Article: Democracy Still Matters

Roger Cohen, a London-based "International Herald Tribune" columnist, in an op-ed piece the "New York Times" today published on its website, eloquently paints a picture of the global "anti-democratic tide" that seems at once gradual and unavoidable. The title of the article, "Democracy Still Matters", subsequently cannot but ring untrue.

The full text of the article can be read free of charge here:

www.nytimes.com/2010/09/21/opinion/21iht-edcohen.html

Excerpts: "One mystery of the first decade of the 21st century is the decline of democracy. It's not that nations with democratic systems have dwindled in number but that democracy has lost its luster. It's an idea without a glow. [...] Those who saw something of the blood expended through the 20th century to secure liberal societies must inevitably find democracy's diminished appeal puzzling. But there are reasons. The lingering wars waged partly in democracy's name in Iraq and Afghanistan hurt its reputation [...]. Given the bloody mayhem, it was easy to portray 'democracy' as a fig leaf for the West's bellicose designs and casual hypocrisies. While the democratic West fought, a nondemocratic China grew. It emerged onto the world stage prizing stability, avoiding military adventure and delivering 10 percent annual growth of which Western democracies could only dream. China's 'surge' was domestic. It was unencumbered by the paralyzing debate of democratic process.

"When the West's financial system imploded in 2008, the Chinese response was vigorous. A 'Beijing consensus' gained traction. The borderline between democracy and authoritarianism grew more opaque. The dichotomy between freedom and tyranny suddenly seemed oh-so 20th century. The new authoritarianism of China or Russia was harder to define and therefore harder to confront. 'Regimes like the one in Russia are stabilized by the fact that they have no ideology,' said Ivan Krastev, a fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna. 'There is really no ideological means to attack them.' They also derive resilience from the fact that their borders are open. 'The middle class is not interested in changing the system because if they don't like it they can fly to London,' Krastev noted. Having grown up in Communist Bulgaria, he believes democracy was oversold in the 1990's. All good things, at the Cold War's end, were shoveled into the democratic basket: prosperity, growth, peace. When democracy stopped delivering in these areas, it suffered. [...]

"Meanwhile technology kicked in with what the author Jonathan Franzen has called its 'trillion little bits of distracting noise.' People, synched with themselves, retreated into private networks and away from the public space – the commons – where democratic politics had been played out. Democracies seemed blocked, as in Belgium, or corrupted, as in Israel, or parodies, as in Italy, or paralyzed, as in the Netherlands. [...] Obama soon found himself caught in the gridlock of the very partisan shrieking he had vowed to overcome. [...] So what? So what if money trumped democracy and stability trumped open societies for hundreds of millions of people? So what if the rule of law or individual freedom was compromised, the press muzzled, and media-controlling presidents thought they could use 'democracy' to rule for life with occasional four-year breaks. So what if people no longer thought their vote would change anything because politics was for sale? Perhaps liberal democracy, along with its Western cradle, had passed its zenith."

As of now, the article seems not to have appeared in print in the "New York Times", though it may be included in a print edition of the "Times"-owned "International Herald Tribune".

Article: The Crisis of Capitalist Democracy

Adrian Pabst, "The Crisis of Capitalist Democracy" ("Telos", 152, fall 2010: pp. 44-67):

http://journal.telospress.com/cgi/content/abstract/2010/152/44

Excerpt: "Is the neo-liberal era since the mid-1970s synonymous with a corporate capture of the state and the passage to 'post-democracy'? And if so, might the failure of neo-liberalism since the onset of the international economic crisis in 2007 and the state-sponsored bailout of global finance presage a return to the primacy of democratic politics over 'free-market' economics commonly associated with the post-World War II period? At the time of this writing, it is premature to analyze the aftermath of the Great Recession (2007-09), which could yet mutate into a twenty-first-century Great Depression. However, the current ..."

Unfortunately, the journal neither provides an abstract nor a more extensive excerpt. I could not access the full text of the article (which was published as part of a themed issue on "Religion and the Critique of Modernity").

