform process, to enhance respect for human rights, to consolidate peace, stability and security in order to avoid new dividing lines in Europe, and to achieve the full integration of Russia into the community of free and democratic nations. ₂₁

It is significant that the Council's document stresses that good relations with a democratic Russia are essential for the stability of Europe as a whole. The document also calls for the promotion of a solid and independent judicial system; and for reinforcement of freedom of the media. ₂₂ Both documents support Russia's accession to the Council of Europe: this is seen as a step towards Russia's integration into the international system and may also be perceived as a safeguard for human rights in the Federation. Commitment to regular consultation and technical assistance; active promotion of people-to-people contacts; regional cooperation in a wide range of sectors; and the monitoring of Russian parliamentary and presidential elections are also seen as supportive of Russia's democratic reforms. The EU's Democracy Programme (funded through PHARE and TACIS) has been used to support these aims. The Commission's policy document adds that, to this end, it will

support forms of cooperation at various levels between Russian and European opinion-leaders, parliamentarians and representatives of governmental and non- governmental organizations both at the centre and in the regions. ₂₃

The Council's paper, however, only commits itself to 'implementation and further development of the agreed political consultation at all levels, including the highest political level'. ₂₄

The Commission's position is an implicit acknowledgment that democratization as a foreign policy objective demands the mobilization of parliamentarians and other democratic opinion leaders in the EU and the Federation. It reflects, perhaps, a commitment to the procedures of subsidiarity being established in the EU itself, where opinion leaders are recognized as existing not just at the national, but also at the regional, level. In contrast, the Council position keeps to established foreign policy guidelines, highlighting discussions with central government.

The Council's document also places great importance on economic cooperation and suggests that

the irreversible consolidation of economic reforms in Russia . . . through economic growth and a steady rise in living standards will promote stability in Russian society and strengthen democracy in that country. ₂₅

This affirmation should be seen in the context of a growing concern at the economic collapse in Russia between 1991 and 1994 and at the failure of the Russian economy to make any significant recovery. But the Commission's concern about the fall in living standards prompts it to urge that further progress in economic reforms should be ensured while 'taking account of the need to mitigate the social consequences of economic reform'. ₂₆

However, the Council of the EU ignores this point, and only commits itself to working closely with the Russian Federation in order to realize 'the development of trade and investment and harmonious economic relations between the Parties based on the principles of market economy'. ₂₇

The European Union, through the Council's document, is committed to pursuing policies that integrate the Russian Federation into the international economy; that facilitate access by EU firms to energy and other valuable Russian commodity markets; and that help remove obstacles to EU imports into the Federation.

These aims are also stressed in the interim Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA) between the EU and the Russian Federation (not yet ratified because of the policies of the Russian government towards Chechnya, although the Council document again commits the EU to the PCA). The PCA places more emphasis on democracy and human rights than did the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) of 1989. The Council's paper singles out improving market access to financial services as an important area in which it hopes to achieve a new bilateral agreement provided for in the CPA. The European Energy Charter, signed in 1991 by 50 countries, not all of them European, is seen in Moscow and Brussels (as well as in Washington and New York) as a mechanism for ensuring the continued liberalization of the energy sector in Russia: a strategically important economic objective. ₂₈

Therefore, apart from goals related to security issues, the aims of the EU policy towards the Federation may be summed up under three headings: deepening political democracy with a corresponding strengthening of democratic rights and the rule of law; establishing social, political and economic stabilization, which would lead to improved living standards for the majority of the population; and pursuing an economic liberalization that strengthens the emerging market economy in the Federation and integrates its most important economic sectors--particularly the energy sector--into the international economic system. We shall be arguing that these aims are not fully compatible and that the Federation, even with the help of the European Union, will probably not be able to achieve them all. ₂₉ The conflict between these aims reveals the 'contested' character of the concept of democracy.

The Role of the Market in Democratization

Rawls tells us that, in a democracy, power should be exercised 'only in ways that all citizens can reasonably be expected to endorse publicly in the light of their own human reason'. ₃₀ However, in terms of democratic theory, what is self-evidently to be endorsed by human reason is by no means easy to discover. Indeed, the recent emphasis by politicians and others on the link between the (capitalist) marketization of society and democratization has further confused the issue, for, as Hardin argues (although the direction of his argument is rather different), the application to democratic theory of economic reasoning, with its assumption of self-interested economic intervention, 'has largely helped to expose flaws, grievous foundational flaws, in democratic theory and practice'. ₃₁

For where there are unregulated and unequal power relations, including economic power relations, pluralism produces Hobbesian egoism: a struggle for economic survival, dominance and security. This erodes political rights which, unless they can be utilized, remain formal. ₃₂

If we agree, with Christiano, that participation in political democracy demands equal distribution of all resources necessary for collective decision-making so as to ensure that everyone has an effect upon the outcome of the decision-making process, then these resources should be economic as well as those defined in a narrowly political sense. ₃₃

With regard to the most powerful of the economic interest groups, multinational corporations, they, as Walzer puts it, 'stand outside (and to some extent against) every political community' ₃₄ and the average citizen finds that she or he is circumscribed by powers over which there is very little democratic control. Perhaps the presumed validity of Maudeville's law--which states that private vices beget public virtues--may now finally be subject to serious question. In the states of Eastern Europe, as well as in the Russian Federation, the realization is beginning to grow that, although the market may be an expression of pluralist society, it does not necessarily guarantee participatory democracy or social rights. The problem is compounded by the existence of corrupt relations between economic and political elites, such as those in Russia (or Italy). These constitute a grave threat to political rights.

The Agonistic Relation between Market Reforms and Political Democracy in the Russian Federation

Gorbachev and his supporters had as their primary aim the achievement of perestroika--economic restructuring. This would be built on the introduction of market reforms, the strengthening of labour discipline, and on a more selective and intensive programme of investment and retooling. The priorities of the state budget of the USSR were to be decisively altered: as well as cutting back on military expenditure the Gorbachev administration tried to reduce Support for civil budgets in education and health. There was some disagreement among supporters of perestroika between those who envisaged market reforms taking place within a socialist economy and those who saw the whole project of reform as an opportunity to move the Soviet system towards capitalism. ₃₅ In any case, by 1990 the new economic policies had had some clearly adverse effects on the living standards of the average citizen. ₃₆ However, because the policies of perestroika were in part introduced and defended by the complementary policy of glasnost, they had important positive repercussions upon the political, as opposed to the economic, life of the country: at this time the introduction of market reforms and the democratic transformation of political life went hand in hand.

In the aftermath of the 1991 coup and the election of Yeltsin as President, the economic reforms--brought in by 'shock therapy'--constituted a programme for the rapid establishment of a capitalist market economy. Nevertheless, although the Russian State Statistics Committee has recently revised its estimate of the fall in Gross Domestic Product for 1991-94 from 47.3 per cent to 35.2 per cent, ₃₇ the collapse of the Russian economy has been catastrophic and indubitable. ₃₈ During 1995 the decline was much less, about 4 per cent, but there has been no recovery worth mentioning. As for industrial production, in June 1994 Economics Minister Ursinov stated that Russian industry was producing about 50 per cent of what it had been in 1991- a figure first disputed but now generally accepted. ₃₉ Russian agriculture was estimated to be near collapse in February 1995. ₄₀ Cheap imports from the European Union are further depressing agricultural output, ₄₁ and privatization in agriculture has been followed by the bankruptcies of thousands of small farmers. ₄₂

Not only loss of production but accumulated foreign and internal debt is a problem. The Russian Minister for Economic Affairs, O. Davydov, has recognized that Gorbachev's 'nonsystemic, groundless, multi-billion dollar borrowings' in the 1980s, resulting in a $50 billion debt in five years, started a trend which still continues. ₄₃ In 1995, foreign debt ran at $130 billion, not including commercial bank debt. The Russian government has attempted to meet demands by reneging on its internal debt: in Spring 1995, the equivalent of one month's wages was owed to workers in the gas, oil and coal industries. ₄₄ In 1995 the internal debt between enterprises, and between government, banks and enterprises, comprised 4 per cent of GDP, with the biggest debts owed to the gas, oil, coal and chemical sectors. ₄₅ However, since the opening of the economy to the international system, capital is flowing out of the country (much of it to the deregulated City of London) at the rate of S2.25 billion per month ₄₆ ; of that, $1 billion is estimated to consist of illegal transfers. ₄₇ It should be noted that some of these outflows are thought to belong to government departments trying to improve their resources.

There is a growing fear within the Federation that these internal economic processes, if intensified by the pull of external trading relations, may produce a centrifugal dynamic that will drive the Federation to disintegration. Parts of Siberia, the Far East and the Far North are beginning to ignore Moscow's edicts, making their own arrangements, often through regional governors appointed by the President and in defiance of democratically elected regional assemblies. Energy has, hitherto, flowed westwards from Siberia and the Far North to European Russia, thence to Eastern and Central Europe and, from the 1970s, to member states of the European Union such as Germany and Italy. Now, with the intervention of US and Japanese multinational companies, there is a possibility that Russian energy will begin to flow eastward. Major Russian banks, joint stock companies, and fuel and energy enterprises have set up a consortium to build a gas pipeline from Western Siberia to the Pacific Ocean, to serve the Russian Far East, China and Siberia. ₄₈ US capital alone has been allocated 46 per cent of authorized share capital (most of it in the energy sector), according to Economics Minister Shokin. ₄₉

It may be in the interests of NAFTA-based, and Japanese, Chinese and Korean capital that the resource-rich regions such as Siberia should reorient themselves economically to the East with political separation from Moscow as a possible consequence; however, this would not be conducive to the creation of a strong and prosperous Russian Federation, nor would it be to the benefit of the European Union. A possible break up of the Federation would leave an impoverished rump state west of the Urals, depriving it and Europe as a whole of the vast wealth of Siberia and the Far North/East to which states of the EU have previously had regulated access. The Federation's territorial integrity, prosperity and social cohesion are vital to the well-being of the European Union. If they are not maintained the latter's economy, security and political direction may be adversely affected by mass migration, internal and border conflicts, and by the actions of a hostile, humiliated and nationalist government in Moscow.

