№ 3 - 2000
Pshizova S.N.
Democracy and Political Market in a Comparative Perspective (II)

Susanna Pshizova, of the Moscow University, after having traced (in her first artucle on the theme [see «Polis», 2000, No. 2]) historical evolution of the relations of powerholders and subjects, now proceeds to analyzing, in a comparative perspective, the problems of democratization of post-communist regimes, on the one hand, and current development of «old» democratic systems, on the other. It is stressed, in particular, that Russia began to consciously build up democratic institutions after many years of totalitarian dictatorship that had been wiping out all kinds of social-class and ideological distinctions and had finally destroyed practically all historically rooted modes of spontaneous social activity. This specific circumstance makes the present-day Russian context very susceptible to global factors of modern times. The institutions shaping in Russia appear as radical versions of the tendencies taking place in the West and manifesting themselves in that the political process is being released from the principle and mechanisms of social-class and political-ideological representation, and interaction between the rulers and those ruled in this «post-democratic» epoch is turning into a process realized through «political market».