Scholar Lucan Way on Competitive Authoritarianism

In November 2000, a series of secret recordings emerged, allegedly revealing that the then President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma was directly involved in the disappearance and murder of journalist Georgiy Gongadze.

According to scholar Lucan Way, this incident is what inspired him to coin the term “competitive authoritarianism.”

In a nutshell, this describes regimes that appear to have all the trappings of democracy – most importantly, competitive elections – but operate, in reality, as authoritarian regimes. And the ordered killing of a journalist certainly fits this description.

While this could be said of Ukraine under Kuchma, and later under the fugitive former President Viktor Yanukovych, the question remains as to whether Ukraine is any further along the path towards a stable democracy today.

Way asserts that Ukraine today is “much more competitive than authoritarian,” but finds some of current President Petro Poroshenko’s actions cause for concern.

“I think you see sort of old-style abuses such as attacks on NGOs. I think the effort to take away the citizenship of Saakashvili was a kind of classic, autocratic move that’s familiar in many autocracies and competitive authoritarian regimes in the world,” Way explains.

However, Way adds that this is likely to be a symptom of the ongoing war in Ukraine’s occupied eastern territories.

Photo credit: HROMADSKE.com

“Democracy is always under threat during a war. It’s very easy for the government in power to treat any form of criticism as fundamentally treasonous,” Way notes, adding that “You see some discourse that because Putin is calling the Ukrainian government dysfunctional, if domestic forces call the government dysfunctional they are sort of in line, or in league with Putin.”

Ultimately, for Ukraine to free itself from its history of competitive authoritarianism, the government needs to examine the way it uses its institutions in relation to any opposition, according to Way.

“Do you use the security [services], the SBU or the tax officials or the regulatory bodies for media, do you instead of having sort of objective and impersonal criteria do you use those institutions to basically attack people who criticize the government.”

Hromadske sat down with author and associate professor at the University of Toronto Lucan Way to discuss where else competitive authoritarianism exists today and what countries like Ukraine can do to avoid this label in the future.

For our audience, [competitive authoritarianism] would be a new term, so we are curious to what extent its applicable to Ukraine and to the whole region and how its developed in modern time when there’s even more pluralism in the media, we have social media, there are even more parties and even the countries we never imagine would have if you look at first sight very competitive elections.

So the term actually originated from the Melnychenko tapes. My co-author Steven Levitsky – who studies Latin America – and I came up with the term in 2001 during the tapes crisis and it basically describes countries in which elections are the primary means of gaining power. So elections and democratic institutions are not simply facade as in Russia today, but in which there is serious abuse of democratic rights: censorship, [the] opposition is beaten up, some moderate amount of vote fraud. Very much like what you had in Ukraine under Kuchma, Ukraine under Yanukovych.

How did it develop? It was competitive authoritarianism in Ukraine under Kuchma and under Yanukovych but it is developing. And what would you say about modern Ukraine and some of the things we observe in the whole post-Soviet region.

I think that today it’s much more competitive and democratic than it was under Yanukovych. You don’t have major opposition leaders in jail, for example. Nonetheless, I’m actually quite troubled by some of the developments recently under Poroshenko. I think you see sort of old-style abuses such as attacks on NGOs. I think the effort to take away the citizenship of Saakashvili was a kind of classic, autocratic move that’s familiar in many autocracies and competitive authoritarian regimes in the world. But you also see kind of, what’s interesting, is new forms of abuse that didn’t exist in Ukraine. Some are a product of the war. You have the abandoning of the communist party as a result of the decommunization law. This is something novel in many ways. Most competitive authoritarian regimes in the former Soviet Union have never banned a party – Ukraine has the most unfortunate distinction of having done that. And you also see what to me is most disturbing is sort of autocracy or demands for more sort of authoritarian controls emerging from below. I’m thinking here of the Myrotvorets efforts to sort of release names and addresses of journalists and the like, and these are sort of efforts to intimidate.