The impact of these changes has forced a severe fall in the living standards of ordinary Russian citizens. According to the Russian Economics Ministry, a third of the population in 1995 was living below the official subsistence level and a quarter pauperized; wages were 59 per cent of those in 1993. ₅₀ The richest 10 per cent of the population (this figure excludes illegal incomes) had an income 13.5 times higher than that of the poorest 10 per cent; in 1991 the differential was 4.5. ₁₅ The present income differentials are similar to those of the United States of America but with a much lower per capita income: this puts a great strain on social cohesion and is life threatening to the 25 per cent that is pauperized.

The chairman of the State Duma Environmental Committee has asserted that life expectancy has declined from sixty-seven to fifty-seven years and that a two million fall in population has occurred over the last four years. ₅₂ This fall is linked to mortality and not natality figures. ₅₃ The experience of most Russian Federation citizens is that the introduction of a market economy has eroded their standards of living and their social rights. This is reflected in a growing rejection of the policies of the government and the President by the electorate.

The economic collapse has been accompanied by a marked increase in violent crime associated with economic activities. The Russian mafia, with its dealings in the black market, had already developed strong roots in Russian society before the collapse of the Soviet system; now it is linked to illegal arms dealing in the Army, ₅₄ cross-border smuggling, and the development of private enterprise. Because the legal framework for private capital is very weak, much business has been and continues to be conducted in an illegal or semi-legal manner. The ethics governing economic activities under Soviet socialism have not yet been replaced by accepted capitalist codes of conduct; for decades the pursuit of private profit was thought to be immoral and that ideology still dominates the thinking of both honest citizens and criminals alike.

We might now remind ourselves of the stated objectives of European Union policy towards the Russian Federation with regard to the economy, living standards and social rights. The Council's strategy document includes a commitment to work towards the

irreversible consolidation of economic reforms in Russia which, through economic growth and a steady rise in living standards, will promote stability in Russian society and strengthen democracy in that country. ₅₅

However, the reforms introduced so far have had a deleterious effect upon living standards. It has been argued that the collapse of the Russian economy is a result of previous mismanagement; this is partly true, but the reforms of 1991-95, and even those of 1985-90, appear to have been enacted without regard for their social (or indeed, economic) consequences.

The European Commission's draft position called for 'reinforcement of political, social and economic stability in the Russian Federation' and 'sustained development leading to improved living standards for the population of the Russian Federation. ₅₆

It may be that political stability win be achieved at the expense of economic reforms. At the moment there appears to be the worst of all possible worlds: a virtual end to many social services and the withdrawal of the social security safety nets operated by workplaces; the bankruptcy of many small businesses which might have provided flexibility and consumer service to the economy; the ruined remains of the command economy in advanced sectors of industry; elite monopolization and export of the profit made in the energy sectors integrated with the world economy; and the development of a large, violent mafia.

Political and economic instability in large states frequently has serious and harmful consequences in the international system and tends particularly to inflict damage on neighbouring states. Possible problems of internal conflict and economic dissolution may produce refugees and economic migrants. Increased Russian nationalism, and the danger of a turn to militarism (with all that implies for European security) could be the result of giving free reign to international and national capital to exploit Russian raw materials while leaving important sectors of technologically advanced national industries to wither and living standards of ordinary citizens to remain miserably low. Much was said about the lower living standards of average Russians, compared to those of Western Europe, under the Soviet system; now these standards are lower still.

In an epoch of growing globalization and open economies there is an emerging contradiction between, on the one hand, national economic growth and the preservation of living standards, and, on the other, the operation of international capital. This is not a reason for retreat into autarchy but, rather, for planned intention to manage national economies through periods of transition. A 'mixed economy' with positive state intervention and some state control or ownership of technologically advanced industries, with encouragement of private capital in undeveloped areas of the economy, may be the best solution for the Russian Federation in the short and medium term. lf that is so, then for the political stability of Europe, its security, and for its long term economic prosperity, EU policy makers should consider how it cam be best supported.

Civil Society and Pluralism

Most Western political theorists recognize that civil society underpins modern democratic society. ₅₇ This concept, particularly as employed during the last twenty years, has been part of the same type of discourse as Arendt's concept of politics as the realm of freedom, ₅₈ that is to say, it has been part of a language game of political theory that sought to distinguish between totalitarianism on the one hand and Western democracy on the other. However, Michael Walzer among others has reinterpreted the concept of civil society in order to use it in a critique of liberal politics which transcends the--now largely moribund--limits of the debate between the defenders of politics of Western market economies and those of Soviet- type command socialism. He tells us that the term 'civil society' 'names the space of uncoerced human association and also the set of relational networks . . . that fill this space'. ₅₉

He argues that a civil society, as he defines it, provides a space for those conflictial interactions that are necessary for creating 'the actual ground where all versions of the good are worked out and tested.' ₆₀

Civil society rests upon market, but not necessarily capitalist, relations; it is politically heterogeneous, not homogeneous. Going beyond Walzer, it might be argued that this notion of am ideotypical civil society may also be seen as a 'limit concept'--others are justice, freedom, equality--in that it is used to indicate a goal which, though not achievable, directs human activity; and in this instance, this goal is, as Walzer puts it, the political work of testing versions of the good. It should be noted that this concept of 'civil society' cannot be appropriated for narrow political ends and employed to justify any given society. Nevertheless, some societies approximate to its ideal more than others.

No existing Western state offers a model of an ideotypical civil society; all contemporary capitalist states generate unequal relations within civil society, because of the dynamics of 'free' market economic relations. If a society is to approach the ideal of a civil society, then civil society must be able to use state power to control economic relations; while state power, in turn, must be decentralized and made as accountable as possible. In addition, the ideological homogeneity of national identity should be dissolved in order to allow the heterogeneous creative complexities and conflicts of pluralism to flourish. This pluralism will be rooted in institutions and traditions populaires specific to each culture, and will reflect, as Giddens has argued, the struggles of the powerless to achieve a voice and a participation underpinned by established rights in power structures. ₆₁

Just as it is a mistake to see past or present Western democracies as undistorted and fully developed civil societies, so it is an error to assume that, after Khrushchev, only a very limited form of civil society existed in the Soviet Union. Public political and ideological life was very strictly controlled but there were numerous groups demonstrating 'uncoerced human association'. Gorbachev's introduction of the policy of glasnost did, in some measure, help to create a culture in which expression of public dissent became more acceptable and conflict between different ideological approaches more overt and fully expressed. The previously existing party factions were already well established and covered a wide spectrum of political belief and approaches, but their struggles, pursued in conditions of byzantine manoeuvring from which the general populace and many Communist Party members were largely excluded, were only apparent to those able to follow inner party politics. Those directly challenging the hypocrisies of orthodoxy in the public arena could lose some, or all, of their civic and political rights. Gorbachev's policies allowed the well developed internecine Communist Party strife to transform itself into a public spectrum of differentiated positions, platforms and organizations, most with their own sympathetic media organs and with political constituencies that contained not just sections of the political elites, but also members of the general public. ₆₂ Even now, in spite of the erosion of civic and political rights during the last four years, and the growing public alienation from political controversy, these processes have not yet been reversed in the Federation.

In Russia, contrary to received opinion, a measure of civil society existed even under serfdom: the uneducated masses carried forward their political struggles through forums for discussion and schools for decision-making such as the mir and the artel. The mir was the village seen as a community; even under serfdom it had its structures of decision-making which operated underneath, and to a large extent apart from, the vertical decision making of the feudal lord and his factors. The old Orthodox prayer mir miru, usually translated as 'peace to the world', is better understood as community to the community and arose from a culture committed to the communitarianism of the mir. The other important institution of the people, more fully developed in the nineteenth century, was the artel ('cooperative association of working people'): in the artel, the mir structures were introduced into the cooperative associations of those working people and peasants who had been forced--as happened often--to live in barracks, at a distance from their villages. These barracks were set up, first by feudal masters and then by industrialists. The artel provided the space for the introduction of trade unions. In contrast, the State Duma--the lower house of Parliament--was, until the 1917 revolution, not an institution populaire but a means of limited political expression for the gentry; it did not offer participatory democracy to the masses. The Russian Orthodox Church had mass support, but did not offer any forum for political expression to believers. Instead, it was used as an instrument of state control, although in some localities it did play an important role in the life of the mir.

The Soviet system tried to adapt the mir and the artel: both sent delegates to the people's councils (soviets), which were the organizing base of the 1917 October revolution; ₆₃ later, the mir was transformed, as cooperative farms were established in agriculture (in some areas in the 1930s through forced collectivization); so was the artel, as free trade unions (which had grown out of the artel) were replaced by those controlled by the state. The soviets came to be dominated by the Supreme Soviet, which replaced the Czarist Duma and related councils. The Supreme Soviet had supreme power under the Soviet constitution, but in fact was controlled by the Communist Party. ₆₄ Under Czarism the artel and the mir had existed outside formal vertical power structures; but under Soviet power they were incorporated into such structures, and lost much, though not all, of their character. Now what remains is being redefined in some localities in the spirit of Russian democratic traditions: many of the loci of organized opposition to the present government are to be found in these adaptations of the mir and artel.