Adrian Pabst is Lecturer in Politics at the University of Kent.

CONF: The end of democracy

A debate on "The end of democracy" will be organized by the Fundación para las Relaciones Internacionales y el Diálogo Exterior (FRIDE), at the Fundación Mapfre, Paseo de Recoletos 23, Madrid, Spain, 22 September 2010

www.fride.org/event/229/debate:-the-end-of-democracy

Description: "How has the financial crisis affected the credibility of democratic values? What is the impact of the increasing weight of other political systems, such as China and Russia's? Are democracy promotion policies still valid? Why does Spain not play a greater role in this area? Why has the number of democracies decreased worldwide during the last decade? These are some of the questions that will be addressed in this debate".

Participants include: Pedro Solbes (former Deputy Vice President and Minister of Economy of Spain); Ana Palacio (former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Spain and former Senior Vice President of the World Bank); Eduardo Serra (former Minister of Defense of Spain); and Fernando Vallespín (Professor of Political Science, Autonomous University of Madrid). The debate will be led by Richard Youngs, Director General of the Madrid-based "European think tank for global action" FRIDE and Associate Professor in the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick.

Attendance is by invitation only.

For further information, please contact Richard Youngs: ryoungs@fride.org

(Update 2 October 2010: Contributions to this event, in Spanish, have been uploaded to the website as audio and video files.)

Article: "Peak oil" may threaten survival of democracy, says German military

On 1 September 2010, the major German weekly news magazine "Der Spiegel" published on its English website an article by business editor Stefan Schultz titled "Military Study Warns of a Potentially Drastic Oil Crisis".

The full text of the article can be read free of charge here:

www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,715138,00.html

Excerpts: "A study by a German military think tank has analyzed how 'peak oil' might change the global economy. The internal draft document – leaked on the Internet – shows for the first time how carefully the German government has considered a potential energy crisis. The term 'peak oil' is used by energy experts to refer to a point in time when global oil reserves pass their zenith and production gradually begins to decline. This would result in a permanent supply crisis [...]. The issue is so politically explosive that it's remarkable when an institution like the Bundeswehr, the German military, uses the term 'peak oil' at all. [...] The study is a product of the Future Analysis department of the Bundeswehr Transformation Center, a think tank tasked with fixing a direction for the German military. The team of authors [...] warns of shifts in the global balance of power, of the formation of new relationships based on interdependency, of a decline in importance of the western industrial nations, of the 'total collapse of the markets' and of serious political and economic crises.

"The study [...] was not meant for publication. The document is said to be in draft stage and to consist solely of scientific opinion, which has not yet been edited by the Defense Ministry and other government bodies. [...] According to the German report, there is 'some probability that peak oil will occur around the year 2010 and that the impact on security is expected to be felt 15 to 30 years later.' The Bundeswehr prediction is consistent with those of well-known scientists who assume global oil production has either already passed its peak or will do so this year. [...] 'In the medium term the global economic system and every market-oriented national economy would collapse.' [...] The Bundeswehr study also raises fears for the survival of democracy itself. Parts of the population could perceive the upheaval triggered by peak oil 'as a general systemic crisis.' This would create 'room for ideological and extremist alternatives to existing forms of government.' Fragmentation of the affected population is likely and could 'in extreme cases lead to open conflict.'" (bold removed)

Article: "Democracy could disappear" in Greece, Spain, and Portugal, warns Barroso

The UK newspaper "Daily Mail" yesterday published an article online, by its political correspondent Jason Groves, titled "Nightmare vision for Europe as EU chief warns 'democracy could disappear' in Greece, Spain and Portugal".

