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This paper analyzes the relationship between political changes and the press in the years of 1989 and 1990, which will be illustrated with an analysis of local newspapers published in the town of Zadar, Croatia. The paper is based on the analysis of articles on political changes published in local Croatian newspapers Narodni list and Fokus. The period analyzed here covers the time when monthly publication of Fokus was published, i.e. from February 8, 1989 to September 22, 1990. The period, among other things, was characterized with breakdown of Communist regime, breakdown of SFR Yugoslavia, beginning of a period of transition and liberalism as well as development of democratic system in Croatia. The research was based on newspaper articles included in the category of Political changes. We analyzed 104 newspaper issues and 1175 newspaper articles, including 870 articles published in the category of Political changes. Descriptive and explanatory method was employed in the paper, as well as the method of quantitative and qualitative content analysis. The research results have shown the majority of articles published in Narodni list and Fokus were included in the category of Political changes and precisely this category was most commonly present on front pages of the newspapers analyzed. Political changes in the countries of Central and South-East Europe also reflected on political events in Croatia. Therefore, Croatian readers as well as editors were more interested in all political events, including the introduction of a multi-party system and the process of democratization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By anyone?s measure, soldiers? rights organizations are a healthy and strong component of contemporary Russian civil society. Soldiers? rights groups, including the famous soldiers? mothers, developed in the late 1980s and early 1990s as a response to brutality in the Soviet army. This paper examines how the networks and activities of soldiers? rights organizations in Russia have developed and flourished under formally democratic institutions and through acquaintance with transnational actors. It asks why the soldiers? mothers? organizations in particular are so popular and respected in Russia when other soldiers? rights groups are marginalized, and answers that the soldiers? mothers frame their goals in terms of universal norms that citizens embrace, while other soldiers? rights groups frame their demands using an unaccepted antimilitarist lens. The paper also generates hypotheses from this case about how well Western theory and experience regarding civil society in democratization applies in the Russian context. The paper is based on an interview study of soldiers? rights groups and other nongovernmental organizations that took place in five Russian cities between 1999 and 2001. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will investigate the role of political culture in the democratization process in three post-Soviet States. The paper is an extension of an earlier paper, written and researched over two semesters for graduate research seminars. This study used a most similar case approach involving Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. These three cases are similar in a variety of ways, but vary on the dependent variable, democratization success. The original hypothesis was based on the common argument that a democratic political culture in a state will improve that state’s democratization success The original study’s findings rejected the hypothesis of a positive connection between political culture and democratization, as no clear pattern emerged across the three states or even within them when the indicator questions were analyzed separately. One possible explanation for these findings involves the operationalization of political culture in the original study, as the questions used may have been capturing attitudes toward government policy performance rather than deeply held beliefs about democracy. The proposed paper will employ a different set of questions that arguably capture better the underlying values and beliefs of the population. Following an overview of the original findings, the paper will present an in-depth and critical analysis of the previous survey questions used. The responses of each state will be assessed and analyzed with the intent of finding a pattern within subsets of the original questions. It is not expected that such a pattern will emerge, thus showing the validity issues raised by poor operationalization choices. The paper will then present the results of a new analysis using different survey questions that are arguably more valid indicators of political culture as it is conceptualized in the existing literature. The expectation is that this new study will support the relationship between a democratic political culture and the democratization success of a state. In addition to providing findings important for the ongoing, broader examination of the relationship between political culture and democratization, the study will highlight the importance of question selection in the operationalization of political culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that political parties can be an important mechanism by which to better integrate states in the developing world. Despite this, in Russia parties continue to only weakly penetrate provincial politics and thus do not help to integrate the state and enhance its abilities to govern in the periphery by extension. Drawing on evidence of weak central state capacity to govern in the Russian provinces and correspondingly weak political party penetration, the paper argues that emergent political and economic actors have little interest in building political parties and increasing state integration and capacity as a result. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of the argument and analysis for the future of Russian political and economic development. Check author’s web site for an updated version of the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What explains why some opposition groups can inspire millions to stand in the cold for days while others generate little popular attention? This issue is not sufficiently understood by scholars of social movements and opposition processes, who tend to focus more on underlying and longer term conditions that promote or inhibit action and less on the moment when protests by small numbers of activists expand into mass popular demonstrations. Understanding this moment may help us see why "electoral revolutions" occurred in some former communist countries but not others. My claim in this paper is that cultural context, particularly the limits and opportunities provided by social understandings of nationalism and remembered history, greatly affects whether activists can convince large numbers of people to act together. I defend this claim by analyzing original interviews with youth activists in Georgia, Ukraine, and Russia. My paper shows that the structure of opportunity that activists face includes dominant cultural values and popular expectations that may constrain the story activists hope to tell. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A conference paper about voting behavior of Islamic minorities in Russia is presented which is to be delivered at the American Political Science Association Conference, in Toronto, Ontario, on September 2-6, 2009. The paper discusses topics including whether Islam poses a significant obstacle to democratization, elements of voting behavior between Muslim and non-Muslim minorities in Russia, and Russia's system of ethnic federalism.

Much recent research demonstrates that the structural conflict between the propertied and the poor in non-communist authoritarian states affects the likelihood, timing, and outcome of democratization. In highly unequal societies, democratization has a strongly redistributive effect.The effect of transition in postcommunist democracies was quite different. Given the absence of private property in most means of production, the deliberate policies of wage compression, the widespread availability of income-support mechanisms, and the importance of collective consumption funds in such social goods and services as housing, healthcare, education, transportation, cultural goods and recreation, both income and consumption differentials were narrow compared with democratic capitalist societies at similar development levels. The transition, therefore, brought substantial increases in aggregate income inequality to the post-communist countries, with some post-communist countries reaching levels higher than those of some West European countries.Much political economy literature suggests that democratization is expected to make government more responsive to wider segments of society, more inclined to supply universal collective goods and services such as security of person and property, health care, education, and infra-structure, as well as to provide some minimum level of social insurance against the hazards of catastrophic income loss. These public goods and services should foster productive behavior on the part of economic agents, and thus growth, as well as the mitigation of extremes of poverty and inequality.However, collusion in rent-extraction by post-transition elites might be consistent with high rates of economic growth under some circumstances. If the elites take advantage of the new institutional environment of a post-communist state and capture control over productive assets for themselves, they might well use them to increase their own incomes, yielding rapid aggregate growth the benefits of which are concentrated in a narrow elite. The institutional advantages of democratization and property rights might be restricted to those holding monopolies over property, and not broadly shared. Their policies would lead to higher growth rates after an initial period of disorganization was overcome. But the benefits of the growth would be distributed unequally. An oligarchic democracy would complement an oligarchic form of capitalism. This paper examines the effects of the dual political and economic transition on income inequality trends, taking Russia's subnational regions (the subjects of the federation) as the units of observation. Noting that the regions differed widely both in their starting conditions and in the increase in income growth and differentiation as a consequence of the transition, it seeks to identify the political mechanisms that explain variation in income and inequality growth following the transition. Using both direct and instrumental measures of democracy by region, the paper finds evidence consistent with the "oligarchic democracy" model. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In contemporary international politics, women's rights and women's security issues are increasingly seen as part of larger democratization projects. There are many diverse international actors, including international organizations, such as the Council of Europe, the European Union, the United Nations, feminist movements and faith-based groups which have created and supported international norms against gender violence. In the post-Soviet setting, two issues--domestic violence and sexual trafficking--have received significant international attention. Although there is a significant body of feminist literature exploring the status of women after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the impact of international actors on the acceptance of norms against gender violence, especially in the countries other than Russia, needs further research. Can international actors help to empower local women's rights activists? Can they help to improve the lives of women and help to change the public consciousness? To gain insight into these questions, this paper will focus on the cases of Lithuania and Armenia. It will assess the impact of international actors on empowerment of women in the two countries. The case studies will focus on the following dimensions of empowerment: a) legal/political (analyzing changes in policies and legislation that were adopted under international influences), b) social/political (mobilization of women's groups to achieve social change), and c) cognitive/cultural (increasing understanding and acceptance of international norms). The paper will attempt to identify the sources of domestic resistance to the international norms against gender violence. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research has focused attention on the diversity and complexity of civil-social life in Russia and post-communist Europe, undermining normative and 'communist-legacy' explanations of the weakness of civil society in that region, and underlining the need for theory-building that is both generalizable and sensitive to the specifics of each individual case. This paper attempts to take another step in that direction, exploring how the ways in which elites in semi-authoritarian regimes compete for power - and the social meaning of the power they are competing for - shape the development of civil society. Examining elements of civil society, the paper presents evidence from extensive field research of key variations in the relationship between civic activism and power and argues that these variations can be traced back to crucial differences in the competitive incentives political elites in each context. Specifically, the prospects for civil society appear better when elites - even closed, corrupt and authoritarian elites - are forced to engage one way or another with society at large. The paper will argue that elite-led state-society engagement, regardless of its nature, is essential to building the framework on which citizens construct notions of justice and right, while disengagement and elite autonomy significantly impede the development of civic identities. Indeed, the evidence in comparative perspective suggests that civil society may do better when it is repressed than when it is simply ignored. This, then, points to the disengaged nature of the contemporary Russian regime, rather than its authoritarianism, as a major explanatory factor in the weakness of civil society in that country. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The collapse of the Soviet experiment and the country that embodied it, as well as the great success of Chinese economic reform and its short-lived democratic movement in the summer of 1989, have attracted much attention from lots of political scientists. The great changes were regarded as two different ways of democratization. However, 15 years later, things didn't turn out to be what the political scientists expected. Russia's backlash to a non-democracy and China's successful economic development without any solid political reform seriously question the conclusion. This paper compares the political and economic changes in the former Soviet Union (Russia) and China from a new perspective based on the additional information in the 15 years after the great events and tries to predict better the democratic future of these two big developing countries. The paper will proceed in three parts. First, I will compare the political and economic reforms of the former Soviet Union and China in the 1980's and the beginning of 1990's. I will explain why the reforms ended up differently in these communist countries. Next, I will review the literature and theories about the democracy, capitalism, and market economy from the perspectives of Western political scientists and Marxists. The interesting finding is that although different ideologies, both schools emphasize the significance of development of capitalist economy. Finally, I will demonstrate the importance of economic precondition of democracy and discuss the democratic prospect of Russia and China based on their economic development and social structure. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a political context where the national government is less and less tolerant of independent NGOs, and autonomous NGOs find themselves with fewer and fewer routes of dialogue in federal government policy processes, it has become essential for NGOs to be able to work in ways that attract Russian citizens based on their real problems and concerns. Literature on foreign assistance to NGOs has frequently argued that foreign assistance removes any incentive for NGOs to work with their constituencies in society, but instead encourages them to answer only to foreign donors. With few exceptions, NGOs remain largely unknown and unsuccessful in their efforts to build public support. This paper, based on interview-based field research spanning the years 1998-2005, weighs several types of explanations for the extraordinary weakness of Russian NGOs: (1) failures on the part of donors in their techniques and strategies; (2) enduring characteristics of Russian economic conditions and social attitudes that constrain NGOs' development; and (3) new trends under the Putin regime, which take advantage of such enduring characteristics. While foreign donors can be blamed in part for the weak NGO sector, domestic factors play a much larger role and the two spheres interact with one another to exacerbate each other's weaknesses. The paper makes several suggestions of ways in which foreign donors can improve their NGO development programs. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public opinion research has shown that many of Russia?s democrats are skeptical about markets. While they may be democrats, they are not liberal democrats. The usual explanation for this tendency is that egalitarian and paternalistic orientations have produced a political culture in Russia that is hostile to economic individualism. This paper builds a different case. Relying on intensive interviews with ordinary Russians, I examine in depth the ideas of Russia?s market skeptical democrats. I conclude that the issue in Russia is not a problematical set of cultural preferences, but problematical markets. Capitalism as it exists in Russia does not have the qualities that help to reconcile tensions between capitalism and democracy. Market mechanisms and hence outcomes seem tilted to the benefit of the few and seem to reward impudence instead of industry. Unlike Russia?s liberal democrats, market skeptical democrats have these particular conditions in mind when they respond to questions about markets. Their suspicion of markets has more to do with how markets function in Russia than with preferences for greater egalitarianism or government control of the economy. Market-doubting democrats in Russia embrace the ideals of liberal economic freedom as readily as do most liberals. They are simply unconvinced that the markets developing in their country provide most people with those freedoms. Russia?s market-skeptical democrats, then, do not oppose the construction of liberal democratic institutions in Russia. They are simply withholding their approval of markets until markets start to function in a way that appears to serve the majority of the population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a framework for analyzing the quality of democratic policy processes, and illustrates it through a study of pension reform policy-making in Hungary, Poland, Russia, and Kazakhstan in the 1990s and 2000s. The intention is to shed light on progress of democratization in these countries, and to provide a general analytical framework for future research in other countries and policy areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature on transition and democratization was for long dominated by internal explanatory factors such as economic performance, civil society, institutions, etc. Only recently have external actors' democratizing efforts - like those of the US and the EU - been incorporated. But the perspective remains too narrow, since only 'positive' external actors are considered, while possible 'negative' actors are left aside. This paper attempts to rectify the imbalance by analyzing a 'negative' case - Russia. First, an analytical framework that can be used to analyze both positive and negative actors' actions and effects is introduced. Then, the framework's applicability is illustrated by analyzing Russia's influence in the 'Near Abroad'. The analysis shows how Russia, primarily, weakens democratic perspectives in the countries of the post-Soviet area. Finally, on the basis of this analysis I discuss the implications that this 'negative' influence has for the success of the EU's Neighborhood Policy. It is argued that although Russia is a major hindrance to the West's democratizing efforts in the short run, the power-politics approach is undermining its influence capacity in the longer run. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Borderline democracies are political systems in transition, which have made tremendous progress in their democratic development, experienced some reversals on the way, and have arrived at an important historical juncture that will determine the future path of democratization. A borderline stage of democracy means that a democratic regime is still fragile and vacillating. To maintain a steady democratic advancement, such regimes may benefit from political science theories and the practices of other democratic regimes. This paper builds upon the relevant Western literature on democracy and applies it to the case of Russia. Russia represents a nascent democracy with unique cultural attributes and an adequate legislature and democratic institutions (the constitution, elections, and the constituency base). These institutions and written laws, however, lack full practical implementation and need further strengthening by grassroots movements. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses original survey data from national elections in Russia in 2000 and 2004 to explore the sources of electoral support for Putin, an example of a strong hybrid regime leader. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers Kremlin-initiated federal reforms in Russia as a manifestation of the changing nature of the federal contract offered by the Russian president to the regional elites and examine the effect of these changes on political transformation in Russia's regions as well as the resulting institutional strains in the federal center. Reviewing federal relations under the framework of principal-agent model, I establish the rationale and intended outcomes of Putin's reforms and then describe their real consequences in terms of regional political climate and patterns of gubernatorial selection that emerged after the 2004 reform abolishing gubernatorial elections. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite enjoying a relatively high level of economic development and other apparent advantages, democratization was quickly reversed in Russia. In contrast, in Indonesia, which has a much lower level of economic development as well as myriad other liabilities, open government is surviving and even thriving. This paper will investigate the causes for this divergence in Russia and Indonesia, which, along with Brazil, are the largest and most socially heterogeneous of all countries that participated in the "third wave" of democratization. We hypothesize that high levels of public support for democracy, confidence in state institutions, and the strength of autonomous political associations in Indonesia, and the weakness of these variables in Russia, help explain the success of democratization in the former and the failure of it in the latter. This argument is formed by comparing several indicators in Indonesia, Russia, and other third-wave democratizers using data from the World Values Survey as well as published results from Keio University's Research Survey of Political Society in a Multi-cultural and Pluri-generational World, the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) National Public Opinion Surveys in Indonesia, the Asian Barometer, and the Russian National Election Study (RNES). ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Democratic peace theory presupposes that established democracies have not only a normative claim to, but also a genuine strategic interest in, extending democracy. Yet much of literature tells us that the "soft goal" of democracy promotion regularly is subordinated to "hard interests" (economy, security, political stability) when it collides with the latter. Moreover, democratisation may also lead to unintended consequences. For instance, "undesired" societal forces may seize hold of democratic institutions or democratisation processes may be derailed in a (semi-) authoritarian way. Thus, while there may be synergetic effects of security considerations, economic interests and normative preferences in the long run, in immediate situations of conflict they frequently clash. Taking the two leading contenders in the field, the US and Germany, as examples, the paper looks at how the respective governments tackle problems of conflicting goals, whether their reaction is compatible with the long-term orientation towards global democratisation or whether their short-term action follows a "traditional" pattern of giving political stability priority over democratisation, even to the point of assisting directly or indirectly political repression. Two cases are taken up: Bolivia where indigenous movements impact on donors' economic and security preferences, and Russia where the rise of election-based (semi-) authoritarianism clashes primarily with normative preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a comparative analysis of media-state relations in Russia and Ukraine, focusing on the systematic coercion of the press in both countries. The author begins by surveying the coercive tactics--ranging from bureaucratic roadblocks to physical violence--that the Russian and Ukrainian states have used to deter critical voices in the media since the late 1990s, when press freedom began a steady decline in both countries. Based on the data, a typology of media coercion was developed and an informal model to explain why both states have employed many of the same methods and have followed a similar pattern of coercion escalation.

In the past several decades, significant attention has been paid to “getting the institutions right” in rapidly changing polities and economies. Concomitantly, a renewed interest in federalism and the design of federal institutions has spawned a search for factors favorable for the development of stable federalism. This study addresses this very important issue of institutional choice by investigating the origins of the post-communist Russian federation. Russia serves as an excellent case for building theory because it exposes key problems with already existing definitions, typologies, and theories concerning the origins of federations. Moreover, with a comparative eye to other cases undergoing simultaneous democratization and federalization, namely Brazil, South Africa, and Spain, the critical juncture framework developed to explain the origins of such federations goes beyond Russia and makes a modest claim to greater generalizability. Key to understanding the simultaneous processes of democratization and federalization are liberalizers’ decisions to broaden the base of the authoritarian regime and the types of constituencies with which they choose to ally themselves. Activating subnational elites with already existing institutionalized power bases as allies of the liberalizing project, while conducive to extrication from the authoritarian regime, produce significant integration challenges for the new federal regime. Among these are the continuation of subnational clientelistic patterns, fragmentation of central political authority, and increases in subnational leaders’ bargaining leverage vis-à-vis federal authorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the impacts of timing and federal interests on gubernatorial elections in Russia. The timing of gubernatorial elections are not standardized across Russia’s regions to the extent it is in U.S. states, for instance. This irregularity provides the potential for elites, especially regional incumbents, to manipulate the election date. The question is, has