Photo credit: HROMADSKE.com

Why do you think this is authoritarian?

Because it’s basically meant to discourage certain kinds of journalism and criticism of the current government. And I think especially in the context – democracy is always under threat during a war. It’s very easy for the government in power to treat any form of criticism as fundamentally treasonous and you see that in my view – and I’m an outsider – but you see some discourse that because Putin is calling the Ukrainian government dysfunctional, if domestic forces call the government dysfunctional they are sort of in line, or in league with Putin. So there’s the sort of beginnings of treating criticisms of the government as treasonous and I think that’s very troubling. I mean it’s understandable, I think almost all countries at war, historically have abrogated civil liberties. In the United States, of course, we had the very sad history of interning the Japanese and that’s something we don’t want to repeat. So I think that’s not necessarily unexpected but nonetheless troubling.

How would you generally describe recent political developments in Ukraine basing it on your theory? Because still, it’s a huge difference between the current government and the Yanukovych government. As well I think we’re using this term [and] people would understand it more if they understood some relativity between the other countries in the region. Because usually if you look at international organizations you see authoritarian, semi-authoritarian, democratic, transitional democracy, it doesn’t mean that much any longer today. And also then people here would say that it’s kind of unfair to treat Ukraine and Azerbaijan in the same way or for instance Ukraine and [some] other country. And therefore coming into denial mode of any kind of criticism.

Well, I certainly wouldn’t treat Azerbaijan and Ukraine in the same way. I think that Azerbaijan is not a competitive authoritarian regime. A competitive authoritarian regime isn’t simply when you have elections and some kind of opposition. I mean, a competitive authoritarian regime exists when you have a real opposition. So in Russia today, it’s not a competitive authoritarian regime because all the opposition is essentially systemic opposition as they call it there. They’re not actually opposed to Putin, they’re kind of for show. Whereas in Ukraine you obviously have a real opposition and elections are truly uncertain. So there’s a massive qualitative difference between a place like Azerbaijan, Russia and obviously the other Central Asian countries and Ukraine. And Ukraine is much closer to Moldova which is a borderline case of competitive authoritarianism, nonetheless, I think the abuses are serious.

Now if we go for instance and are looking at Armenia, do you think it’s also a move on that way and also Georgia because these countries are very different. So really how would you develop generally the development in the post-Soviet world?

I think that certainly Armenia and Georgia are other examples of competitive authoritarian rule. I think that the current, some of what’s going on in Moldova as well, in the Caucasus. Outside of Azerbaijan, it’s very common in the western former Soviet Union.

And what would you say about modern Eastern Europe?

I think Hungary, sadly, has become a very clear case of competitive authoritarianism in the last two or three years. I think what you have is the stifling of any sort of dissent, very similar using or treating any kind of dissent as treason, as anti-Hungarian, this discourse. And I have to say I’m an American – I live in Canada but I’m an American citizen – you see these tendencies in the United States as well. And I guess what to me is most troubling is that even institutions like the United States, arguably the world’s oldest democracy, is truly under threat right now and I think that’s something everyone should be concerned about.

Because it’s very easy to get into this kind of a discussion with the terms and it’s so easy to manipulate that today. I’m curious, what are the peculiarities of having this label on the nature of the regime? Because if we’re speaking about access to media, access to resources, fair elections. Because we’re at this borderline where you understand that opposition is there, or in the case of Ukraine or Georgia when you understand that there are in fact independent media but sometimes they don’t have access, there are other parties but they are there unless they really have the majority in their municipalities, for instance. So what for you would be this benchmark?

So one of the things I look for – and this was the case with Poroshenko and Saakashvili – is does the government regularly use the state to crack down, state institutions to crackdown on opposition in partisan ways. There you have, that’s a classic case when Poroshenko – in principle, the decision on citizenship should not be based on whether or not you potentially could threaten the president in an election, it should be based on some sort of objective, impersonal criteria and that clearly was not the case then. I think similarly efforts to sort of investigate and use – a classic technique in competitive authoritarianism is the use of tax audits to target opposition. So in the old days, you would simply ban opposition, that was the old form of authoritarianism. Contemporary competitive authoritarianism, it’s much more subtle and unclear. So you use tax audits against businesses who fund opposition or NGOs who are critical of the government – that’s a classic – to me that’s a sort of definite red flag. Whenever I see that happening I think uh huh, that’s probably competitive authoritarianism.

