The travails of liberalism

Journal of Democracy

Volumn 7, Issue 2, 1996, Pages

  Steven Fish, M ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

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EID: 0005844553     PISSN: 10455736     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
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References (24)

1. Parties in Russia are not as tightly linked to societal organizations (such as labor unions, employers' associations, and social-movement organizations) as they often are in the West, but voting patterns evinced a link between social status and electoral preference, indicating the beginnings of interest-based voting. On the evolving interest bases of Russian parties, see M. Steven Fish, "The Advent of Multipartism in Russia, 1993-95," Post-Soviet Affairs 11 (October-December 1995): 362-77.
2. On the size and programmatic orientations of Russian parties, see Fish, "Advent of Multipartism in Russia," 346-53.
3. Parties here classified as "liberal" are Yabloko; DVR; Forward Russia; the bloc "Pamfilova-Gurov-Lysenko"; Common Cause; the Beer Lovers' Party; the Party of Russian Unity and Accord; the Christian Democratic Union-Christians of Russia; the Social Democrats; the Party of Economic Freedom; the Bloc of Independents; the Federal Democratic Movement; and Bloc "89." Classifying Our Home Is Russia as "liberal" is highly problematic. It contains some genuine "reformers," but also includes many opportunists who would be perfectly comfortable aligning themselves with whatever force is in power and who may defect to another party, including the CPRF, if Chernomyrdin loses his post or if Yeltsin is not reelected. Furthermore, the trajectory of the prime minister's policies since the founding of Our Home can scarcely be regarded as "liberal" or "reformist." The prime minister's and president's policies - e.g., shedding the few remaining liberals in the government, promoting "stabilization" of the status quo as the highest virtue, shifting privatization to schemes that amount to simple giveaways to banks and businesses with close government connections, and continuing the disastrous policy of indiscriminate violence in Chechnya - do not endow Our Home with an impressive list of liberal credentials.
4. The original formulation may be traced to Immanuel Kant and even Niccolo Machiavelli, and finds expression in the works of many modern theorists. See Immanuel Kant, Perpetual Peace (New York: Columbia University Press, 1939), 32-35; and Isaiah Berlin, Against the Current: Essays in the History of Ideas (New York: Penguin, 1979), 78.
5. The original formulation may be traced to Immanuel Kant and even Niccolo Machiavelli, and finds expression in the works of many modern theorists. See Immanuel Kant, Perpetual Peace (New York: Columbia University Press, 1939), 32-35; and Isaiah Berlin, Against the Current: Essays in the History of Ideas (New York: Penguin, 1979), 78.
6. Walter Lippmann, The Public Philosophy (Boston: Little, Brown, 1955), esp. ch. 7.
7. J.S. Mill, Autobiography, ed. Jack Stillinger (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1969), 115, 141-42, 183; Alexis de Tocqueville, The Old Regime and the French Revolution, trans. Stuart Gilbert (Garden City, N.J.: Doubleday, 1955), 157-69; Stephen Holmes, Passions and Constraint (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 31-32.
8. J.S. Mill, Autobiography, ed. Jack Stillinger (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1969), 115, 141-42, 183; Alexis de Tocqueville, The Old Regime and the French Revolution, trans. Stuart Gilbert (Garden City, N.J.: Doubleday, 1955), 157-69; Stephen Holmes, Passions and Constraint (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 31-32.
9. J.S. Mill, Autobiography, ed. Jack Stillinger (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1969), 115, 141-42, 183; Alexis de Tocqueville, The Old Regime and the French Revolution, trans. Stuart Gilbert (Garden City, N.J.: Doubleday, 1955), 157-69; Stephen Holmes, Passions and Constraint (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 31-32.
10. On this score, the CPRF's programmatic documents speak for themselves. See Materialy vserossiikoi konferentsii Kommunisticheskoi partii Rossiiskoi Federatsii, 23-24 aprelia 1994 goda (Materials of the all-Russian conference of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, 23-24 April 1994), Moscow, 1994.
11. L.T. Hobhouse, Liberalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1964), 50.
12. Judith N. Shklar, "The Liberalism of Fear," in Nancy L. Rosenblum, ed., Liberalism and the Moral Life (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989), 21-38.
13. In a survey conducted on the eve of the recent parliamentary elections, respondents indicated considerably more concern over "the growth of crime" than over any one of the following problems: "the growth of unemployment"; "the crisis in the economy, the fall in production in industry and agriculture"; "the withholding of wages"; and "the health of the population and the system of health maintenance." Only fear of inflation outstripped crime as a source of public concern. Source: "Predvybomyi opros VTsIOM, 29 noiabria-5 dekabria 1995" (Pre-election poll by the VTsIOM, 29 November-5 December 1995) (mimeographed copy in author's possession). In another recent survey, respondents ranked the murder of journalist Vladislav Listev as the second most important event of 1995, ahead of the parliamentary elections and behind only the war in Chechnya. See "New Poll Charts Leaders' Rise and Fall," Moscow Times, 30 December 1995.
14. An intriguing and germane critique of the "technocratic" orientation inherent in some strains of modern liberalism can be found in Thomas A. Spragens, The Irony of Liberal Reason (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 91-195.
15. It would be wrong, of course, to presume that all of Russia's liberal leaders lack a genuine ethical sense or suffer from a single-minded focus on economic problems. Gaidar, for example, while undoubtedly fitting the profile of the elitist, technocratic liberal, has strongly condemned xenophobia, militarism, and Russian ethnic exclusiveness - a fact overlooked by those who mistakenly regard him as a closet admirer of Augusto Pinochet. The former Chilean dictator's esteem is highest not among Russia's liberals, but rather among nationalists, some of whom, including General Lebed, do not hide their admiration in the closet. See "Demokraty zadumalis' o natsional'nom voprose" (Democrats reflected on the national question), Nezavisimaya gazeta, 8 December 1995.
16. Hobhouse, Liberalism, 50-51.
17. See Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974), 26-53.
18. Tocqueville, Old Regime, 145; David Hume, Political Essays (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 194-95.
19. Tocqueville, Old Regime, 145; David Hume, Political Essays (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 194-95.
20. See Gottfried Dietze, Liberalism Proper and Proper Liberalism (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985), 129, 154, 221. As Hume acknowledged, there does exist an undeniable tension between authority and liberty; but for both to survive, "neither of them can ever absolutely prevail." Hume, Political Essays, 22-23.
21. See Gottfried Dietze, Liberalism Proper and Proper Liberalism (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985), 129, 154, 221. As Hume acknowledged, there does exist an undeniable tension between authority and liberty; but for both to survive, "neither of them can ever absolutely prevail." Hume, Political Essays, 22-23.
22. Richard Rose, "Mobilizing Demobilized Voters in Post-Communist Societies," Party Politics 1 (1995): 557-59.
23. Holmes, Passions and Constraint, 23-24.
24. B.G. Kapustin and I.M. Kliamkin, "Liberal'nye tsennosti v soznanii rossiian" (Liberal values in the consciousness of Russians), Polis 2 (1994): 69-71.