Because Soviet experience was not entirely channeled through top down structures, but generated some extensive and resilient horizontal relations, ₆₅ these institutions populaires are, at present, a basis of alternative power. Some of the most important political parties in the Federation--The Congress of Russian Communities, the Agrarian Party of Russia, and the reformed Communist Party of the Russian Federation--appeal to this tradition. The legacy of the artel is found not only in the 'free' trade unions but, perhaps more important, in the organizations of the workplace: in those enterprises that have not been privatized but (under Gorbachev) established workplace democracy; such enterprises may control considerable budgets and have corresponding political weight.

Among the intelligentsia, one the most important struggles for civil society has been, for almost two centuries, that for freedom of expression--glasnost; this is why the intelligentsia was, at first, one of the most committed supporters of Gorbachev's reforms. Glasnost policies have had considerable success, although there has been considerable erosion of associated rights since 1993. But in the aftermath of the attack on the 'White House' Parliament (discussed more fully below) a number of newspapers and political organizations were banned and severe beatings of political oppositionists took place. ₆₆ Since then journalists have been intimidated and, in some instances, assassinated, developments which have led the EU Council to make its commitment to the 'reinforcement of the freedom of the media'. ₆₇ There has been a constant battle over the control of television, with many complaints that it is now too subservient to the government. ₆₈ A system of volunteer informers has been set up. ₆₉

And the Federation has shown its emerging pluralist democracy to be subject to at least the same distortions produced by the inequalities of economic power that are found elsewhere.

Yet it should be recognized that a fairly wide spectrum of political opinion is still expressed through the media (not so much on television); that journalists continue to carry out serious investigative journalism even at risk to their lives (twenty-one were killed between January 1994 and March 1995); ₇₀ and that the range of political parties remains wide, although, as we shall see below, their power is less than those of political parties in the EU states. The political strength of the intelligentsia may be shown by the fact that the reformed communists now have a symbol of an open boo

Among the intelligentsia, one the most important struggles fk, as well as of a hammer (industrial workers) and a sickle (farmers) on their flag.

Support for pluralism, as well as opposition to it, cannot be identified by a simple Left/Right divide. Neo-liberals, such as Yegor Gaidar, support pluralism (although, as we shall see below, they are less committed to full political participatory democracy) and so do the reformed Communists. The authoritarians around Yeltsin, who supported the attack on Parliament in 1993 and the Chechnya war policy, are much less concerned with developing the pluralist project; they have made it clear that in certain circumstances, and if they could muster support in the Army, they would jettison pluralism. Similar positions have been argued both by right-wing nationalists and by some of the extremists on the left.

The present development of pluralism relies on Russian traditions, institutions and approaches. In contrast, the glasnost policies of Gorbachev were not rooted in a positive political assessment and analysis of Russian traditions and institutions, but reflected an abstract ideology based on a universalist rationalism and an ahistorical ethics claiming to embody the values of the Western, Europe in Enlightenment. While many Western political theorists were in the process of moving away from the 'foundationalism' of the Enlightenment to postmodern relativism and postfoundationalism, stressing historicity, uncertainty and irrationalism in politics, Gorbachev and his theorists with moving backwards to the formal, abstract theorizing of Enlightenment rationalism.

This analysis not only failed to recognize the continuing antagonisms between classes, social groups and ideologies within the 'nouveau regime' in the Federation, but also was unable to root itself in the historical specificity of Russia. Its universalism was redolent of the Soviet conviction that the political 'line' should be the same for all communist parties (a position rejected by most of the West European parties at the 1976 Berlin conference of European communist parties). Gorbachev's 'universalism' did concern itself with planetary problems such as the degradation of the environment and the danger of nuclear war; but it was also an appeal from the political elites of the USSR to those of the West: it was am attempt to demonstrate that both should be seen to have common concerns and goals. It is perhaps for these reasons, as well because of the (related) failure to grasp the dynamic of economic processes, that Gorbachev's policies were much more popular outside Russia than within it.

While Gorbachev's politics rested on an artificial universalist rationalism which separated politics from economics, much Western postmodernist relativism engenders a solipsistic epistemology that erodes any form of rationality and therefore all ethical and political projects. Neither of these positions is satisfactory. The first fails to grapple with what is specific to a given culture--with its history, as well as with the importance of political economy; the second does not attempt the process of supersession from the specific. To paraphrase Kant: a rationality which is unrelated to historicity and specificity is empty; an analysis which refuses to recognize the possibility of supersession and movement towards a transcendence of the particular is blind. ₇₁ What is needed is an analysis and a formulation of a project that embody in their theoretical framework extra discursive checks: a recognition of their own specificity and the ways that this might be superseded without being deemed. If a pluralist international society is to develop, then it must allow room for the pursuit of projects that are not only rooted in particular cultures but that are pluralist because they are developed within a framework that recognizes genuine intersubjectivity in which difference and similarity are held in an antinomic relation of unity. ₇₂ This creates a challenge to narrow definitions of pluralism. For example, the hegemonic position which liberals have adopted with regard to the development of pluralist society means that it is difficult for them to acknowledge that, for many, participatory democracy and not individual civic or economic rights are the core of the pluralist project.

Russian pluralism poses an ethical and political challenge to the Western democracies: some of the foremost proponents of pluralism and participatory democracy--such as the Communist Party leader Gemlady Zyuganov and his supporters--are those whose policies reflect the traditions of civil society in Russia; and they oppose to neo-liberalism in the economy and, in particular, the wholescale integration of the energy sector into the international economic system. It may well be that, at a certain point, crucial choices will have to be made by Western states, and by the EU in particular, between support for Russian democracy and support for perceived Western economic interests. The European Union has been concerned, as we have seen, to defend the development of pluralism in the Russian Federation, but it has not recognized the tension that exists between individual rights, particularly those that are economic, and fully developed pluralism and participatory democracy.

The growth of civil society in any state, but particularly in a large and important one, has implications for the international system. Civil societies are open societies: they encourage not only trade (which can occur between closed states) but travel; the exchange of information, ideas, values, approaches and practices; and the creation of networks, movements, and ideologies of an international character. So the development of civil society in an ever growing number of states aids the construction of a complex, democratic and pluralist international society. In analyzing this phenomenon, International Theory is already going beyond categories appropriate for a simple account of an inter-state system. This is necessary, for the sociological study of international society demands the analysis of structures and processes such as those analyzed by the methodological tools of political economy and critical theory, as well as of communication studies and political geography. ₇₃ The creation and maintenance of a more pluralist and open society in the Russian Federation would help transform international society. Not only would Russian social movements have the benefit of contact with other societies and cultures, but other societies would be enriched by Russian traditions, values and practices, particularly by their stress on community. Also, Russians have an understanding of how to operate within a modified civic republicanism, a conceptual system which we discuss below.

Participatory Democracy

In the Russian Federation, as in the rest of Eastern and Central Europe, there is a growing conflict between economic liberalism and participatory democracy. International and national economic elites continue to support the 'free market' and to argue for its extension, but there is a growing public resistance to this programme and a nostalgia for the social rights sacrificed with the ending of the Soviet system. the Russians are discovering, as Western liberals have done, that there remains an insoluble tension between economic and political liberalism and that, as Chantal Mousse has argued, there can be no final closure which eliminates the political. ₇₄ The anti-political stance of free enterprise, referred to by Walzer as being endemic in Eastern Europe, ₇₅ is perceived to be in need of control by the political institutions of a participatory democracy that direct the state apparatus. Without this control, the unequal power relations engendered by a civil society in which free enterprise promotes and safeguards its economic rights regardless of consequences to less powerful groups, will destroy democratic political processes.

Just as the democratic participatory political process should not be conflated with the operation of the market, neither should it be identified exclusively with the state or directed exclusively at state authority; in a pluralist civil society, the participatory political democratic process is complex, multifaceted, many-leveled and heterogeneous. Nevertheless, the role of political elected assemblies with a modicum of control over state power is crucial: societies alleged to be political democracies but which have weak elected assemblies with severely limited constitutional powers; that prevent access to or membership of such assemblies; that have little access to the media and to privileged information: such societies reveal that their commitment to democracy is an empty formality.

Participatory democracy goes beyond pluralism: it requires 'political agency and efficiency', as Passerine D'Entreves argues. ₇₆ Mere symbolic representation is not sufficient, neither is a plethora of civil society associations, for, as Alasdair Maclnlyre points out, unless a citizen is prepared to eliminate that specific political corruption which offers the form but not the content of participatory democracy, it will find that its rights and interests are put at risk. ₇₇ The electoral process--open to a variety of political parties and more or less free of the grosser forms of corrupt interference--is the mechanism whereby, in a democracy, a parliament is established that is able not only to make laws and oversee their implementation, but also to agree budgets and taxes and to establish limits on the exercise of executive power. The lack of a fully developed political democracy, both pluralist and participatory, was one of the more serious criticisms leveled against the Soviet system by its critics. But the present parliamentary system in the Federation, although pluralist, has a number of problems.