The full text of the article can be read free of charge here:

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1286480/EU-chief-warns-democracy-disappear-Greece-Spain-Portugal.html

Excerpts: "Democracy could 'collapse' in Greece, Spain and Portugal unless urgent action is taken to tackle the debt crisis, the head of the European Commission has warned. In an extraordinary briefing to trade union chiefs last week, Commission President Jos[é] Manuel Barroso set out an 'apocalyptic' vision in which crisis-hit countries in southern Europe could fall victim to military coups or popular uprisings as interest rates soar and public services collapse because their governments run out of money. [...] John Monks, former head of the TUC [UK Trades Union Congress], said he had been 'shocked' by the severity of the warning from Mr Barroso, who is a former prime minister of Portugal. Mr Monks, now head of the European TUC, said: '[...] [H]is message was blunt: "Look, if they do not carry out these austerity packages, these countries could virtually disappear in the way that we know them as democracies. They've got no choice, this is it." [...]'

"Greece, Spain and Portugal, which only became democracies in the 1970s, are all facing dire problems with their public finances. All three countries have a history of military coups. [...] Mr Barroso's warning lays bare the concern at the highest level in Brussels that the economic crisis could lead to the collapse of not only the beleaguered euro, but the EU itself, along with a string of fragile democracies. [...] Mr Monks yesterday warned that the new austerity measures themselves could take the continent 'back to the 1930s'. In an interview with the Brussels-based magazine EU Observer he said: 'This is extremely dangerous. This is 1931, we're heading back to the 1930s, with the Great Depression and we ended up with militarist dictatorship. I'm not saying we're there yet, but it's potentially very serious, not just economically, but politically as well.'"

I can't figure out whether the article appeared in print today.

Trend: Enemies of democracy have become stronger due to economic crisis, says Aznar

On 27 May 2010, the Geneva-based non-governmental organization UN Watch awarded its first Guardian of Freedom Award to the conservative former Spanish Prime Minister, José Maria Aznar:

www.unwatch.org/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=bdKKISNqEmG&b=1286087&ct=8417193

In his acceptance speech, titled "Leadership on the World Stage", Aznar said: "There is a widespread feeling of crisis and confusion in the face of some new and complex phenomena. Old problems have not disappeared and yet new ones are arising. [...] In my view, they are the economic crisis, the threats to global security and the challenges to democracy and human rights worldwide. I firmly believe that the three of them are interconnected and that all of them have in common the fact that liberal democracy is at stake. [...] It should not come as a surprise if the enemies of free and open societies take advantage of this situation. It is not by chance that those who oppose the free-market economy end up criticizing the principles and values that underpin liberal democracy. The authoritarian forces and the enemies of democracy have become stronger in the last year and half. Our current crisis emboldens the enemies of freedom; emboldens those who do not believe in liberty, market economy, democracy or equality [...]. It is also worrisome to see the growing alliance of authoritarian regimes and theocratic tyrannies around the world. We should pay more attention to what is going on in Latin America, where old dictatorships and their new disciples are taking advantage of our weaknesses to advance on their populist and socialist agendas."

Article: Capital and Democracy

In 2006, the Hungarian anarchist "Barricade Collective" wrote an introduction and commentary, titled "Capital and Democracy", to a 1969 text by French communist theorist Jacques Camatte ("La mystification démocratique").

Both an undated English translation of the original text by Camatte, "The Democratic Mystification", and the more recent introduction and commentary (which may or may not have been written in Hungarian initially) can be read free of charge here:

www.anarkismo.net/article/4454

Excerpts from the introduction: "The dead labour's independence [as value] and its dominance over living productive activity – this necrophilia of capital – yields the present disgusting relationship between individuals and the loathsome ideology which adheres to it: the practice and the theory of bourgeois democracy. [...] Democracy assumes different forms according to the forms of productive labour and the extension of commodity production. Ancient democracy was an internal affair of the ruling class, because only free citizens were commodity owners (namely owners of the land, the slaves and their products). In modern bourgeois democracy everybody is a commodity owner, and the key commodity for the bourgeoisie – labour force – is put on the market by the working class. Hence, democracy is total now. [...] Political parties – i.e. the parties of the bourgeoisie, including the social democratic parties – have never represented more than the alternatives of the development of capital, in other words the interests of some ruling class groups. The democratic (parliamentary) principle was the guarantee that the political management would not separate from the interests of aggregate capital. [...]

