Dimensions of disengagement in post-communist Russia

Abstract

The end of communist rule does not appear to have given ordinary Russians a strong sense of political efficacy, compared not just with Western countries but with other post-Soviet republics. There are low levels of trust in civic and particularly in political institutions, and Russians are less likely than Belarusians or Ukrainians to believe that elections afford them a significant opportunity to influence national policy. Membership of civic associations, particularly political parties, is also low, and low levels of membership and of political efficacy appear to be self-reinforcing. Levels of disengagement are most closely related to participation in the labour force, and there is a clear consistency in the factors that shape disengagement and in their relative magnitude across the three societies. The importance of social learning in forming patterns of political participation suggests that the legacy of the communist period may be an enduring one.

Notes

Stephen White, ‘Ten Years On, What Do the Russians Think?’, Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, Vol.18, No.1 (2002), pp.35–50 (pp.40, 39).

See respectively Mikhail N. Afanas'ev, Klientelizm i rossiiskaya gosudarstvennost', 2nd edn. (Moscow: MONF, 2000), p.17; and A.V. Zinov'ev and I. S. Polyashova, Izbiratel'naya sistema Rossii (teoriya, praktika i perspektivy) (St Petersburg: Yuridicheskii tsentr Press, 2003), p.8.

Gabriel A. Almond and Sidney Verba, The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963).

Fritz Plasser, Peter A. Ulram and Harald Waldrauch, Democratic Consolidation in East–Central Europe (London: Macmillan, and New York: St Martin's, 1998), p.111.

William Mishler and Richard Rose, ‘What are the Origins of Political Trust?’, Comparative Political Studies, Vol.34, No.1 (Feb. 2001), pp.30–62 (p.41).

William L. Miller, Stephen White and Paul M. Heywood, Values and Political Change in Postcommunist Europe (London: Macmillan, and New York: St Martin's, 1998), p.100.

Ibid., p.102; and (for trade unions) Richard Rose and Christian Haerpfer, New Russia Barometer III: The Results (Glasgow: Centre for the Study of Public Policy, 1994), p.32.

For VTsIOM time-series data, see Stephen White, Russia's New Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p.270.

Cited in ibid.

Jon H. Pammett, ‘Elections and Democracy in Russia’, Communist and Post-Communist Studies, Vol.32, No.1 (March 1999), pp.45–60 (pp.53, 55).

Marc Morje Howard, The Weakness of Civil Society in Post-Communist Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp.11, 58–60, 67.

See, for instance, Lester W. Milbrath and M.L. Goel, Political Participation: How and Why Do People Get Involved in Politics?, 2nd edn. (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1977); and Paul M. Sniderman, A Question of Loyalty (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981). Perhaps the most influential works in this tradition are Almond and Verba, The Civic Culture; and Sidney Verba, Norman H. Nie and Jae-On Kim, Participation and Political Equality: A Seven-Nation Comparison (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978).

David Easton and Jack Dennis, ‘The Child's Acquisition of Regime Norms: Political Efficacy’, American Political Science Review, Vol.61, No.1 (1967), pp.25–38; see also, by the same authors, Children in the Political System (New York: McGraw Hill, 1969).

Easton and Dennis, ‘The Child's Acquisition’, p.63.

Sniderman, ‘Personality and Democratic Politics’, p.254.

Lester W. Milbrath, Political Participation (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1965); and Sidney Verba and Normal H. Nie, Participation in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972), p.125ff.

Sniderman, ‘Personality and Democratic Politics’, p.207.

Verba, Nie and Kim, Participation and Political Equality; Samuel Barnes and Max Kaase (eds.), Political Action: Mass Participation in Five Western Democracies (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1979).

Donna Bahry and Brian D. Silver, ‘Soviet Citizen Participation on the Eve of Democratization’, American Political Science Review, Vol.83, No.3 (1990), pp.821–47.

Wayne DiFranceisco and Zvi Gitelman, ‘Soviet Political Culture and “Covert Participation” in Policy Implementation’, American Political Science Review, Vol.78, No.3 (1984), pp.603–21.

Clive Bean, ‘Participation and Political Protest: A Causal Model with Australian Evidence’, Political Behaviour, Vol.13 (1991), pp.253–83.

Edward N. Muller, Aggressive Political Participation (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979), pp.230–31.