State >Legitimacy and the (In)significance of Democracy in Post‐Communist Russia
State >Legitimacy and the (In)significance of Democracy in Post‐Communist Russia
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国家 >后共产主义俄罗斯民主的合法性和（内）意义
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发表时间：
2004
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Cheng Chen
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Rudra Sil;Cheng Chen
尽管有一些关于后共产主义“大漩涡”的末日预言，但苏联的解体最初受到了对“新俄罗斯”民主前景的乐观评估，人们对可以追溯到戈尔巴乔夫时代的新政党、地方组织和社会运动的爆发充满了信心。最近的评估更加谨慎，预测既不会出现混乱，也不会巩固民主。与十年前的乐观主义者相比，新一代的“可能性主义者”现在采用了一个极简主义的定义，以便将俄罗斯归类为“民主”，强调威权主义反弹的缺失，更强大的“民主话语”的增长，政治意识社会网络的传播以及普京“引导民主”下新兴的“自上而下的公民社会”。怀疑论者并不认为俄罗斯会回到威权主义，但他们认为俄罗斯新生的民主可能是“死胎”，肯定会因为“市场布尔什维克”的高压策略、对媒体的日益限制、可追溯到共产主义时代的公众冷漠和不信任的遗留问题，以及似乎正在导致“人力资本”危机的人口趋势而衰弱。虽然双方的预测都没有十年前那么大胆，但争论仍然主要围绕着杯子是半满还是半空的问题。解释上的差异更多的是先前假设的结果，而不是对实际情况的根本分歧：谨慎的乐观主义者强调任何联合生活和民主程序的重要性，而克制的怀疑论者认为，在“超级总统”制度下，这些都是无关紧要的，因为这种制度几乎没有为有意义的政治争论提供空间。本文基于这样一个假设：关于俄罗斯民主巩固和公民社会前景的辩论，只有纳入一个更普遍的问题，即关注国家合法性的水平和来源，才能赋予新的生命。按照菲什的说法，所谓“合法性”，我们指的是“民众对政治体制的普遍积极倾向”。一个政权的合法性在于民众认为它提供了一个令人满意的秩序，并相信没有其他选择比它优越得多。这实际上是一种韦伯式的对“合法性”的理解，因为它的概念化并不那么依赖于“合法性”
A FEW APOCALYPTIC PREDICTIONS of a post-communist ‘maelstrom’ notwithstanding, the break-up of the USSR was initially greeted by optimistic assessments of the prospects for democracy in the ‘new Russia’, with much faith placed in the explosion of new political parties, local organisations and social movements dating back to the Gorbachev era. Recent assessments have been more cautious, predicting neither chaos nor democratic consolidation. In contrast to the optimists of a decade ago, a new generation of ‘possibilists’ now employ a minimalist definition in order to classify Russia as a ‘democracy’, emphasising the absence of an authoritarian backlash, the growth of a more robust ‘discourse of democracy’, the spread of politically aware social networks and an emerging ‘civil society from above’ under Putin’s ‘guided democracy’. Sceptics, for their part, do not expect Russia to return to authoritarianism, but they view Russia’s nascent democracy as possibly ‘stillborn’ and certainly enfeebled by the heavy-handed tactics of ‘market Bolsheviks’, increasing restrictions on the media, a legacy of public apathy and distrust dating back to the communist era, and demographic trends that appear to be leading to a crisis of ‘human capital’. While the predictions offered on both sides are less bold than they were ten years ago, the debate still revolves largely around the question of whether the glass is half empty or half full. The differences in interpretation are more a result of prior assumptions than any fundamental disagreement on the situation on the ground: cautious optimists emphasise the importance of whatever associational life and democratic procedures are presently in evidence, while restrained sceptics view these as irrelevant under a ‘superpresidential’ system that offers little space for meaningful political contestation. This article is predicated on the assumption that the debate over the prospects of democratic consolidation and civil society in Russia can be given new life only if subsumed within a more general problematique focusing on the level and sources of state legitimacy. By ‘legitimacy’ we mean, following Fish, ‘a generally positive orientation among the populace toward the political regime. A regime is legitimate to the extent that the populace regards it as providing a satisfactory order and believes that no available alternative would be vastly superior’. This is effectively a Weberian understanding of ‘legitimacy’ in that its conceptualisation depends not so much on the