"When capital comes to a profound crisis, it seems to break with the democratic principle. During the crisis, a huge mass of constant capital loses its value and is unable to function further as capital, to produce surplus value by absorbing variable capital. So the crisis of constant capital is also the crisis of variable capital, which manifests itself in the fall of (real) wages and massive unemployment. Capitalism is unable to handle such crises through the usual reconciliation of interests between capitals (parliamentarism) and the reconciliation of interests between capital and the working class (trade unionism). In such cases, the strongest representative of capital undertakes the task of capitalism's re-structuring, for capital's survival. The main elements of this are the destruction of those capitals which have lost their value and the destruction of the unnecessary labour force – open or hidden war. [...] Facing this phenomenon, leftists shout: 'Capitalism betrays democracy! Capital is capable of sacrificing democracy for its own interests!' Some go so far as to try to prove theoretically that capitalism can never be democratic.

"In contrast to this, it is extremely important to emphasize that the 'anti-democratism' of capital during crises is an absolutely democratic phenomenon. The case is exactly that it tries to maintain the commodity-owner individuals, private property. Capital is obliged to infringe the political rights proclaimed by capital itself (freedom of press, assembly and speech) if they hinder the process of capital's reproduction (production, circulation or both), and democracy between the people is the first precondition for this reproduction. A revolutionary situation is the peak of capitalism's crisis. [...] Revolutionaries who want to fight consistently against capitalism cannot make any compromise with democracy. Democracy is the form of existence of those who have been alienated from the human community, 'of those who have lost their original organic unity with the community'
(Camatte). Therefore the communist revolution which means the creation of human community cannot be victorious without the total destruction of this way of existence." (italics removed)

Book: The Crisis of Capitalist Democracy

Just published: Richard A. Posner, "The Crisis of Capitalist Democracy" (Harvard University Press, March 2010):

www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/POSECC.html

Publisher's description: "Following up on his timely and well-received book, A Failure of Capitalism, Richard Posner steps back to take a longer view of the continuing crisis of democratic capitalism as the American and world economies crawl gradually back from the depths to which they had fallen in the autumn of 2008 and the winter of 2009. By means of a lucid narrative of the crisis and a series of analytical chapters pinpointing critical issues of economic collapse and gradual recovery, Posner helps non-technical readers understand business-cycle and financial economics, and financial and governmental institutions, practices, and transactions, while maintaining a neutrality impossible for persons professionally committed to one theory or another. He calls for fresh thinking about the business cycle that would build on the original ideas of Keynes.

"Central to these ideas is that of uncertainty as opposed to risk. Risk can be quantified and measured. Uncertainty cannot, and in this lies the inherent instability of a capitalist economy. As we emerge from the financial earthquake, a deficit aftershock rumbles. It is in reference to that potential aftershock, as well as to the government's stumbling efforts at financial regulatory reform, that Posner raises the question of the adequacy of our democratic institutions to the economic challenges heightened by the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression. The crisis and the government's energetic response to it have enormously increased the national debt at the same time that structural defects in the American political system may make it impossible to pay down the debt by any means other than inflation or devaluation."

Review: "Posner [...] has enormous credibility when he casts a skeptical eye on Wall Street. As an influential free-market thinker, he helped shape the antiregulatory ideology that inspired so much public policy since 1980 [...]. In his final pages, though, the author can't muster much confidence that America will overcome its splintered politics, the 'quasi bribery' of campaign money, or the bipartisan myth that we can thrive indefinitely on low taxes and profligate public spending." (Paul Barrett, "BusinessWeek")

According to the book's index, "democracy" is discussed only on four (of 400) pages. Interesting, too, that the title speaks of "capitalist democracy", while the blurb has "democratic capitalism".

Richard A. Posner is Circuit Judge at the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of Chicago.

Article: How Democracy Dies

The US magazine "Newsweek" runs an article in this week's issue titled "How Democracy Dies". Written by Joshua Kurlantzick, the subtitle or lead reads "A global decline in political freedom is partly the fault of the middle class".

