Suchergebnisse

Acknowledgments; Introduction; 1 Cold War Liberal Pluralism and Its Legacy; 2 Russia's Liberal Intellectuals and Lost Causes; 3 Russian Conservatism and Its Adjectives; 4 Finding Authoritarianism in President Vladimir Putin's Russia; 5 Lies, Damn Lies, and Diplomacy; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index; About the Author.

With intensified speculation about a new Cold War, the question of whether there is any sound basis for detente between the West and Russia has been at the heart of contentious international debates. Centrally these have included nato expansion into the Eastern bloc and the way forward from the conflicts in Syria and Ukraine. In this context, two of the staunchest critics of what they believe are the ill-conceived initiatives in us foreign policy towards the post-Soviet government have been the Americans, George Kennan and Henry Kissinger. Both men have railed against triumphalist varieties of liberalism, and especially what they see as their country's overactive democratization zeal in the wake of the Second World War. Both men have argued for a more informed pluralistic liberalism, in the hope of fostering a stable global order beyond the sectarian extermination programs and ruinous total wars of the last 100 years. The article considers the plausibility and prescience of their views.

One of the Cold War's commonplaces about Russia was its abiding embrace of authoritarianism. Across the centuries, successive regimes, whether Tsarist or Communist, have been characterised by Western scholars as highly centralised, personalised power structures, with an intolerance of dissidence that too easily descended into barbaric brutality. Living on Europe's farthest edge, Russia's peoples are said to have been bypassed by Enlightenment modernity, the rise of liberal constitutionalism and the gradual entrenchment of individual rights and democratic freedoms. For those commentators inspired by such Cold War thinking, it is a legacy that continues to shape contemporary politics. The assumption is that Putin's reclaiming of the presidency in 2012 is emblematic of an inevitable reversion to authoritarianism. Drawing on research in Russia during the March 2012 election, this article takes a critical look at the plethora of global statistical surveys that point to authoritarian trends under the current regime. It concludes that the conceptual framework underpinning the West's revelations about the descent into authoritarianism in contemporary Russia is neither clear nor convincing.

One of the Cold War's commonplaces about Russia was its abiding embrace of authoritarianism. Across the centuries, successive regimes, whether Tsarist or Communist, have been characterised by Western scholars as highly centralised, personalised power structures, with an intolerance of dissidence that too easily descended into barbaric brutality. Living on Europe's farthest edge, Russia's peoples are said to have been bypassed by Enlightenment modernity, the rise of liberal constitutionalism and the gradual entrenchment of individual rights and democratic freedoms. For those commentators inspired by such Cold War thinking, it is a legacy that continues to shape contemporary politics. The assumption is that Putin's reclaiming of the presidency in 2012 is emblematic of an inevitable reversion to authoritarianism. Drawing on research in Russia during the March 2012 election, this article takes a critical look at the plethora of global statistical surveys that point to authoritarian trends under the current regime. It concludes that the conceptual framework underpinning the West's revelations about the descent into authoritarianism in contemporary Russia is neither clear nor convincing.