Post-Soviet Transitions and Democratization: Towards Theory-Building

Conventional models of ‘transitions to democracy’ are incomplete and insufficient for the analysis of the regime changes in Russia and other post-Soviet societies, which go beyond the usual textbook cases. This article reconsiders conceptual frameworks for the analysis of democracy and democratization in the light of the experience of postSoviet political developments. The distinction between types of predominant political institutions (formal versus informal, or the rule of law versus arbitrary rule) marks a watershed between ‘transitions to democracy’ and post-Soviet transitions to somewhat different regimes. The principal sources of political contestation in post-Soviet societies are intra-elite conflicts rather than ‘pacts’. There is no one clear basis from which to establish the dominance of formal institutions. That goal could be achieved by three different ways: (1) step-by-step acceptance of formal institutions as a byproduct of development of political contestation; (2) return to anon-competitive political regime and then installation of new formal institutions through re-establishing new state capacities; and (3) undermining of the emerging political regimes through political conflicts. However, none of these would guarantee the emergence of the rule of law.