PECOB Portal on Central Eastern
and Balkan Europe
by IECOB & AIS
Università di Bologna  
 
Saturday August 24, 2024
 
Testata per la stampa
 
 
 

Sovereign democracy in the context of discussion about westernization and modernization of Russia.

Zakirova Lilia - MGIMO, UDC

The topic of the round table contains hints that there exists democracy and some separate types of democracies sovereign democracy, dirigible democracy, military democracy and other. Some contradiction is laid already in this issue. Nevertheless it can be useful to understand what the sovereign democracy and the related concepts are.
Russian way of modernization was always dominated by the attempts of copying of state institutions, functions and roles. But it is common knowledge that the one who copies is at least one step behind of the original.
There are lots of approaches to the democracy:
· Peoples ruling
· System of values
· Negotiation process
· The way of decision-making and welfare distribution
The last two seem to be more feasible, especially if we take into consideration that democracy is a system of institutions, whose activity under modern circumstances guarantees the more efficient development. The modernization pundits (and in Western tradition modernization is often identified with democratization) analyse some obligatory stages which a country should go through in order to reach modern condition. However it is important to understand that modernization as well as democratization is not a simple way from A to B with the precise results and procedures. Some orient countries copied the western model have implemented western ideals and values: freedom, justice, equality. There are however constraints on the way.
The question is: where are links between ideas of sovereign democracy and ways of democratization. Sovereign democracy is an attempt of explaining Russian way of modernization. In this context the idea of the all-Russian party "United Russia" "Democracy is the way of establishing sovereignty and sovereignty is the way of defending democracy" is the best continuation of idea of modernization.
Simultaneously with the vector of modernization the vector of searching of Russia's own way was also very strong in Russia. The appearance of the idea changed within the time. There are some examples of historical changes of this idea: Eurasian studies, "slavyanofilstvo" and other. Today one can see the weakness of such great philosophical concepts as freedom, democracy, equality.

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