the scheduling of gubernatorial elections in Russia systematically influenced electoral outcomes? If so, then attempts to adjust the timing of elections could become more pervasive as regional incumbents seek to advance their short-term electoral interests. In this context, one should expect democratic consolidation to be a more difficult and more drawn out process since regional attempts to influence gubernatorial elections through practices that have little to do with the democratic principle of public accountability. If electoral timing does not matter, then elite attempts to manipulate election results by altering the timing of the elections should slow as politicians realize that such practices provide no short-term advantages and only serve to reduce the political system’s legitimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critiques American policy in Central Asia by focusing on these states? track record as client states since 1991 and argues that their relationship with Russia has been a key legitimizing factor since independence, one that most regimes have been reluctant to forgo. That this is also true for the two most liberal states more open to gradual democratization (Kyrgyzstan, and, to a lesser extent, Tajikistan) illustrates that the decline of authoritarianism in the region is unlikely to bring the Central Asian states closer to a ?democratic peace? alliance with the West or the United States. In fact, the US identification with painful economic adjustment and its unevenly opportunistic ideological stance have not made it an appealing successor to Russia. In Uzbekistan, an attempt to forge closer links with the USA from 2001-05 arguably contributed to the growth of domestic discontent and opposition culminating in Andijon, and the Uzbek government?s reversion to a Moscow-centric orientation in their external relations. In Kyrgyzstan, a post-revolutionary, democratic government is gently trying to extricate itself from a commitment to a US base. The American experiment to gain a foothold in former Soviet Central Asia has failed, partially because Washington has been unable to articulate a compelling security vision to rival those suggested by Moscow and Beijing (such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, (SCO), but, more importantly, Russia has been able to maintain itself as a model of economic and social legitimacy much more effectively than the United States, despite years of highly visible American foreign aid to the region. As Washington contemplates security footholds by default in both Tajikistan and Kazakhstan, and ratchets up its anti-Russian rhetoric, this paper will argue that this approach is flawed and a short-term strategy at best, demanding major rethink of US policy to the region. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Russia has held altogether seven federal - presidential or parliamentary - elections since 1993. While technical and administrative capacities have improved significantly over the years, both the political system and popular elections are characterised by undemocratic, non-transparent processes. This paper looks into the European attempts to support the norm of free and fair elections in Russia and asks, how is it possible that these malpractices have been able to become institutionalised in the country, despite the fundamental value that the European organisations - the Organisation for Security in Europe (OSCE), the Council of Europe (CoE), and the European Union (EU) - attach to free and fair elections, and despite the close election observation, assistance and political cooperation that they have exercised in the case of Russia? The paper walks the reader through federal elections in Russia and the European assistance, monitoring, and cooperation around them. The paper argues that the European organisations have made ill-advised policy decisions which seem to be based on the common (mis)conception that transition societies progress almost automatically towards consolidation after they have rhetorically committed themselves to the implementation of democratic norms. This, indeed, has not been the case with Russia. Although the policies of the European organisations have recently somewhat changed, this is in many ways too little, too late. Its only result seems to be that Russia's challenge to the European norm of free and fair elections, has changed from indirect to direct one. Backing its words with deeds, Russia has begun to build a parallel, alternative election observation framework in the post-Soviet region. This paper recommends an increase in the cooperation between the organisations and pooling together their resources on the issue of free and fair elections. The organisations should not grant an exception to Russia in this question; that would be likely to be reflected negatively in the development of Russian democracy - and, in the long run, this could also have a negative impact on the legitimacy of the European organisations. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, the question of whether we are witnessing the authoritarian restoration in Russia is becoming increasingly relevant. One group of scholars (Cohen, Figes, Kagarlitsky, Pipes, Tacker and Huskey) sees Russia’s post-Communist democratic development as incomplete at best and nominal at worst. Authoritarianism restoration camp believes that after a brief democratic interlude in the early 1990s Russia was destined for an inevitable authoritarian counter-revolution. The second camp refutes the return of authoritarianism thesis. Malia downplays authoritarian tendencies and singles out international norms and Russia’s desire to cooperate with the West as powerful constrains on the elite’s anti-democratic aspirations. He also believes that the political fragmentation of Russian post-Communist state all but precludes single-person rule. McFaul acknowledges significant progress in creating and developing formal democratic institutions in Russia, but warns that the weak civil society, uncertain federalism, unsettled state-business relations, and absence of the rule of law may jeopardize the country’s democratic future. With the election of Putin as the Russian president, the fears that Russia is sliding back to authoritarianism have intensified. We argue that Putin’s assessment by actors who openly declare their own authoritarian, nationalist, and anti-democratic identities is a good indicator of the Russian president’s alleged or actual authoritarianism. If these actors see Putin as an ally and a partner, one can assume at least some degree of congruence between the authoritarian-nationalist program and Putin’s agenda. In this paper we examine the attitudes of Russia’s nationalist and anti-democratic press towards President Putin and his policies. The ultra-nationalist and anti-democratic segment of Russian political spectrum usually has a semi-legal or underground status and has to struggle with institutionalization, visibility, community impact, and, more importantly, financial support. Despite these difficulties, at least one ultra-nationalist periodical in post-Communist Russia, the weekly newspaper Zavtra [Tomorrow], managed to appear on a regular basis and secure external funding. It enjoys significant visibility due to respectable circulation numbers and an official website. Zavtra is a source of systematic and easily accessible data on the state of contemporary Russian ultra-nationalism and authoritarianism, their goals, strategies, and perceived allies. To determine the attitudes of Russian nationalist and anti-democratic actors towards President Putin we use quantitative content analysis of Zavtra’s weekly editorials. Our research covers Putin’s tenure as Russian Prime Minister and his entire first presidential term. We isolate two time intervals crucial for comparison - the early phase of Putin’s presidential career (1999-2001) and the most recent period (2003-early 2004). Content analysis of Zavtra’s coverage of Putin’s presidency demonstrates that after initial approval of Putin’s policies, the Russian ultra-nationalist and anti-democratic press now expresses disappointment in the governing regime. According to Zavtra, Putin, once a potential ally, failed to fulfill his promise. Even though the nationalistic and anti-democratic actors eventually started to criticize Putin as not going far enough in the authoritarian and xenophobic directions, they stress that his presidency, at least initially, had a potential for reversing Russia’s tenuous democratic and tolerant course. We conclude that there are grounds for concern about the future of democracy in Russia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Paper investigates an issue of changing judicial position in current Russia, which occurs after adoption of new Criminal Procedural Code in 2002. Implemented reform targets to decrease an active position of Russian judges in the criminal trial and create favorable conditions for the adversarial procedure. Such measures believed to be the first step in democratization of the criminal procedure in the Russian Federation. Previous studies by ROMIR and VCIOM indicate that Russian citizens are generally displaying distrust to the court system, and considering recent reforms ineffective democratization tool. Author suggests that basic cultural values of Russian majority disconnect with the ideas of limited judicial activity and lead to disapproval of new reforms. Data from representative sample of Russian Federation (1500 residents) were collected in order to test this hypothesis. Results of structural equation modeling reveal that the majority of Russian populations do not positively assess changes in the judicial status. Analysis confirms that statistically significant correlation exists between the basic cultural values and views about limited judicial position in Russia. People, who hold predominantly individualistic values, tend to approve limitation of judicial power. Residents with predominantly collectivistic values have tendency to disapprove such judicial reform. Researcher proposes that further investigation in the basic cultural values of post-soviet countries can assist in understanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of this paper is to discuss some points of further development of democratization process on the post Soviet area, predominantly in the two the most economically sufficient ex-Soviet republics â€" Russian Federation and the Republic of Ka ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Russia's position as a leading energy supplier to the EU and countries in the surrounding region has given it the confidence to aggressively pursue the reestablishment of its previous sphere of influence. To do so, it has mounted a multifaceted campaign aimed at weakening democratization processes in neighboring countries, straining regional alliances, and destabilizing relations between members of the EU. This paper examines Russia's strategy as it has been implemented, as well as the West's response to various aspects of it. Findings show, that while Russia's hostile policies toward its neighbors initially received a variety of responses, they have increasingly served as a catalyst for greater policy coordination among countries of the West. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]