Civil society in Russia: Models and prospects for development

Russian Review

Volumn 62, Issue 2, 2003, Pages 212-222

  Hudson, George E ^a,b  

^a WITTENBERG UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b Wittenberg University

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 3142764956     PISSN: 00360341     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/1467-9434.00273     Document Type: Article

References (31)

1. For a general description and analysis of these and other writers see, for instance, Steven M. DeLue, Political Thinking, Political Theory, and Civil Society (Boston, 1997)
2. For a book-length American treatment see Marcia A. Weigle, Russia's Liberal Project: State-Society Relations in the Transition from Communism (University Park, PA, 2000)
3. See also Henry Hale, "Civil Society from Above? Statist and Liberal Models of State-Building in Russia," Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization 10 (Summer 2002): 306-21
4. Robert A. Dahl is the political theorist most responsible for developing the notion of polyarchy. See, for instance, his A Preface to Democratic Theory (Chicago, 1956), esp. chap. 3
5. and idem, Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition (New Haven, 1971)
6. See the section later in this article about the development of civil societies
7. Don E. Eberly, "The Meanings, Origins and Applications of Civil Society," in The Essential Civil Society Reader: The Classic Essays, ed. Don E. Eberly (New York, 2000), 9
8. It is hard to know whether Domrin's source had only politically oriented or all types of civic groups in mind when it calculated the 5 percent figure. It is interesting to note that participation exclusively in public interest groups in the United States, Britain, France, and Germany in 1980 was hardly different from the Russian 5 percent figure cited above. In fact, the French and German participation rate was less than 5 percent. By 1990, however, U.S. participation rates had increased to about 18 percent (from 6 percent); British, to 11 percent (from 6); French, to 7 percent (from 3); and German to 11 percent (from 3). See Russell J. Dalton, Citizen Politics, 3d ed. (New York, 2002), 46
9. To perhaps a large extent, however, the data mask overall group participation levels in those countries. For instance, about 79 percent of Americans belong to all types of civic associations, including public interest groups, but also voluntary groups that do not necessarily lobby government for any cause (for example, literary groups). See Sidney Verba, Kay Lehman Schlozman, and Henry Brady, Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics (Cambridge, MA, 1995), 63. Whichever set of data one uses as comparison, Russia emerges as relatively weak in civic group participation
10. Peter L. Berger and Richard John Neuhaus, "To Empower People: From State to Civil Society," in Essential Civil Society Reader, 145
11. See also the more popular but still useful treatment of the topic, Robert N. Bellah, et al., Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life, rev. ed. (Berkeley, 1996)
12. See, more recently, Thomas E. Patterson, The Vanishing Voter: Civic Involvement in an Age of Uncertainty (New York, 2002)
13. The changing attitudes are reflected in greatly increased support starting in 1951 for the institutions of German democracy - the Chancellor and Bundestag (lower house of parliament). By 1980 nearly 60 percent of Germans perceived the chancellor as doing the most to help democracy, compared to only 5 percent in 1951! Similarly, the Bundestag was seen as a "good representative of the public" by about 65 percent of the population in 1980, whereas only about 35 percent thought that in 1950. Russell J. Dalton, Politics in West Germany (Glenview, IL, 1989), p. 105
14. as cited in Gabriel A. Almond and G Bingham Powell, Jr., Comparative Politics Today: A World View, 5th ed. (New York, 1992), 257
15. I. I. Kurilla, et al., Nekommercheskii sektor g. Volgograda: Sostoianie i perspektivy razvitiia (Volgograd, 1999), 12
16. See Domrin's article in this issue, "Ten Years Later: Society, 'Civil Society,' and the Russian State," 210
17. For the quote see Weigle, Russia's Liberal Project, 19
18. For her discussion of the liberal model see ibid., 4-14. A key dilemma for the development of liberalism in Russia, according to Weigle, is that "state leaders must institutionalize state power and limit that power at the same time" (p. 23)
19. Vremia novostei, 22 November 2001
20. as reported in Johnson's Russia List, no. 5561 (22 November 2001)
21. 21 November 2001, as reported in Johnson's Russia List, no. 5560 (21 November 2001)
22. I thank Yelena Shomina, Institute for Comparative Political Studies, Center for Housing Movement and Community Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, for providing data on Moscow organizations. I will be happy to provide the more detailed information on numbers of groups to those interested
23. Kurilla, Nekommercheskii sektor g. Volgograda
24. F. E. Sheregi and E. A. Abrosimova, Pravovye initsiativy nekommercheskikh organizatsii Rossii (Moscow, 1999), 7
25. While in Moscow in June 2001, I examined a packet of these materials during a conversation at the Russian Foundation for Legal Reforms
26. Sheregi and Abrosimova, Pravovye initsiativy, 93
27. Ivan Sukhov, Vremia novostei, 12 July 2001, as paraphrased in REF/RL, 13 July 2001. The article cites no evidence for its conclusion
28. See, for instance, Domrin, "Ten Years Later," 199, 207
29. Nodari Simonia, "Governing Global Finance: The Role of Civil Society," speech given to an IMF Economic Forum, 5 April 2001, Washington, DC, as recorded on Johnson's Russia List (11 May 2001)
30. Kurilla, Nekommercheskii sektor g. Volgograda, 59, 62
31. Weigle discusses the important heritage of Russia's civil society from the Soviet period (Russia's Liberal Project, chaps. 2 and 3)