Conflict over the Division of Parliamentary and Presidential Powers in the Russian Federation

[D]emocratic institutions are being built up, but these are fragile and the rule of law is uncertain; indeed, a tradition of authoritarian, secretive rule reminiscent of earlier times seems to have gained ground in recent months. The construction of a civil society bas begun but still has far to go as a vital basis for the success of political democracy. ₇₈

In the Federation at present there is a confrontation between a Bonapartist/Caesarist approach, on the one hand, and a commitment to participatory democracy on the other; ₇₉ during the last nine years the Russian Parliament has frequently found itself at odds with the political and economic elites. While the USSR was still in existence Parliament provided a bag for a sustained attack upon the privileges of the Party and the executive, and it was during this period that Yeltsin became chairman of the State Duma. After he was elected President, his attempt to limit the powers of the Parliament by the introduction of the new constitution, together with Parliament's efforts to challenge the 'shock therapy' measures introduced by Gaidar's government (with the backing of the International Monetary Fund, the United States and the member states of the European Community), produced sharp hostility on Yeltsin's pan towards Parliament. This hostility was expressed in the (unconstitutional) presidential decree dissolving Parliament which, when defied by the majority of the deputies, was followed by the blockading, then storming, of the 'White House' by armed troops; the imprisonment of a number of deputies; the blaming of certain newspapers; and a period of brief, but intense, repression. This was followed by the introduction, in 1993, of a new constitution that gave much reduced powers to Parliament and greatly extended powers to the President.

It might, therefore, be useful to explore the extent to which the institutions of participatory democracy--in particular, a vigorous parliamentary system--are, or are not, developing under the new constitution. In doing so, we shall need to clarify what the central features of the constitution are and bow it was introduced. ₈₀

By 1993, the old Parliament was by no means an instrument of one party totalitarianism. It had previously elected Yeltsin as its chairperson before he assumed the Presidency and, as John Pilger has argued, it was neither extremist nor hardline: extremists were represented, but only by small minorities, and the parliamentary deputies had condemned the machinations of the various factions involved in the August 1991 'coup'. Although a multi-party system was not in operation, the deputies had been elected from multi-candidate lists, and clear political trends and factions were evident, both in the electoral hustings and in the later parliamentary proceedings: as became evident later, the basis for a party political system was being established. ₈₁ Parliament was still operating in accordance with the old Soviet constitution that gave it supreme powers; that constitution had been extensively ignored in practice until the reforms implemented during the time of perestroika. Therefore the old Parliament was, after the reforms of glasnost, a fairly adequate instrument of participatory democracy, although there were, as yet, no distinct party groupings.

Within the Federation there was a strong reaction to the decree of President Yeltsin dissolving Parliament: the constitutional court ruled it a violation of the constitution and forty--the great majority--of the Federation's regional councils supported the court's ruling. ₈₂ If the President's decree was judged illegal, so, by implication, was the Prime Minister's cutting off of parliamentary funding, and Defence Minister Gorbachev's use of the Army to blockade and then storm Parliament (Nezavismaya Gazeta, a liberaI newspaper, estimated that up to 1,000 people were killed in this action, including women deputies and catering workers, and their children. ₈₃ )

In addition to the unconstitutional act of dissolving Parliament, a number of other developments weakened pluralism and civil society. Ten newspapers and a number of political parties and social movements were banned, along with the trade unions of the police and military. ₈₄ Parliamentary leaders were imprisoned and 90,000 people were detained under a two-week state of emergency in Moscow, ₈₅ and many supporters of the Parliament were ferociously beaten. Access to the media during the crisis itself was strictly controlled and denied to the parliamentary majority. The President threatened to close TV channels during the ensuing election and referendum campaigns if they criticized the proposed new constitution. ₈₆ During these campaigns, the President suspended the constitutional court and hampered the work of its chairman, Valery Zorkin. ₈₇ It is true that, in response to the blockading of Parliament, Vice President Alexander Rutskoi's call for the occupation of the Ostankino TV station escalated the violence, but this intervention was condemned by many leading deputies including Zyuganov. It should also be remembered that this area, although illegal, was a response to the unconstitutional acts of the President that had initiated the crisis.

The Significance of the New Constitution

The new constitution, the introduction of which was so vigorously resisted by the deputies of the Parliament and so ruthlessly imposed, has been in place for some time and there has been some opportunity for assessing its significance. The President's powers are great: he appoints not only the prime minister but also government ministers, the chairman of the central bank, members of the supreme court and the constitutional court, the prosecutor general, and senior military leaders and diplomats; he also sets the domestic and foreign policy agendas and has the power to declare a state of emergency. In order to pass a law in defiance of the President (other man one relating to the budget) the Parliament must achieve a two-thirds majority in both houses. The state Duma can only pass laws affecting the state budget with the consent of the government appointed by the President: it has no undisputed rights over the state budget and taxation. The lower house can be dissolved by the President against its wishes; if it exercises its right of veto more than twice in three months it is automatically dissolved, except in its first year. However, Parliament has one absolute right, which it has already exercised: the right to give amnesty to prisoners.

The Russian constitution, unlike some others, for example, that of the United States, has very few checks and balances between executive and legislature: the lower house, the Duma, now has about the same powers as that of the 1905 Duma. Repression has continued since the dissolution of the old Parliament; as Gorbachev has put it, 'instead of leading society to reforms, they started to hammer them in. And all this with the aid of truncheons, and the guns of tanks.' ₈₈

Taken as a whole, these developments cannot be described as an extension of democracy, but, rather, as a weakening of democratic processes and organizations and a strengthening of repressive mechanisms. It may be that private representations were made by governments of the European Union to the Russian government expressing concern about the attack on the 'White House' and about the new constitution, but, if so, these views did not percolate into the public domain; indeed, precisely the opposite public impression was given. The EU President-in-Office, R. Urbain, defended the decision to the European Parliament, as did commissioner R. Steichen, during a debate in which, according to The Week, only J. Miranda da Silva of the Left Union regretted the support given to President Yeltsin, denouncing his actions as unconstitutional and as a coup. ₈₉ The new constitution, the dissolution of Parliament and the subsequent repression, and the introduction of the new constitution were all publicly approved by the US administration, member states of the (then) European community, and other Western governments; they believed that under the new proposed new constitution it would be easier to extend the economic reforms and achieve political support for such a programme. The implicit prioritizing of economic reform over democratic process suggests that for Western governments the (capitalist) market, rather than democratically elected organs of political participation, is seen as the basis of democracy.

Problems with the Electoral Process

Although West European observers from the Council of Europe and the European Community approved the conduct of the 1993 state elections, ₉₀ there have been continuing doubts about the validity of the electoral process, controlled as it is at certain levels by presidential appointees. ₉₁ As Wendy Slater of the Radio Free Europe Research Library has suggested in her comments on the result of the plebiscite on the new constitution, which was declared very quickly after the close of polls:

The results of the vote show some surprising discrepancies, leading some observers to suspect foul play.... The new constitution has only the support of a minority of the population, and it is unlikely that its promulgation will resolve Russia's political crisis. ₉₂

The declaration of the plebiscite results showed that 31 per cent of the total electorate supported the new constitution (Wendy Slater estimates this as 52.45 per cent of those who cast their votes). ₉₃ The result of this vote was announced surprisingly quickly--within two hours--in contrast to the week's delay in declaring the results of the parliamentary elections, which had been held on the same day. However, it may well be that, as hoped, the EU's Democracy Programme will have a beneficial input into this situation: 55 60 per cent of its budget will be spent in the Federation. ₉₄

Other Aspects of Participatory Democracy in Operation

In future, the relative strength of the democratic process in the Russian Federation, and the commitment to it of other states (including those of the European Union) may well be assessed by the response to the possible election of a President who prioritizes the defence of the living standards of the masses of the population over marketization processes, and state control of the energy sector over the integration of the Russian economy into the international economic system. The EU response to the recent parliamentary elections has been encouraging in that the results have been accepted, albeit with regret. However, as the President holds executive power, elections for this post are much more crucial, as will be the EU reaction to the possible election of a leftist president. The European Commission's The European Union and Russia admits that

it is difficult to define with confidence the European Union's medium-term strategy towards this country. An important factor will be the identity and persuasion of Russia's government and president after the next elections. ₉₅

At regional and local level in the Federation, there are tensions arising out of the relations between the elected assemblies and the regional governors appointed by Moscow: these governors form an oligarchic structure above the democratic process and, as such, weaken participatory democracy at local level. This is a particularly serious problem in the resource- rich areas of Russian Asia and the Far North: it is with these appointees that foreign entrepreneurs usually deal, especially in the highly lucrative energy sectors of oil and gas, and the deals they strike are not subject to control by the local assemblies. These confrontations between regional governors appointed by central government on the one hand, and elected regional and local assemblies on &e other, lead, on occasions, to a weakening of state power and are a potential threat to the integrity of the state. The European Union and Russia argues that there are 'many competing centres of power' ₉₆ and, because it believes that tensions will remain, it calls for the development of dialogue with political leaders and institutions in the regions. This may indicate where the EU's own developing structures are influencing the Commission's approach to foreign policy.

To pursue a foreign policy objective of encouraging participatory democracy in another state has some important implications for international relations, for it may run counter to other foreign policy objectives: the economic activities of outsiders, including EU firms, may be impeded if a democratically elected Parliament and President do not recognize that these activities are in their state's interests. This, in turn, may lead to EU capital being denied access to important energy sectors, or in the export of profits being made more difficult, or in the introduction of protectionist measures denying access to EU imports. Within the Russian Federation, what there is of participatory democracy has already forced Gaidar, then Kozyrev, out of the government, weakened Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, and slowed down economic reforms. Further protectionist regulation of important sectors of the economy is probable. Commitment to participatory democracy in the Federation may have additional consequences, for example for security policy: popular Russian concerns about NATO expansion have not been met and these views are well represented in the present Parliament.

