Imitation Democracy
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€19.99
A01=Dmitrii Furman
A19=Tony Wood
A23=Keith Gessen
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
Anti-communism
Author_Dmitrii Furman
Authoritarianism
automatic-update
Belovezha
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=HPS
Category=JB
Category=JF
Category=QDTS
Chechnya
CIS
COP=United Kingdom
Delivery_Pre-order
Democratization
Duma
Elections
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
Geopolitics
Glasnost
Gorbachev
Language_English
Moscow
Oligarchs
PA=Temporarily unavailable
Perestroika
Post-Soviet
Price_€10 to €20
Privatisation
PS=Active
Putin
Russia
softlaunch
Sovereignty
Soviet Union
USSR
Yeltsin
Zhirinovsky
Product details
- ISBN 9781788733533
- Weight: 302g
- Dimensions: 140 x 210mm
- Publication Date: 22 Nov 2022
- Publisher: Verso Books
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
- Language: English
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After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia under Yeltsin and Putin implemented a political system of "imitation democracy," marked by "a huge disparity between formal constitutional principles and the reality of authoritarian rule." How did this system take shape, how else might it have developed, and what are the prospects for re-envisioning it more democratically in the future?
These questions animate Dmitrii Furman's Imitation Democracy, a welcome antidote to books that blandly decry Putin as an omnipotent dictator, without considering his platforms, constituencies, and sources of power. With extensive public opinion polling drawn from throughout the late- and post-Soviet period, and a thorough knowledge of both official and unofficial histories, Furman offers a definitive account of the formation of the modern Russian political system, casting it into powerful relief through comparisons with other post-Soviet states.
Peopled with grey technocrats, warring oligarchs, patriots, and provocateurs, Furman's narrative details the struggles among partisan factions, and the waves of public sentiment, that shaped modern Russia's political landscape, culminating in Putin's third presidential term, which resolves the contradiction between the "form" and "content" of imitation democracy, "the formal dependence of power on elections and the actual dependence of elections on power."
These questions animate Dmitrii Furman's Imitation Democracy, a welcome antidote to books that blandly decry Putin as an omnipotent dictator, without considering his platforms, constituencies, and sources of power. With extensive public opinion polling drawn from throughout the late- and post-Soviet period, and a thorough knowledge of both official and unofficial histories, Furman offers a definitive account of the formation of the modern Russian political system, casting it into powerful relief through comparisons with other post-Soviet states.
Peopled with grey technocrats, warring oligarchs, patriots, and provocateurs, Furman's narrative details the struggles among partisan factions, and the waves of public sentiment, that shaped modern Russia's political landscape, culminating in Putin's third presidential term, which resolves the contradiction between the "form" and "content" of imitation democracy, "the formal dependence of power on elections and the actual dependence of elections on power."
Dmitrii Furman's first book, Religion and Social Conflicts in the USA, was published in the USSR in 1981. In later years he became a leading scholar of post-Soviet political development, and theorist of "imitation democracy," publishing books on a number of former Soviet republics before his death in 2011.