What are the new developments you’re looking at the media because partisanship was always there, it’s not something new? But in that regard, you have way more media. Ukraine today has a lot of oligarchic media but there are dozens of them. And indeed there are those who are extremely critical of the government, like extremely critical, being still connected to Yanukovych, for instance.

Overall I think the media environment, relatively it’s healthy. I think I heard one term sort of “biased pluralism” where you don’t have this sort of ideal model of this mostly, for the most part – Hromadske excepted – of this autonomous media that doesn’t have any partisan connections. But you know absent that you do have media that is critical of the government and that is competing. They’re not all serving one master. So in that sense actually I think Ukraine is doing fine overall. I’m a little bit worried by these raids on Strana.ua, I think that’s troubling. I think there’s the potential future developments for treating any kind of criticism of the government as treason, I do find that troubling but I think overall that’s less problematic in Ukraine.

You said about the oligarchy in the U.S. To what extent – you know you were researching oligarchy before this term became trendy in the U.S. So what really makes the U.S. oligarchic? Is it?

For me, the term oligarchy really refers... I think in some ways the ultimate oligarchy in the United States is of course Trump. You know, rich people have power everywhere but what distinguishes the kind of post-Soviet oligarchs is they gained power simply to make money. It’s not about lobbying the government, which everyone does, it’s about sort of gaining seats in the legislature or the presidency to gain grants, you know, resources. And that pretty accurately describes Trump right now, that’s a kind of classic post-Soviet oligarch in some ways. And at the same time, I don’t think – well a couple things. One, I think corruption – there are obviously big problems with corruption – but corruption is very consistent by itself with democracies. Most democracies in the world – Brazil, the United States – even before Trump – are both democratic and highly corrupt. So they’re not necessarily inconsistent. And I’ve argued, and I argue in my most recent book that in fact oligarchs have certainly not been at the forefront for democracy but all things being equal one of the things that makes them consistent with pluralism is that they basically want to be on the winning team so they’re not very loyal to whatever incumbent. They’re willing to basically fund everyone which, you know, I think is positive for pluralism. So instead I think that oligarchs can actually help develop pluralism.

So do you think in this regard – is Ukrainian oligarchy growing, shrinking, remaining the same? How has it transformed? What transformation is going on?

I don’t have precise numbers on this but my guess is that much of the oligarchy... the oligarchy really emerged in the mid-1990s with the gas markets and the fact that you have fewer rents from Russia reduces access to those kinds of oligarchic rents. So I think on the whole my guess – and again I don’t have numbers to prove this – it’s my guess you see a kind of overall...you still have oligarchs, the country is still dominated by oligarchs, but not nearly to the same degree as it was under Lazarenko in the 1990s or in the Kuchma era in the early 2000s.

When we talk about Russia, which is usually the thing to discuss, what I’m curious [about] is we also sometimes are very lost in terms. In particular, using all the terms about left-right. And what is also troubling for a lot of Ukrainians is that the Western left, let’s say the British and the American, Canadian, they see Russia as this anti-imperial power against the U.S. But it’s still someway in discussion. You were researching that and you know those terms and you know this discussion. So I’m really curious, how can you explain that explanation of the Russian regime, which is not at all not oligarchic, which is not at all socialist, everything but that. And how do you describe the government in Russia, the regime, the political ideology?