Participatory political democracy gives legitimacy to government. It helps to create a more stable international framework for international law; it also underpins pluralism and other processes which deepen and extend international society; and--in a key state in the international system--it strengthens democracy throughout the system. Within the state itself the democratic process encourages the domestic population to create political and culturalcommunitiess and not to migrate, which has a beneficial influence on those neighbouring states that would receive migrants, and it also helps to deal with internal conflict in ways more generally protective of human rights.

Citizenship

The citizenship of the Soviet Union rested upon acceptance of a set of common goals: it was a citizenship of universitas rather than societas, to use Oakeshott's distinction. ₉₇ ' Those who publicly rejected these goals were in danger of losing civic rights; in so far as it was devoted to a perceived, substantive public good, it can be regarded as having been a form of civic republicanism. ₉₈ However, it became apparent by the late 1970s that there was a great deal of private alienation among both elite and other groups from the publicly acknowledged perceived substantive good and, therefore, considerable public hypocrisy.

Because this perceived good--the preservation and deepening of Soviet socialism--transcended national and ethnic divisions, the state was, strictly speaking, not a nation state, but a federal system comprising many national and ethnic groups. With the collapse of the Soviet system and the Soviet Union, a crisis of political identity and uncertainty developed about the basis of citizenship within the Russian Federation, perhaps not as severe as at first anticipated, but nevertheless undermining social and political cohesion. This dilemma about the uncertainty of civic identity confronts modern democracies openly, as Claude Lefort rightly suggests. ₉₉ However, in forms of society based on assumptions of civic republicanism, this uncertainty is masked. Uncertainty is no longer hidden in the Russian Federation and pluralism is gradually but firmly establishing itself, but there are many who wish to see a modified version of civic republicanism become once more the foundation of citizenship.

In so far as political liberalism is seen as the assertion of individual rights, tout court, and is perceived as closely allied with economic liberalism, then, as Chantal Mousse believes, it is difficult to use it to provide those 'rules' of the 'grammar' of political conduct essential to democratic social relations. ₁₀₀ By contrast, there are some interesting attempts underway in the Russian Federation to modify the former civic republicanism so that it can co-exist with pluralism. This project is not necessarily doomed to failure, if one accepts Quentin Skinner's argument that it is possible to have forms of civic republicanism that are consonant with democratic liberty, namely, if the pursuit of the 'public good' is seen as a necessary condition for a defence of individual rights. ₁₀₁ One might add that the defence of individual liberties should be seen as a necessary condition for the achievement of certain types of public good such as pluralism, civil society, free expression, and so on.

At the moment, the dilemma of uncertain political identity expresses itself in the Federation as a complex, multi-faceted confrontation between those who wish to preserve an amalgam of pluralism with a form of civic republicanism guaranteeing social rights: who define citizenship in terms of a political and not a national community, that is, a federal community containing many ethnic groups but with some common political values including pluralism; those who see Slav identity as the basis of citizenship: they see the citizen as subject, not citoyen, and pluralism as less important than social cohesion and a strong central government; and those who marry political liberalism with economic liberalism and have a 'weak' nationalist position on citizenship: they see citizenship as mainly defined in terms of individual economic and political rights.

Political parties in the Russian Federation have adopted policies which reveal clear theoretical differences on the question of citizenship. ₁₀₂ First, on the question of nationalism, there are a number of more or less pro-government parties that support a qualified nationalist position and regard this as the basis for citizenship seen as that of the subject, not the citoyen; they have mostly supported military action in Chechnya. They include Our Home is Russia (OHR), the largest pro-government party, the leader of which is Prime Minister Chernomyrdin (though the party is somewhat unhappy about the Chechnya policy); the Party of Russian Unity and Accord (leader, Sergey Shakrai); Forward Russia (Boris Federov); Russian Way (Sergey Baburin); and, perhaps most significant, the Military Independent Group (MIG) organized by Pavel Grachev, the minister of defence, who ordered 123 serving officers, including 23 generals, to stand as 'territorial' candidates in the 1995 parliamentary elections. ₁₀₃ Ivan Rybkin's Centre Bloc is also close in a number of its positions to this grouping. The Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR), of which Vladimir Zhirinovsky is the leader, votes with the government on many issues and is notorious for extreme and authoritarian nationalism, but is now much less influential than it was (it is possible, however, that an extreme nationalist might attract wider public support from the right in a presidential contest with a left candidate).

In contrast, there are some parties that are nationalist but have a citoyen view of citizenship and on these grounds are in greater or lesser opposition to the economic, foreign and internal policies of the present government. These include My Fatherland (leader, Boris Gromov), and The Congress of Russian Communities (CRC) bloc, (Yuriy Skokov, Alexander Lebed and Sergey Glaziev: General Lebed supports ethnic Russians living in the 'near abroad' but neither he nor the CRC have a narrowly Russian nationalist position, as demonstrated by their backing of the formation of the Alliance of Union of Peoples of Russia).

Those supporting economic liberalism have different views on citizenship and political identity. The pro-government parties listed above, including the LDPR, support economic neo-liberalism but with major concessions to national elite interests; they have not been prepared to move forward with any speed on laws on contract and so forth, nor on support for the development of small or medium-sized enterprises, and appear to be encouraging a form of elite monopolization of some of the wealth producing sectors, for example, gas (Gazprom and Gazexport). As is frequently the case with somewhat authoritarian pro- marketeers committed to monopolies in some sectors, they combine united economic liberalism with an appeal to a 'subject' approach to nationalism. In contrast, economic liberals such as those in the main party supporting economic liberalism, Democratic Choice of Russia (DCR), led by Yegor Gaidar, wish to proceed much faster with both economic reforms and integration into the international economic system; they tend to work with the government on a number of economic issues, but criticize it for not being vigorously enough committed to the free market. DCR sees citizenship primarily in terms of individual economic and political rights and the promulgation of appropriate laws defending these.

Centre-left anti-government parties, chief among them the reformed Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF), the leader of which is Gennady Zyugamov; ₁₀₄ the CRC; the Agrarian Party of Russia (APR) (Mikhail Lapshin); and the centrist Yabloko (Grigory Yavlinsky), see citizenship as resting not only on individual political and economic rights and pluralism, but also on social rights and full participatory democracy. The CRC has a rather more centrist-nationalist position than the others, and Yabloko a centrist-liberal one. The APR, supported by the CPRF, wishes to restore collective economic rights in agriculture (cooperative farms) and they both want the state to exercise more control or ownership over strategic industries, such as those in the energy sector, while retaining some private ownership of small and medium firms. One of their most important priorities is the restoration and preservation of social rights eroded during the economic collapse. Their common position is one of modified civic republicanism.

Support for the concept of citizen as citoyen is expressed most clearly by those who uphold Parliament's prerogatives and a strong participatory democracy; of citizen as subject by those who support a strong presidency. However, some of those who support a strong Parliament may have a change of heart if their candidate is elected as President.... Al. of the pro-government parties, especially the LDPR, have a weak position on pluralism and civil society, and are particularly lukewarm on participatory democracy. For example, Our Home is Russia's electoral platform states that 'we are for an efficient government responsible to parliament but free of its petty tutelage'. ₁₀₅

The main party of the economic liberals, Democratic Choice of Russia, supports political liberalism and civil society, as demonstrated by its opposition to the Chechnya war, but only within certain limits, as shown by its backing for President Yeltsin's attack upon the old Parliament. The CPRF, APR, Yabloko and CRC have firmly committed themselves to pluralism ₁₀₆ and are opposed to the use of the military within Russia, especially against civilians; the MIG and the LDPR, on the other hand, are prepared to use the armed forces against citizens. Gemady Zyugamov, in am important television interview, asserted that, if elected, there would be democratic elections in 2000; that there must be a law for the protection of Parliament, arguing that 'the country cannot develop without competition between parties', and that 'it is not possible to hold the country down by military means'. ₁₀₇ He has also committed himself to strengthening freedom of speech. ₁₀₈ The government party--OHR--however, has expressed important reservations about the President's policies with regard to the war in Chechnya. ₁₀₉ The use of force against Russian citizens is also opposed, not only by the groups indicated above, but also by some important associations with links to the military, including The Union of Patriots and the All Russian Assembly of Patriotic Officers. The resistance of many sections of the Army to a view of the citizen as simply the subject of the state, and subject to its physical force, encourages a view of citizenship that is au citoyen, pluralist, and not narrowly nationalistic.

A number of parties and groups are urging support for a democratic and accountable federalist structure. In the centre, the Yabloko bloc has argued for what in the EU would be called the principle of subsidiarity to be applied to the regions of Russia; while on the left and centre-left the CPRF, the APR, and the CRC have argued that properly democratic, federalist structures within the Federation would lay the basis for the reintegration of former USSR regions and states. They strongly support local democracy, as they have strong roots in the regions, and therefore see citizenship as based on a geographical as well as political pluralism, multi-layered, with rights and responsibilities at federal, state and local level.

Debates about citizenship are important to IR theory in that they help to clarify the issues relating to decisions on political identity, not only in the state, but also in the international system. A definition of citizenship in narrow ethnic, nationalist, religious or political terms, may create antagonisms with those countries that have links with minorities, and may result in mass migration and the creation of refugees.

A wider definition of citizenship, in terms of a federal, pluralist structure for example, can help a state remain united and prevent a centrifugal dynamic from creating a plethora of small quasi-states. Such quasi-states may not only be destabilizing factors for their parent state, but also for neighbouring states. Much of the instability of central Europe in the interwar period arose from the narrow citizenship definitions upon which the newly formed states were based; the nationalist ideology which underpinned most of them; the displaced minorities that were created; and the antagonisms that was in turn generated. If a wider and more inclusive concept of citizenship is used, then it is much easier to maintain, strengthen and extend pluralist structures, and to deepen forms of international integration (as we see in the European Union).

