Comments on: Russia: The West’s Mine Canary? http://russia.foreignpolicyblogs.com/2008/06/25/russia-the-wests-mine-canary/ A Great Decisions 2008 Blog Sat, 22 Nov 2008 08:55:22 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=wordpress-mu-1.0 by: jd http://russia.foreignpolicyblogs.com/2008/06/25/russia-the-wests-mine-canary/#comment-651 Wed, 25 Jun 2008 21:30:02 +0000 http://russia.foreignpolicyblogs.com/2008/06/25/russia-the-wests-mine-canary/#comment-651 "Russian society has undergone a condensed and accelerated version of the West’s slower, less extreme but equally steady drift towards greater intrusion of the market into politics and society, concentration of power and a weakening of civil society and democratic participation in politics." Um, maybe. Or perhaps Russia just never achieved a particularly noteworthy level of institutionalized democracy and is now reverting further toward its traditional authoritarian norm. Seems a litle more Occam's Razor, no? “Russian society has undergone a condensed and accelerated version of the West’s slower, less extreme but equally steady drift towards greater intrusion of the market into politics and society, concentration of power and a weakening of civil society and democratic participation in politics.”

Um, maybe. Or perhaps Russia just never achieved a particularly noteworthy level of institutionalized democracy and is now reverting further toward its traditional authoritarian norm. Seems a litle more Occam’s Razor, no?

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