I don’t think there’s any ideology, Putinism is just pure rapaciousness and autocracy. It doesn’t really have a kind of vision. I think the center-left, the democratic party does not side with Russia certainly in the United States, or in Canada certainly not – or the NDP in Canada, which is the left party. But the far-left in the United States: Jill Stein, Steven Cohen some parts of the magazine The Nation, have kind of almost in my view bizarre, pro-Russian tendencies. And the only thing I can think of it as is their kind of hatred of the United States is so enormous that they’re willing to support someone who is against everything, all the values they claim to represent. So I find it completely puzzling.

To what extent is this also present in some of the academic work, the people who are researching the post-Soviet world, particularly also in Britain?

I think there’s an important distinction and you have to be specific. I think people like Steven Cohen, who is purely ideological, has made statements on Ukraine that have nothing to do with reality. I think he should not be taken seriously at all. What’s sad is that he actually wrote a wonderful book on Bukharin in the 1980s, 1970s, sorry...on Bukharin, Nikolai Bukharin one of the early Soviet leaders. But he is just completely...he’s not paid by Putin but I think he’s one of the sorts of bizarre cases of attachment to Putin that doesn’t have any basis in fact. There are others like Richard Sakwa who’s definitely more pro-Russian, pro-Putin, but I have much more sympathy for him because he’s actually a real scholar, he actually knows and his work is based on research. I think many of his views are mistaken but he’s someone you can seriously discuss things with. So I think you want to distinguish the kind of Steven Cohen, Glenn Greenwalds of the world who are purely publicist types whose views are not based on facts versus more serious, more pro-Russian western scholars like Richard Sakwa.

To what extent do they have impact on the public debates which are happening? For instance what I’m following and what I’m referring to is the whole discussion in getting a labor party in the U.K.? So to what extent is it something to be concerned [about] and look where we’re heading. What used to be marginal is not any longer.

A lot of it is a sort of, the kind of desire which is quite genuine and understandable of a desire for some alternative to the current system in the West, right. I mean there’s a lot of problems with capitalism in the West, there’s very high inequality so they kind of search for some alternative anywhere. And to me which is equally bad as support for Putin is support for Chavez in Venezuela and the current Maduro regime. It’s simply an awful, awful regime – 80% poverty and the like, and you have people, sort of basically apologists for the current regime in Venezuela which is, completely to put it bluntly, disgusting.

So how do you think and also how would you assess the relations of the West with Russia. In particular, I’m speaking about the leverage the West can have and the country which is sort of authoritarian can have while dealing in the West. It’s clearly not the case then that the West doesn’t cooperate with undemocratic regimes. It’s happening all over the place, with Saudi Arabia with another country, with Azerbaijan, in our region. But for instance, in other cases there is pressure for countries like Ukraine [that] in order to be with us you should be democratic. And in some cases, that’s sometimes used as a hypocritical move from the West. So while speaking in these terms, how would you describe – and I’m not just speaking about sanctions, international politics, NATO, all of those things – but generally, academically or theoretically this way the West is trying to deal with Russia.

I think the problem is that there’s not much the West can do to influence domestic politics in Russia and I think that’s just simply a reality. So in a sense I think what we’re reduced to, you know I think sanctions, that’s a separate discussion but they are definitely important. But also it’s just a question of taking a moral stance but with very real expectations that Russian developments are going to be determined overwhelmingly by domestic factors.

To what extent do you think there is also – and how would you describe the discussion – regarding Trump-Russia collusion?

You know I have to say that’s pretty much probably what I spend 80% of my free time reading about that topic so I’ve sort of become – all of us have become experts on that. I mean, to me what is most interesting is that for a long time there was speculation about, which I think is quite real and recently it’s come out that a Russian oligarch helped funnel money to help buy off Stormy Daniels, the porn actress who slept with or reportedly slept with Trump. So it just gets weirder and weirder. It’s clear to me at least that Russia does have kompromat on Trump. But what’s interesting in the last 6 months is that Ukraine probably has kompromat on Trump in the form of cooperation with the Mueller investigation. So it’s at least possible that there was a kind of quid-pro-quo that basically the Ukrainian government essentially said to Trump, sell us weapons and we will stop cooperating with Mueller. You look at that – which seems very plausible – so it may turn out that it’s not just Russia that has compromising material, blackmail material on Trump but also Ukraine.