The Rule of Law and Human Rights

The concept of 'human rights' is deeply contested; some would affirm the primacy of civic rights over social and economic claims, others the exact opposite by linking human rights with the achievement of conditions for personal survival. There are also continuing debates about the role of the state in the introduction and upholding of rights and the extent to which this role may be transformed by the promulgation of international law on human rights. ₁₁₀

Human rights debates were crucial to political polemic during the Cold War; ₁₁₁ the Helsinki Final Act provisions proved a watershed, but, before the Cold War, international concern for human rights had already been recognized by Article 2(7) of the UN Charter, which pointed to a world order in which states alone do not define human rights and where the latter are seen as of crucial importance in the building of international society.

A narrow definition of rights is used in this section: we shall confine our discussion now to those rights which safeguard the liberty and life of the citizen against the coercive power of the state.

Implications of the Conflict in Chechnya for Human Rights in the Russian Federation

The conflict in Chechnya has raised some substantial issues about the use of the coercive power of the state vis-a-vis its citizens, producing considerable controversy within the Federation and some serious heart searching in the EU and the Council of Europe, particularly about Russia's accession to the latter. ₁₁₂ Popular resistance to the war policy has centred on the following questions: the use of the Army in am internal conflict against citizens; alleged human rights abuses against Chechen and Russian civilians in Chechnya by indiscriminate bombings and other acts of war, such as looting; hum;m rights abuses against Chechen prisoners; and the deployment of conscripts on active service. The Secretary of the Security Council, Oleg Lobov, has admitted that there have been human rights abuses in Chechnya. ₁₁₃

The fragility of citizenship rights experienced by both Chechen and Russian civilians in Chechnya has demonstrated that a citoyen citizenship guaranteeing important civic rights is still not entrenched in the Russian Federation. The earlier resort to covert violence against the leftist regional administration in Chechnya by the Gaidar government, and the later overt violence against its secessionist successor by President Yeltsin, has weakened the rule of law and given a certain respectability to arbitrary government and its implicit assumption that citizenship rights are privileges accorded by central authority; this is a concept typical of Czarist, not to mention Stalinist, political ideology and is employed within a theoretical framework in which the citizen is seen primarily as subject, not citoyen.

President Yeltsin and Defence Minister Grachev have been charged by human rights activists and members of the opposition with adopting a war policy in Chechnya in order to create a sense of national unity in a society divided and fragmented by economic reforms; to help win acceptance for a more authoritarian form of government; to distract the population from the serious murder and corruption scandals centred on personnel of the Western Group Forces; and to keep control over the distribution and refining of oil (from Kazakhstan as well as Russia) rather than allowing it to be channelled by Dzhokar Dudayev to Turkish based and Western-owned refineries.

It is significant that the LDPR leadership was among the principal and most vociferous supporters of the President's policies in Chechnya, and that it was rewarded by Grachev's promoting Zhirinovsky from captain to lieutenant colonel of the reserve. ₁₁₄ However, Zhirinovsky now recognizes that his party has lost much support for this backing of the Chechnya war and so has clearly committed itself to a fascist strategy of extra-parliamentary violence: 'If the LDPR cannot win the future parliamentary elections, we will pin our lost hopes on the armed forces and we will all put on military uniform.' ₁₁₅ President Yeltsin has also supported the formation of a 'Military Brotherhood', coordinated by his own personal administration, which would be used instead of the Army, and perhaps against it, to carry out the President's policy. ₁₁₆

Popular Responses in the Russian Federation to the War in Chechnya

The war in Chechnya, in provoking a wide and well organized opposition, has demonstrated that Russian civil society is capable of giving room to strong, but peaceful, resistance to government policy. The expression of disaffection in the Army has been crucial: the government was not able to unite the Army behind its position and this may have been one of the reasons for its early use of conscripts rather than professional soldiers. ₁₁₇ Senior military men have made common cause with civilian opponents of the war: first, deputy defence ministers Generals Gromov, Mirinov, and Polyakov dissociated themselves from the government and were dismissed; then the deputy commander of land forces, General Vorobyov, distanced himself from the policies of Defence Minister Grachev and President Yeltsin and was also dismissed. ₁₁₈ General Babichev, on the field in Chechnya, made clear his dislike of attacks on civilians; ₁₁₉ General Polyakov objected to the use of paid mercenaries, ₁₂₀ while General Lebed, the popular commander of the 14th Army, since forced into retirement, attacked the whole conduct and aims of the war and feared that Russia was 'approaching dictatorship'. ₁₂₁ It seems that the deep uneasiness in the Army about the corruption scandals in the Western Group of Forces has been reinforced by opposition to the perceived arbitrary nature of the war and the corrupting effect on the Army of attacking civilians. In addition, The All Russian Assembly of Patriotic Officers held a meeting denouncing both the war and the economic reforms: one of its leaders, General Varennikov, ₁₂₂ demanded that the Army not be used in any internal conflicts: a fairly clearly coded denunciation of the storming of the White House as well as of the Chechen war. ₁₂₃ All in all, senior military leaders of many different political affiliations have had no compunction about publicly allying themselves with the political opposition: President Yeltsin's advisors in Moscow, or elsewhere, are wrong to think, if they do, that a transition to full authoritarian government could be made smoothly, and with an acquiescent Army.

Other important opponents of the war policy, most of whom had hitherto supported President Yeltsin, were former dissidents and human rights activists. These included Sergey Kovalev, the President's Human Rights Commissioner (awarded the 1995 Human Rights Prize of the Council of Europe), who was dismissed for publicly opposing the Chechnya policy; ₁₂₄ and Yelena Bonmer, who resigned from the Human Rights Commission in response to it. ₁₂₅ Alexander Solzhenitsyn also attacked presidential policies. ₁₂₆ The movement, The Soldiers' Mothers, showed a considerable practical talent for mobilizing grassroots support by going directly to the field of conflict and subverting young conscripts. Religious leaders, Orthodox and Muslim, condemned the government's policies and called for peace, as did some of the leaders of the autonomous regions. ₁₂₇

Of the political parties, the right-wing Russia's Choice (Gaidar) and the Democratic Union (Borisov) found themselves in the same camp as the Communists and other leftist parties, although for rather different reasons. ₁₂₈ The Russian Communist Party began to collect signatures for the President's impeachment, ₁₂₉ while Yavlinsky's Yabloko grouping called for the President's resignation. ₁₃₀ Even Our Home is Russia distanced itself later from the President's policies, and during the campaign itself a presidential aide, L. Smirnyazin, made clear the ambiguities of the situation:

While Russian troops fight for the Federation's integrity in Chechnya, relations between the centre and Russia's components are landsliding to chaos behind their backs, without any Dudayev. ₁₃₁

According to a poll conducted by the Russian Centre for Sociological Studies, 75 per cent of the electorate were opposed to the war. ₁₃₂ The Federal Council began moves to try to limit presidential control over the Army, ₁₃₃ and the State Duma, with only one against and one abstention, passed a law banning the use of the Army in Chechnya. ₁₃₄ The judiciary also signalled its displeasure, with Justice Minister Y. Kalmykov resigning. ₁₃₅

The Attitude of the European Union to Humn Rights Issues in Chechnya

The Russian Federation joined the Council of Europe, signed the European Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms on 28 February 1996, and became the Council's thirty-month member; the EU Council had given full support to this policy. Although the European Parliament had been very unhappy about the Chechnya war policy, the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly voted in favour of Russian membership on 25 January 1996 (164 for, 35 against, 3 abstentions). This was greeted with mixed feelings by some of the

Russian human rights activists that had been, in 1993, some of the President's firmest supporters. Before the vote, Sergey Kovalev had wanted restrictions placed upon Russia. ₁₃₆ Also, the Federation Human Rights Commission reported to the President, after the Parliamentary Assembly's vote, that the human rights situation in Russia was 'extremely unsatisfactory' and asserted that fascist ideas were being spread freely in the country; that there was an increased militarization of society; a lack of transparency; and restricted freedom of speech. ₁₃₇ However, Gennady Zyuganov, President Yeltsin's main opponent in the forthcoming presidential elections, had urged the Council of Europe's parliamentarians to accept Russia because 'Russia is a legitimate child of Europe' and 'the acceptance of Russia into the Council of Europe will be a good prerequisite for these elections and will oblige executive power in Russia to follow general European standards'. ₁₃₈

Conclusions

Where there are severe, structural inequalities in access to economic power, civil society is not able to produce forms of political democracy that are fully efficient. Therefore, any marked increase in socio-economic differentiation within a society lessens democracy, unless the institutions of participatory democracy are able to remedy this. If demand for democratization is defined merely in terms of the introduction of capitalist marketization and/or elite monopolization of individual economic rights with an accompanying rise in socio- economic differentiation, it may run counter to demands for fuller political and social democracy. This contradiction is reinforced as citizens lose social rights, economic (collective) rights and experience a fall in living standards. The institutions of participatory democracy may then find themselves on a collision course with those introducing or defending marketization/monopolization.

That process began in the Russian Federation with the suspension of and the attack on the old Parliament (which, as we argued above, was pluralist and not just a nest of 'hardliners'), and is being expressed at the moment in the tension between the Duma and the President. The European Union--Council, Commission and Parliament--made a decision to support Yeltsin's political and economic strategy because it was regarded as a means to promote economic reforms and marketization. The presidential elections of 1996 may present the EU with a crucial choice.