The full text of the article (in the browser window alternatively titled "The Global Decline in Democracy") can be read free of charge here:

www.newsweek.com/id/234891

Excerpts: "Many of the same middle-class men and women who once helped push dictators out of power are now seeing just how difficult it can be to establish democracy, and are pining for the days of autocracy. [...] The global economic crisis has also damaged democracy's appeal. To many middle-class men and women in the developing world, the spread of democracy was linked to the spread of capitalism, since many of these countries opened their economies at the same time as they embraced political freedom. As the crisis cuts into people's incomes, many blame democracy, in part, for the economic downturn. [...] The result is that on nearly every continent, democracy is sputtering out. [...]

"[I]n many of the countries where democracy has recently been rolled back, the middle class that once promoted political freedom is now also resorting to extralegal, undemocratic tactics – supposedly to save democracy itself. Middle-class Thai urbanites, for instance, bitterly disappointed by Thaksin's abuses and worried he was empowering the poor at their expense, have rebelled. Rather than challenging Thaksin through the democratic process, such as by bolstering opposition parties or starting their own newspapers, they tore down democracy by shutting down institutions of government and calling for a military coup, even while claiming to support democracy. [...] Many called for a military intervention or some other kind of benign despotism to restore the rule of law and fight corruption, which they claimed had worsened under Thaksin. 'We had to save democracy, even if it meant [ignoring] elections,' said one Thai diplomat sympathetic to the protesters. The Thai elites got what they hoped for: Thaksin is in exile, his opponents are in power, and Thailand's democracy is shattered. [...]

"In Africa, recent coups in Mauritania and Niger were welcomed by the urban middle class, while data from the Asian Barometer surveys, regular polls that examine Asian attitudes toward democracy, show that many respondents have become dissatisfied with their democratic systems. [...] Such is the case in Russia as well, where Putin, even as he wipes out most of the democratic institutions, enjoys staggeringly high poll numbers from the middle class and other segments of the population. [...] Even in China, where it is the poor in rural areas who now take the lead in protests, the urban middle class appears comfortable with the ruling regime. [...]

"The middle class's push back against democracy, by way of coups and other antidemocratic means, has disenfranchised the poor, sparking still more protests. In Thailand, crowds of protesters, most of them poor, have launched their own violent demonstrations that target the middle classes who tried to push Thaksin out of office. Similarly in Bolivia, the middle-class anti-Morales protesters now have been met with angry pro-Morales protesters mostly drawn from the ranks of the poor. In the Philippines, poor men and women furious that their hero Estrada had been forced out by the middle class launched their own counter-protests. Now, with the nation heading to another election, Estrada, out of jail and running again, is picking up support from the poor for his presidential bid."

Joshua Kurlantzick is a journalist and author, a Fellow at the University of Southern California's Center on Public Diplomacy, and a Fellow for Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Article: The Politics of Development

Brij Mohan, "The Politics of Development", Journal of Comparative Social Welfare, 25 (3), October 2009: pp. 255-67:

www.informaworld.com/smpp/1244700700-65537240/content~db=all~content=a916030631

Abstract: "Global poverty and inequality, in the context of current capitalist crisis, will remain a daunting challenge in the twenty-first century. This reality will unleash an era of post-democracy bedeviled by multifaceted meltdowns in political, cultural and economic structures. The outcome will be a catastrophe that will be beyond any human intervention unless we think self-critically and fast. This article seeks to theorize the main processes that thwart the rational-humane logic of development in the 'post-American world'."