Coming back to the developing democracy and establishing democracy. What are the critical things to maintain? We can speak about the problems but what are the remedies in the current situation and in particular when there is no real benchmark? I would claim that it was easier a decade ago when the E.U. was kind of blossoming, enlargement, get to the European Union, follow the guidelines and you’ll be a democracy. It doesn’t work that way any longer, the European Union is kind of ready to accept new members and generally there are turbulent times. So in that regard, what are and somehow despite all the support Ukraine has it feels like somehow you are on your own if you speak about the ideas. So what are the critical things in order to understand that no, this is a democracy, if you, for instance, say that fighting corruption is not the one benchmark?

I think it basically comes down to does the government use state institutions to punish opposition. That’s basically the criteria. Do you use the security [services], the SBU or the tax officials or the regulatory bodies for media, do you instead of having sort of objective and impersonal criteria do you use those institutions to basically attack people who criticize the government. And I think, you know, for me the critical issue for example in my own home country of the United States, what I’m really looking at you know Trump right now is trying to politicize the FBI. He’s trying to turn the FBI into a partisan arm of the Republican Party to attack opposition. I mean he’s making very explicit effort to do this and to me that’s the tipping point. If he’s able to truly politicize the FBI the way, you know, of the extreme level you think of the KGB and what not. But [there’s] less extreme examples. That’s when we sort of really slip into competitive authoritarianism in the United States. So you that’s why I think that’s what you have to be one the lookout for. State institutions have to remain neutral to politics.

Where will we put in place the international organization and foreign allies? I’m speaking about the conditionality of the Western support. Because in some regards – and the Russian example is the example that somewhere with some countries the conditions are tougher, some were not, somewhere there are things where you don’t interfere because it’s inner politics – and in the end – for instance even with the E.U. we see that there is very little the European Union can do with Poland or Hungary, having these countries as their members, in terms of things we consider – not the economy– but things like freedom of speech, political competition. It doesn’t look like really there are real tools to enforce.

I think it depends on the country. Yes, I mean democratic conditionality is you know the state of the world is such that yes, it’s unfair. The United States has never been able to impose democratic conditionality on Saudi Arabia because it needs its oil, and that’s simply the reality. But historically until I think Trump, the United States has – when it can – tried to support democracy. Obviously not everywhere but I think demanding consistency is unrealistic. I worry that just because it’s not consistent therefore it’s all a bunch of b.s. – that really cynical attitude is wrong. I think that the West has actually maintained commitments to democracy but with clear exceptions, which you have to recognize. And one of the things that we do in my book from 2010 on competitive authoritarianism is we note those instances in which those sort of countervailing security concerns, like terrorism and the like that make the West much less likely to impose democratic conditionality. But nonetheless, that leaves huge parts of the world in which, like Latin America, which you know the United States at least after the Cold War was very consistent in applying democratic conditionality. Eastern Europe – very consistent, obviously, before Hungary entered the E.U. Now that’s a whole other set of problems, now you know you’re right it is much harder. In a sense what the tragedy of Hungary and Poland is that, you know, initially I think the E.U. kind of facilitated the democratization of these countries but now that they’ve become part of the E.U. in a sense their authoritarianism is infecting the E.U. itself, which is very troubling. One of the reasons why, as you know, the European Union is unable to impose any kind of democratic conditionality in these countries is because these countries have power within the institution itself.

Where else could democratic conditionality be enforced in the post-Soviet world? Russia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Moldova, Belarus, Central Asia? I’ll ask and you can go into details about certain countries, for instance.