Participatory democracy is the keystone of political democratic construction: without h democracy is a fragile and uncertain edifice giving no shelter to civil society. Accession to the EU has therefore always had as an essential pre-condition the achievement of participatory democracy. Therefore, if EU policy-makers are not to weaken the political structure of the EU itself, EU policies on democratization in the Federation should support the strengthening and extension of participatory democracy in the Federation together with a system of checks and balances between presidential and parliamentary power, and centre and regions. ₁₃₉

Political participation is the keystone of the democratic structure, and human rights protection its foundation. Human Rights Commissioner Kovalev's criticisms of human rights violations in Chechnya made clear that the situation in the Federation is far from satisfactory. However, we should not forget the wide public opposition to the war policy in Chechnya, including from sections of the Army. Pluralism within the military remains one of the best safeguards against the use of arbitrary power against civilians. The decision to admit Russia to membership of the Council of Europe is controversial but may be justified on the grounds that admission may put more pressure on the Russian authorities to act in accordance with the European Convention on Human Rights.

If the European Union is to support democratic development in the Russian Federation then it needs to recognize that the cultural and historical roots of civil association there will tend to support communitarian socialism. We in Western Europe should not expect the associations of civil society in the Federation to be identical to ours in form or ideology. The differences that exist between civil society in, say, Italy and Sweden, are within the EU; between the EU and the Federation they are considerably greater, though not incompatible. Uncoerced human association arises in ways that are in some respects peculiar to each society; history, ideology, geography and the economy all influence the development of civil society. Therefore international society, as it develops, must become profoundly, and not superficially, pluralist, if it is to be truly democratic and not simply the product of an imposition of a 'Western' model.

In both the EU and the Russian Federation efforts are now being made to create a new kind of citizenship not based on nationalism, ethnicity or ideology. Both the EU and the Federation contain a plethora of nationalities, ethnic communities and ideologies. If both are to avoid disintegration and internal conflict it is essential that a form of citizenship develops which is rooted in a polincal community that is pluralist, democratic and open. However, the modified civic republicanism of emerging social democracy in the Federation shows that individualist libertarianism is by no means the only model of political life applicable to a pluralist society. Indeed, in the EU, the safeguarding of social rights by the Social Chapter of the Treaty on European Union has been seen by fourteen out of the fifteen EU members as necessary for the development of social cohesion, pluralism and participatory democracy. In the Russian Federation there are also those who argue that the provision of social safety nets for the old, the sick, the unemployed and disabled are vital if democracy is to be maintained. If a narrow democratic programme based on individual economic rights is seen to exclude social rights, and is set in opposition to a modified form of civic republicanism that would defend such rights, then it is democracy itself that is gravely weakened.

The support given by the EU to the development, within the Federation, of a democracy which is pluralist, participatory, based upon democratic citizenship and social rights, is support given to the construction of a European civil society: a democratic Europe which eschews nationalism, ethnic hatred, arbitrary government, elite monopolization of economic resources, and the pauperization of vulnerable groups. Such a Europe is not built by allowing ourselves to be governed by the shibboleths of past conflicts, but rather by being faithful to common values in whatever form they may be expressed.

Note 1: I For example, the investigation by Kholodov of corruption in the Western Group of Forces. His assassination was followed by an enormous protest demonstration in Moscow. See the BBC's Summary of World Broadcasting 1, (SWBI), 14-20 October 1994, edited reports. Back.

Note 2: 2 See B. Kagarlitsky, 'Russian Trade Unions', in Labor Focus on Eastern Europe 49/1994. Back.

Note 3: For a discussion of antinomic process theory see I. Brennan, 'The Concept of the Antinomic Process and its Relevance for Integration Theory', in F. R. Pfetsch (ed.), International Relations and Pan-Europe (Munster: LIT Verlag, 1993). An antinomic process is one in which organic unity is defined in terms of polarized relations. Back.

Note 4: We find Hannah Arendt's distinction between economics, as the realm of necessity, and politics, as the realm of freedom, unconvincing. We prefer the definition of freedom as the recognition, and then supersession of, necessity; and of politics as the realm of the possible, but the possible conceived of as emancipatory. Back.

Note 5: See R. W. Cox, Production, Power and World Order (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987); S. Gill (ed.), Gramsci, Historical Materialism and International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993); S. Strange, States and Markes (London: Pinter, 1988). Back.

Note 6: See D. Held, Democracy and the Global Order: From Modern State to Cosmopolitan Governance (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995). Back.

Note 7: For an example of this approach see F. S. Northedge, The International Political System (London: Faber and Faber, 1976). Back.

Note 8: See R. O. Keohane & J.S. Nye (eds), Transnational Relations and World Politics (Harvard University Press, 1972). Back.

Note 9: For political economy, see S. Strange, States and Markets. Back.

Note 10: For Marxist structuralists, see: R. W. Cox, Production, Power and World Order S. Gill (ed.), Gramsci, Historical Materialism and International Relations; I. Wallerstein, The Capitalist World Economy (London: Cambridge University Press, 1979). For realist structuralists, see: K. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, Mass: Addison- Wesley, 1979); B. Buzan, C. Jones and R. Little, The Logic of Anarchy: Neo-Realism to Structural Realism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993). Back.

Note 11: See D. Held, Democracy and the Global Order. Back.

Note 12: Strategy on EU-Russia Relations--Council Conclusions, report of the 1883rd meeting of the Council of the European Union, 20-21 November 1995, issued by the General Secretariat of the Council of the EU, 11716/95 (Presse 328-G), pp 8-10. Back.

Note 13: The European Union and Russia: The Future Relationship, Communication from the European Commission Brussels, 31.05.1995, COM(95) 223 final Back.

Note 14: J. M. C. Rollo et al, The New Eastern Europe: Western Responses (London: RlIA/Pinter, 1990). Back.

Note 15: For example, South Korea, Indonesia, the Gulf States, and Chile under Pinochet. Back.

Note 16: On the other hand, it is possible to envisage societies that are not capitalist market economies but are participatory political democracies. See A. Nove, The Economics of Feasible Socialism (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1983). Back.

Note 17: See R. Cohen, 'Pacific Unions: A reappraisal of the theory that "democracies do not go to war with one another"', in Review of International Studies, Vol. 20, no. 3., 1994, and the discussion between R. Cohen, B. Russett and J. L. Ray in Review of International Studies, Vol. 21, no.3, 1995. Back.

Note 18: See Held, Democracy and the Global Order, p. 248. The problems of India usefully illustrate this phenomenon. Back.

Note 19: See footnote 12. Back.

Note 20: See footnote 13. Back.

Note 21: Strategy on EU-Russia Relations, p. 8. Back.

Note 22: Ibid., p. 8. Back.

Note 23: European Union and Russia, p. 15. Back.

Note 24: Strategy on EU-Russia Relations, p. 12. Back.

Note 25: Strategy on EU-Russia Relations, p. 8. Back.

Note 26: The European Union and Russia, p. 15. Back.

Note 27: Strategy on EU-Russia Relations, p. 9. Back.

Note 28: This may well put further strains on the cohesion of the Federation as regional authorities make their own deals with external agencies. See below, pp. 17 & 38. Back.

Note 29: I am indebted to Anna Matveeva for this insight. Back.

Note 30: The Idea of Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 255. a href="#txt30"> Back.

Note 31: R. Hardin, 'Public Choice v. Democracy', ibid., p. 170. Back.

Note 32: See J. Hyland, Democratic Theory (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995) p. 220. Back.

Note 33: T. Christiano, 'Social Choice and Democracy', in D. Copp et al (eds), The Idea of Democracy. Back.

Note 34: M. Walzer, 'The Civil Society Argument', in C. Mouffe (ed.), Dimensions of Radical Democracy (London: Verso, 1992), p. 89. Back.

Note 35: See M. Buckley, Redefining Russian Society and Polity (Boulder: Westview, 1993) chapter one, 'Reactions to Perestroika, pp. 17-43. Back.

Note 36: Ibid, pp. 20-24. Back.

Note 37: Russian State Statistics Committee, Interfax News Agency, 26.9.95, ref. SWBI 29.9.95. Back.

Note 38: The statistics used in this analysis are drawn from the Russian State Statistics Committee and from figures released by various Russian ministries. The latter are employed with some caution because of the intense competition between ministries for ever declining resources. Nevertheless, they are largely corroborated by international estimates. Back.

Note 39: a) RIA News Agency, ref. SWBI, 20.6.94; b) The Guardian, S February 1996. Back.

Note 40: A. Nazachuk, Minister of Food and Agriculture, Interfax, 19.2.95, ref. SWBI, 24.2.95. Back.

Note 41: Then Minister of Agriculture Khylstun described these imports as a 'bomb under the peasant' and the ruin of Russian agriculture: Selskaya Zhizn, 31.3.94, ref. SWBI, 16.9.94. Back.

Note 42: v Back.

Note 43: Interfax, 5.7.95, ref. SWBI, 6.7.95. Back.

Note 44: Interfax, 30.4.95, ref. SWBI, 5. 5.95. Back.

Note 45: L Albalkin, Director of Russian Academy of Sciences, Itar-Tass, 15.6.95, ref. SWBI, 17.6.95. Back.

Note 46: Ivan Rybkin, then chairman of the State Duma, Russia TV, 3.5.95, ref. SWBI, 5 .5 .95. Back.

Note 47: Rossiyskaya Gaeta, 28.9.94, ref. SWBI, 7.10.94. Back.

Note 48: Economics News Agency 1.12.95, ref. SWBl, 8.12.95. Back.