Some excerpts: "A hedonist culture wallowing in hubristic delusions is bound to crash. The contradictions of a society based on unprincipled consumption and consumerism is bad news for the future of humankind. [...] All political roles are implicated in a culture of deceptions and depredations until proven not guilty. Will there ever be an acceptable rationale and due compensation for the Iraq war that was launched by neo-cons based on lies? Can anyone on this planet rewind world history and undo India's partition that created a phony – now a failed – state named Pakistan, which has become the womb of world terrorism? [...] A cultural meltdown reflects on the nature of social contract that serves as the foundation of modern society. The rusted fabric of social institutions is in disarray. Social institutions are losing legitimacy and their leaders are guilty of bad faith. Banks cheat; schools do not teach; hospitals sometimes kill; prisons dehumanize; markets collapse; ideologies mislead; academe sucks; and faith corrupts. [...] It is cultural meltdowns of varied hues that destabilize systems of sustenance that render democracies vulnerable to the creatureliness of reptilian behaviors. From the Wall Street to Rwanda, the gluttony of greed and gloom has produced widespread dysfunctionality that thwarts all democratic institutions."

I venture the opinion that the acceptance of this incoherent little piece that reads as if it had been written on speed was greatly helped by the fact that the author is himself Editor-in-Chief of the journal it was published in.

Indian-born Brij Mohan is Professor of Social Work at Louisiana State University.

Trend: Quality of democracy deteriorating

The German pro-democracy Bertelsmann Stiftung (Foundation) has released its Transformation Index (BTI) 2010 (the fourth edition, after 2003, 2006, and 2008), "a global ranking that analyzes and evaluates development and transformation processes in 128 countries" with regard to "how each of these countries is progressing toward democracy and a market economy".

The overview report can be read free of charge here:

www.bertelsmann-transformation-index.de/fileadmin/pdf/Anlagen_BTI_2010/BTI_2010__Brochure_E_web.pdf

Excerpts: "[W]ith the exception of a very stable group of top performers, the overall quality of democracy has deteriorated and – in some cases – considerably. [...] 53 countries are now classified as 'defective democracies.' [...] The failing states of Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq and the Central African Republic are included in the group of 52 autocracies because, although they have held elections, [...] each has created a situation in which no truly democratic system can be established. [...] Of the 15 countries that have suffered a significant deterioration in the quality of their political systems over the last two years, nine are found in sub-Saharan Africa. Among them are countries that once inspired great hopes for democracy, such as Madagascar, Senegal and Tanzania, each of which is now close to becoming a 'highly defective democracy.'"

The English version of the full report was supposed to be published by Bertelsmann as a 260-page book in February 2010, but appears not yet to have been released. It will include all 128 country reports and relevant data, documented on an enclosed CD.

Book: The Citizenry and the Collapse of Democracy

Currently on sale with a 34% discount (US and Canada only): Nancy Bermeo, "Ordinary People in Extraordinary Times: The Citizenry and the Collapse of Democracy" (Princeton University Press, 2003):

http://press.princeton.edu/titles/7663.html

Publisher's description: "For generations, influential thinkers – often citing the tragic polarization that took place during Germany's Great Depression – have suspected that people's loyalty to democratic institutions erodes under pressure and that citizens gravitate toward antidemocratic extremes in times of political and economic crisis. But do people really defect from democracy when times get tough? Do ordinary people play a leading role in the collapse of popular government?

"Based on extensive research, this book overturns the common wisdom. It shows that the German experience was exceptional, that people's affinity for particular political positions are surprisingly stable, and that what is often labeled polarization is the result not of vote switching but of such factors as expansion of the franchise, elite defections, and the mobilization of new voters. Democratic collapses are caused less by changes in popular preferences than by the actions of political elites who polarize themselves and mistake the actions of a few for the preferences of the many. These conclusions are drawn from the study of twenty cases, including every democracy that collapsed in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution in interwar Europe, every South American democracy that fell to the Right after the Cuban Revolution, and three democracies that avoided breakdown despite serious economic and political challenges.

"Unique in its historical and regional scope, this book offers unsettling but important lessons about civil society and regime change".

Nancy Bermeo is Nuffield Professor of Comparative Politics at Oxford and Professor of Politics at Princeton.

Article: Reading Russia: The Rules of Survival

Is this a computer hack?