I think democratic conditionality has historically been very successful in Moldova. I think, in my view, appropriate for the United States to sort of demand a democratic government in exchange for aid and the like of Ukraine. And I think we all share these values. But actually, want to step back a little bit from conditionality because I actually think that overall. I first was active in Ukraine in the 1990s and then there was this idea that the West and the United States are the teacher, Ukraine are the students and it's about best practice in the West and transferring it here. And I think what we’ve learned in the last two years is that we are all in this together and this a common fight. The West does not have all the answers. It’s a common fight for liberal democracy. And I feel like it’s funny because I give it in some lectures and a lot of the questions I get are fake news, post-truth kind of stuff, what do you do about Russian aggression and I’m thinking to myself wow, these are questions that are really important for my own country and I’m trying to figure it out. So rather than sort of saying “I have all the answers, here they are, do what I say,” it’s “let’s work on this together.” So in some ways, Ukraine is sort of on the forefront. I do think that Putin is really detrimental to the democratic world order and  Ukraine is sort of on the forefront. And I think part of it is treating it less as sort of the teacher-student and more as we’re sort of part of the same liberal democratic team and we have to work together to sort of save democracy.

That’s kind of a nice and interesting thought and I heard a couple of times from academics like you but what would it [take] to make it work? Because it sounds like a good idea and maybe some of the governments would use and think about that but it doesn’t look in fact that there would be – and also in that who in Ukraine to get involved? It’s not exactly this particular government, it’s not particularly the elite, let’s say.

Sure, I think that’s the problem. On concrete terms I think sort of issues around dealing with fake news or dealing with cyber security you don’t necessarily have to work with government’s on these issues or human rights groups, it can be civil society, media, for example, is hugely important. I think one of the things that been shown by recent events that to me is very important is the importance of mainstream media. I think people now appreciate The New York Times, The Washington Post in a way that they never did because they actually have a commitment to truth. And so it doesn’t necessarily have to be government actors.

And also I’ll ask this because Canada for Ukraine is a unique country because of the diaspora, because of the connection and tradition of support and of course we mentioned Chrystia Freeland who you know well and who was a journalist who used to work here and is currently the Minister of Foreign Affairs. So I see, it’s hard to ask [you] to assess her role but particularly to what extent do you think the people coming from civil society, from media, can fully enforce those ideas and beliefs which they used to have while in civil society, while they are in government.

I think that’s always a complicated issue because, you know, as a journalist you’re sort of standing outside. I myself, to be honest, was a little bit troubled when Leshchenko and Nyyem joined the Bloc Poroshenko and I think there’s always a bit of a tension there. But I think ultimately what you need is powerful independent media that’s very important to hold the government accountable. I think in terms of Chrystia, I actually think she’s sort of in her historical moment right now. This is someone who provides a kind of moral clarity in an era where we desperately need moral clarity. Canada is a small country, it doesn’t have so much leverage over Russia and the like but it can provide – and I it think historically has – provided a kind of moral example and I think that she’s kind of bringing that back in. That was lost under the previous Conservative government of Stephen Harper, which was kind of very pro-American. And I think her administration, I mean the Foreign Ministry, has really put a tremendous focus on democracy, which to me is very gratifying. Going and sort of engaging with Venezuela and trying to get other sort of regional actors in Latin America to deal with this situation in Venezuela, as well as in Burma, Myanmar and the like. So I think that’s quite admirable.

Photo credit: HROMADSKE.com

I would still ask the question on oligarchs because of these debates which it was somehow partly buried to at some point but now we can bring it back. A lot of oligarchs in this part of the world, they definitely are responsible for some sort of criminal actions previously. There is no secret that a lot of their capital was gained in [an] unfair way. At the same time we understand that in this turbulent time, in particular in a country like Ukraine at war, it’s rather dangerous to get into this nest, let’s say. If somebody would really get into that and try either to arrest – that would be considered either unfair or political pressure because it’s just way too much. And then this person can also use their capital to create any kind of disturbance in the country. So there was an idea of kind of an amnesty, a starting from zero where let’s forget what was before 2014 and just build relations in a different way. Yet it brings the feeling that people are not prosecuted, there is no justice, there is no rule of law. So really how do you think, what should be the debate about that? Where can we be cautious and where not? Some of the oligarchs are trying to whitewash them, some are indeed had become way more silent.