Note 49: Itar-Tass News Agency, 13.4.94, ref. SWBl, 16.4.94. Back.

Note 50: N. Lagutin, Head of People's Income and Expenditure Department, Russian Economics Ministry, Interfax, 27.6.95, ref. SWBl, 30.6.95. Back.

Note 51: Rossiyskaya Vesti, 4.5.95, SWBl, 12.5.95. Back.

Note 52: Interfax News Agency, 8.10.95, ref. SWBl, 13.10.95. Back.

Note 53: Itar-Tass News Agency, 12.1.96, ref. SWBl, 19.1.96. Back.

Note 54: R. Medvedev, interview with M. Brennan, in Crisis in Russia (Birmingham: Committee for the Defence of Democracy and Civil Liberties in Russia, January 1995), p. 9. Back.

Note 55: Strategy on EU-Russia Relations, p. 8. Back.

Note 56: The European Union and Russia, p. 4. Back.

Note 57: See M. Oakeshott, On Human Conduct (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975). Back.

Note 58: See H. Arendt, The Human Condition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1958). See footnote 15. Back.

Note 59: M. Walzer, 'The Civil Society Argument', in C. Mouffe (ed.), Dimensions of Radical Democracy, p. 89. Back.

Note 60: Ibid., p. 98. Back.

Note 61: See A. Giddens, Profiles and Critiques in Social Theory, (London: Macmillan, 1992). Back.

Note 62: For an interesting analysis of this phenomenon see M. Buckley, Redefining Russian Society and Polity. Back.

Note 63: 'All Power to the Soviets!' was a slogan about political democracy. Back.

Note 64: We explore the nature of the contemporary Duma below. Back.

Note 65: See J. Cooper, 'Building Capitalism: Transformation and Conversion in Post-Soviet Russia', Inaugural professorial lecture, University of Birmingham, 21 January 1994, p. 27. Back.

Note 66: See M. Bremlan, The Attack on Parliament (Birmingham: The Committee for Democracy and Civil Liberties in Russia, 1993). Back.

Note 67: Strategy on EU-Russia Relations. Back.

Note 68: RIA News Agency, 10.11.94, ref., SWBI, 12.11.94. Back.

Note 69: This system re-activates a form of social control used under Stalinism, in which citizens were urged to inform against others: not only against criminals, but also political dissidents. See RIA News Agency, 28.8.95, ref SWBI 29.8.95. Back.

Note 70: Report by T. Ivanova for ITAR-TASS News Agency, 3.5.95, ref. SWBI, 4.5.95. Back.

Note 71: 'Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind': I. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. N. Kemp Smith (London: Macmillan/St Martin's Press, 1970), p. 93. Back.

Note 72: See footnote 3. Back.

Note 73: See D. Held, Democracy and the Global Order, as an example of this type of analysis Back.

Note 74: C. Mouffe (ed.), Dimensions of Radical Democracy: Pluralism, Citizenship, Community, 2nd ed. (London: Verso, 1995).

Note 75: M. Walzer, 'The Civil Society Argument', in ibid., p. 103. Back.

Note 76: Ibid., p. 164. Back.

Note 77: A. Maclntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, 2nd ed. (London: Duckworth, 1985), p. 222. Back.

Note 78: European Commission, The European Union and Russia, p. 2. Back.

Note 79: For a discussion of Caesarism and Bonapartism see R. W. Cox, 'Gramsci, Hegemony and International Relations' in S. Gill (ed.), Gramsci, Historical Materialism and International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). Back.

Note 80: See Wendy Slater, 'Russia: the Return of Authoritarian Government?', in RFE/RL Research Report '1993--A Year in Review ', Vol. 3, no. 1, 7 January 1994; and M. Brennan, The Attack on Parliament. Back.

Note 81: J. Pilger, The New Statesman, 8.10.93. Back.

Note 82: M. Brennan, The Attack on Parliament, p. 16. Back.

Note 83: Ibid, p. 5. Back.

Note 84: F. Weir, The Morning Star, 18 October 1993. Back.

Note 85: See Wendy Slater, 'Russia: the Return of Authoritarian Government?'. Back.

Note 86: Ibid. Back.

Note 87: J Pilger, The New Statesman. Back.

Note 88: Itar-Tass News Agency, 11.11.94, ref. SWBI, 14.11.94. Back.

Note 89: The Week, 29/30 September 1993. (The Week is issued by the European parliament.) Back.

Note 90: Ibid, 16 December 1993. Back.

Note 91: The Guardian, 27 July 1995. Back.

Note 92: Wendy Slater, 'Russia's Plebiscite for a New Constitution', in RFE/RL Research Report '1993--A Year in Review ', Vol. 3, no. 3, 21 January 1994, p. I. Back.

Note 93: Ibid., p. I. Back.

Note 94: European Commission, The European Union and Russia, p. 10. Back.

Note 95: Ibid, p. 5. Back.

Note 96: Ibid, p. 3. Back.

Note 97: M. Oakeshott, On Human Conduct. Back.

Note 98: Such civic republicanism has been described by Isaiah Berlin, in Two Concepts of Liberty, as inimical to democracy. Back.

Note 99: See Claude Lefort, Democracy and Political Theory (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1988). Back.

Note 100: Mouffe, The Return of the Political (London: Verso 1993), p. 72. Back.

Note 101: Q. Skinner, 'On Justice, the Common Good and Liberty', in Mouffe (ed.), Dimensions of Radical Democracy, pp. 211-223. Back.

Note 102: For an interesting analysis of the various parties' positions, see M. Bremlan, Elections in Russia 1995 (Birmingham: Committee for Democracy and Civil Liberties in Russia, 1995). Back.

Note 103: Ibid. Back.

Note 104: The policies of the CPRF are very different from those of the (small) parties still holding to the orthodoxies of Marxism--Leninism. Back.

Note 105: Brennan, Elections in Russia, p. 9. Back.

Note 106: However, General. Lebed, one of the leaders of the CRC, has made some contradictory statements on this matter. Back.

Note 107: NTV Moscow, 16.2.96, ref. SWBl, 19.2.96. Back.

Note 108: Ostankino Mayak Radio, 1.3.96, ref. SWBI, 7.3.96. Back.

Note 109: The fact that the 'government' party can be in such a disagreement with the president reveals the extent of presidential. power. Back.

Note 110: See H. Bull, 'Human Rights and World Politics', in R. Pettmann (ed.), Moral Claims in World Affairs (Croom Helm, 1979). Back.

Note 111: For discussions on the nature of human rights, see R. J. Vincent, Human Rights and International Relations (Cambridge University Press, 1986); B. Hocking and M. Smith, World Politics: An Introduction to International Relations, Part IV, section 15 (Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1990). For a Soviet perspective see A. Movochan, Human Rights and International Relations (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1988). Back.

Note 112: One of the causes of the Chechnya conflict was the encouragement given by Yegor Gaidar's administration to a rebellion against a constituted regional authority: the Gaidar government supplied weapons and finance to Dudayev's insurgents in order to defeat political opposition, from the left in Chechnya, to the policies of the central government. Back.

Note 113: Russian Public TV, 11.10.95, ref. SWBl, 13.10.95. Back.

Note 114: Editorial report, SWBI, 14.12.94. Back.

Note 115: Interfax News Agency, 22.2.95, ref. SWBI, 25.6.95. Back.

Note 116: RIA News Agency, 26.6.95, ref. SWBI, 28.6.95. Back.

Note 117: On this point, see M. Brennan, Background to the War in Chechnya (Birmingham: Committee for Democracy and Civil Liberties in Russia, May 1995). Back.

Note 118: F. Weir, The Morning Star, 16.1.95. Back.

Note 119: D. Hearst, The Guardian, 17.12.94. Back.

Note 120: Meek, ibid, 14.12.94. Back.

Note 121: Interfax News Agency, 11.4.95, ref. SWBI, 14.4.95. Back.

Note 122: Varennikov has always fiercely denied the accusation that he was involved in the 1991 coup. Back.

Note 123: Editorial reports, SWBI, 22.2.95. Back.

Note 124: Ekho Moskvy 31.7.95, ref. SWBI, 2.8.95. Back.

Note 125: The Guardian, 30.12 94. Back.

Not 126: Itar-Tass News Agency, 17.2.95, ref.SWBI, 20.2.95. Back.

Note 127: See M. Brennan, Background to the War in Chechnya. Back.

Note 128: Ibid., pp. 3-4. Back.

Note 129: Editorial report, SUI, 3.4.95 Back.

Note 130: Ekho Moskvy 11.12.94, ref. SWBI, 13.12.94. Back.

Note 131: Itar-Tass 30.1.95, ref. SWBI, 1.2.95. Back.

Note 132: Itar-Tass News Agency, 19.12.94, ref. SWBI, 21.12.94. Back.

Note 133: Ibid 20.1.95, ref. SWBI, 21.1.95. Back.

Note 134: Interfax News Agency, 12.4.95, ref. SWBI, 13.4.95. Back.

Note 135: Editorial report, SWBI, 14.12.94. Back.

Note 136: Interfax News Agency, 24.1.96, ref. SWBI, 26.1.96. Back.

Note 137: Interfax News Agency, 5.2.96, ref. SWBI, 7.2.96. Back.

Note 138: NTV Moscow, 24.1.96, ref. SWBI, 26.1.96. Back.

Note 139: Ironically, the introduction of the 1993 Russian constitution, with the backing of the EU, has meant that, if in free and fair presidential elections--which are by no means guaranteed--a centre left candidate with a mandate to limit marketization/monopolization is elected, he will have considerable powers to carry out this programme. Back.