The media section of the apparently authentic English-language website of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin contains an article published last year in the "Journal of Democracy" (20 [2], April 2009: pp. 73-7) that calls Russia not only "authoritarian", but democracy in Russia "failed":

http://premier.gov.ru/eng/premier/press/world/3015/

It doesn't appear that someone has read the text before putting it up online. The author of the article, "Reading Russia: The Rules of Survival", Ivan Krastev, writes:

"During Putin's time as president from 2000 to 2008, Russian oil and gas companies earned in excess of US$650 billion more from their exports than they had in the previous eight years under Yeltsin. The breakneck pace of economic growth gave Putin a free hand politically, and he used it without compunction to entrench the power of himself and his circle, unhindered by weak and shallowrooted democratic institutions. [...]

"Is the [current] crisis more dangerous for Russia's new authoritarianism or for Europe's new democracies? The early evidence of the Putin government's performance in response to falling oil prices supports the assumption that the regime is ineffective, vulnerable, and unprepared to deal with the challenge. There is no doubt that the crisis has hit Russia extremely hard. [...] The social and political fallout of the crisis is dramatic. We can already detect splits among the ruling elites, with some of the Kremlin's in-house oligarchs bleeding and others cheering. Unemployment is rising, and the specter of mass protest has the authorities gravely worried. [...]

"The crisis has also sharpened the tensions between Moscow and various regional authorities, and many are hard-pressed to imagine how, given the new economic reality, the Kremlin will be able to continue buying the loyalty of vassals such as Chechen president Ramzan Kadyrov. [...] The Russian government's early reaction to the crisis resembled a nervous rearranging of deckchairs on the Titanic. [...] The authorities' first impulses were to ban the word 'crisis' from government-controlled media and then to focus all efforts on fighting 'panic' rather than addressing the underlying economic conditions that were causing it. The result was a decline of trust in the mainstream media. [...]

"Putin's regime is in deep crisis, but at least for the moment Putin's majority remains intact and the consensus behind him is unchallenged. Why this should be so, even though a majority of Russians is well aware of the regime's corruption and its failure to modernize Russia, is a question worth asking. [...] What happened in [the crisis of] 1998 was a crisis of Russian capitalism and Russia's mode of faking democracy. While Russia was collapsing, Western democracies were prospering. It was a crisis not of the model, but of the imitation. [...] [T]he current crisis may be eroding the economic base and the material power base of the regime, but is making its ideological base stronger. Sovereignty-not prosperity-is at the heart of Putin's pact with the Russian people. At the moment, Russians blame Putin not for his ambition to build 'fortress Russia,' but for his failure to build it quickly enough. [...]

"Russians fear that genuine democratization will end in chaos and the territorial disintegration of their far-flung state. Putin's Kremlin has founded its legitimacy on the manipulation of this fear. [...] The concept of 'sovereign democracy' that the Kremlin cooked up is a typical 'nonideological ideology.' It lacks charismatic appeal. It summons people to no inspiring project. It does not travel well abroad. But it is not just a public-relations exercise. [...] [The Russian government's] thinking is profoundly shaped by its paranoid interpretation of the 1990s and its determination never again to see Russia 'driven to its knees.'

"The many analysts who think that the Putin regime's authoritarianism causes its aggressive foreign-policy behavior fail to grasp that public support for Putin's assertive foreign policy is in fact crucial to his legitimacy. Russian society at the moment does not think in terms of democracy versus authoritarianism, but rather in terms of sovereignty versus dependence. Putin's problem with democracy is that it did not contribute to Russia's greatness. Putin's Russia is a reminder that democracy-building cannot take the place of state-building, and that a self-defined political community is not an outcome but rather a precondition of successful democratization. [...]

"Putin's regime represents not interests or values but most Russians' basic fears [...] – which largely explains how his corrupt and inefficient KGB regime has managed to maintain public support over the last decade."

This (self-indictment) on a government website!

Should anyone at the Moscow White House catch on to it, the original article can be read free of charge here:

www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/gratis/Krastev-20-2.pdf

The article's author, Ivan Krastev, is Chairman of the Centre for Liberal Strategies in Sofia, Bulgaria, and Editor-in-Chief of the Bulgarian edition of "Foreign Policy".