Well ultimately I think what initially happened in Ukraine, which was probably necessary the state was very weak in 2014 and oligarchs like Kolomoyskyi had to kind of step in and kind of do the job of the state. I think that’s ultimately not a sustainable model and the state should do the job of the state not sort of you know, militias and the like. So I think ultimately that should not be a concern that you know we need to be consistent in attacking corruption. I do worry as a student of authoritarianism because every time I hear the word "anti-corruption campaign" I immediately think “oh, that means that you target the opposition, the people you don’t like.” Because you know traditionally authoritarian regimes from Lukashenko in 1994, everywhere, they all have anti-corruption campaigns that somehow only seem to target oligarchs who oppose the government. So I always...my ears sort of perk, I always get a little suspicious. An anti-corruption campaign only works if it’s truly neutral to whether or not you’re pro-government or anti-government. So I think that’s the most important, you have to do it right. But I don’t think it should be a concern that somehow you’re going to…

But how about the people like Akhmetov, Firtash, Pinchuk?

I mean I don’t know, that’s something that… I don’t know if the state literally has the capacity to take on those folks. So maybe it’s not wise to take on those people. My mother always said, choose your battles. Don’t take on that battle you know you’re going to lose. Focus on what you can do. I think issues like procurement, some of the smaller issues, that’s something manageable. But I think you know Ukraine is doing a lot of that.

And also researching the region for that long, Putin has been in power for 18 years, that would be five more at least, even more. How [did] that regime also develop? There are also, I won’t say rumors but the thing is that like the last elections were considered to be the last one because still the regime moved from competitive authoritarianism to what?

To full authoritarianism. I mean now you basically have a situation in which any real opposition is effectively excluded from running in the election. I sort of date that moment to 2007-2008 when you see most studies show a radical increase in electoral fraud and a sort of systematic exclusion of candidates like Mikhail Kasyanov who kind of could have provided a real source of opposition.

For yourself how would you explain the success of Putin in making that happen? What really happened with Russian society or what [has] he done?

I think you’re framing the question wrong. Because I think the whole is like why did democracy fail in Russia? To me is the wrong question. My research says why should there have ever been democracy in Russia? Not because of the Russian soul or the like. But because all sorts of fundamental, access to oil, factors in political science that we consider sort pre-requisites of stable autocracy like oil, state control over the economy, a very powerful security apparatus, a very weak civil society. To me what’s much more surprising, of course, you have Putin, is the Yeltsin era when you actually have something approximating democracy. That’s why for me – and similarly in Ukraine – I think you know if you had sat there in 1991 in Ukraine you would have thought democracy is probably not going to work if you’re looking objectively from a social science point of view. Of course, authoritarianism has consolidated itself and that’s sort of basic, not surprising from a political science point of view. What’s more puzzling are the cases like Moldova and Ukraine where authoritarianism did not succeed. And this is a lot of what my book is about. Basically, I argue that it came less from a strong civil society than from the fundamental weakness of authoritarianism in Ukraine. So if you look at sort of the first turn over in power in 1994, in which that was considered a real marker when Kravchuk lost power and gave it to Kuchma. That was sort of a moment in sort of what people thought of as democratic consolidation, these are a product of strong democratic institutions. But then you read Kravchuk’s memoir which came out in 2002, which is amazingly honest, it’s a great book. And he says well actually what happened is I decided to delay elections in January of 1994, I was about to announce it on television but the military and the SBU basically said we’re not going to be able to pull this off so we refuse to cooperate. So it was basically the weakness then of the security apparatus of the authoritarian state that allowed for the election to go through rather than the strength of civil society or the sort of democratic mindedness of Leonid Kravchuk. So it’s really what you have is sort of a democracy by default or a democracy by failure. It’s a failure of authoritarianism in many ways that have allowed for this dynamic of pluralism and democracy in Ukraine.

/By Nataliya Gumenyuk