Democracy in a Russian Mirror

The book ‘Democracy in a Russian Mirror’ edited by Adam Przeworski was issued by Cambridge University Press in May 2015. Three of the authors — Boris Makarenko, Andrei Melville and Mikhail Ilyin — are staff members of the School of Political Science.

The following contributors also offered a variety of insights and interpretations on democracy in Russia:

• Adam Przeworski, Professor at the Wilf Family Department of Politics of New York University, member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
• John Dunn, Emeritus Professor of Political Theory at King's College, Cambridge
• John Ferejohn, Professor at New York and Cambridge Universities
• Stephen Holmes, Professor at New York University
• José María Maravall, Professor at Complutense University of Madrid and University of Oxford
• Andranik Migranyan
• Pasquale Pasquino, Professor at New York University, Senior Research Fellow at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - Centre de Théorie et Analyse du Droit, Paris
• Ian Shapiro,  Director of the MacMillan Center at Yale University
• Valery Solovei, Head of the Department of Public Relations at MGIMO
• Alexei Voskressenski, Dean of the School of Political Affairs, MGIMO

This book examines the current state and the prospects for democracy in Russia, posing several challenges to our understanding of democracy. Thirteen contributors expand the debate over these questions, offering a variety of insights, interpretations, and conclusions vital to understanding the conditions of emergence and survival of successful democracies.

What can we learn about democracy from the experience of post-Soviet Russia? What can we learn about the prospects for democracy in Russia from the experience of "really existing democracies?" Must some "pre-requisites," cultural or material, be fulfilled for democracy to become possible? Raising these questions, the authors analyze both the development and current state of democracy in the world and political development of post-communist Russia. The purpose of this joint project is to analyze Russian political practice in the context of modern political knowledge about democracy, its advantages and disadvantages, as well as to enrich the theory of democracy, using specific Russian experience of the last decades.

For more information please visit the webpage.