Authoritarianism, Democracy and Their Relation to the Societal Response
Why can some societies produce changes withing their countries faster than others? Is it mentality of a particular country that causes it, or a system of the state structure? To figure this out I decided to investigate behavior of nations living withing two very similar countries – Russia and Ukraine – in the environment of governmental suppression. The societies of these two states appear to act surprisingly different withing analogous situations: response of Russian public seems to be less effective than the response of Ukrainian public. Therefore, a question follows: why cannot Russian society effectively respond to the governmental suppression, but Ukrainian society can?
In the first place, I would like to present the research that I completed in a most similar systems design.
From my point of view, the main reason for such a different effect in the case of these two states is their regime types. Correspondingly, my hypothesis is: authoritarian regime in Russia leads to Russian society being unable to effectively respond to governmental suppression, whereas democratic regime in Ukraine leads to Ukrainian society being able to effectively respond to governmental suppression (X Y).
This particular case attracted my attention due to a commonly held belief that Russia and Ukraine are very similar states. They share a country border and, therefore, historical past. Indeed, this key factor gave rise to a lot of alikeness between the two states to develop. In the first place, Ukrainian and Russian languages belong to a group of East Slavic languages (“Ukrainian Language”). In addition, these two states became officially independent from USSR in 1991 (“Ukraine”, “Russia”) and they both have Orthodoxy as a dominant religion (“Ukraine”, “Russia”). Keeping in mind the assumption about that Ukraine and Russia are similar, I did not notice many people questioning why with all the similarities these two states have such different fates in terms of bringing changes of a country-wide significance into action. There was something special about their cases that made such situation to occur and I decided to dive into the topic more.
Equally important is that comparison of Ukrainian and Russian societies is even more prevalent than the analogy of the states themselves. Thereafter, if we are saying that these two societies are similar, it logically follows that their response to governmental suppression withing their countries should be similar too. However, it is not. One reason to claim so is the fact that Russia has the same president ever since 2012, which is one of the possible forms of suppression (“Russia”). At the same time, Ukraine already had 4 different politicians on that position (“Ukraine”). Nevertheless, similar structure of the legal system in both countries as well as common early post-USSR political reformation period gave Ukrainian and Russian citizens alike environment for its further civic development and growth (“Ukraine”, “Russia”). Withal, their paths went in completely different directions: Russia followed the example of USSR and adopted authoritarianism, whereas Ukraine became a democratic country.
In order to test my hypothesis, I picked two waves of protests against the governmental suppression happening in the previously mentioned states during the same decade. Following the results of my research, democratic regime in Ukraine allowed a wave of demonstrations, called Euromaidan, that emerged in Ukraine in years 2013-2014 to achieve a successful change of the government. In contrast, authoritarian regime in Russia did not allow protests against frauded election results in Russia in 2011-2013 years to reach its goal. They were supressed by the government.
To start with, protests, as a form of community’s reaction, emerged in both countries due to attempts of their governments to ignore the opinion of its citizens – which is a form of legislative abolition. In Russia the protests were mainly caused by the rigged election results – Vladimir Putin was going on his third term (Sakwa 196). The new government was trying to hide the truths from the citizens, they were blaming the foreigners in financing the results, yet, unsuccessful: “A Pew Global Attitudes survey in Spring 2012 found that 58% of Russians believed that the election protests were domestically generated, with only 25% believing that Western governments sponsored the protests” (Sakwa 197). The community demanded fair elections. However, “new” Russian authoritarian government did not allow that to happen. In response to the popular movement a half-artificial counter-mobilization was raised: “This sort of rally mobilised voter support in favour of Putin, but the degree to which it represented genuine or ‘constructed’ support remains contested (Smith et al.32). Police brutality and provocations, mass arrests and raids for key activists, manipulations with constitution and adoption of new repressive laws, resulted into depressing the opposition: “The poor turnout for the ‘March of Millions’ on 15 June 2012 revealed the degree to which the protest wave had declined” (Sakwa 196). As a result, regardless all the resistance, Putin’s regime was renewed. On the other hand, in Ukraine similar events had an absolutely different ending. Although everything started as a peaceful demonstration, it evolved into a violent confrontation after the Ukraine’s Special Forces (Berkut) tried to clear up the square, where the assembly took place (Krasynska and Martin 426). The initial cause for the protest was the refusal of Victor Yanukovich, a president of Ukraine at that time, to sign the Association Agreement with the European Union (Krasynska and Martin 426). However, the violent actions of Berkut “prompted the next wave of protests, now with a different agenda—protesting the brutality and demanding changes in government (Marples 2015, p. 10), including the president’s resignation. From then on, mass demonstrations gathered on Maidan “every Sunday attracting hundreds of thousands of people” (Krasynska and Martin 426). Following the Russian example, Ukrainian government tried to organize a paid counter-protest called “anti-Maidan”, where “angry and dull people came to earn a little money not really aware of where and why they had been brought there” (Kowal et al.). However, after multiple attempts of the government to stop the protest with the use of force or a bribe, negotiations began. Ultimately, the movement achieved its goal: “In the morning of February 23, the Ukrainian Parliament, Verkhovna Rada, voted for the president’s removal and declared early presidential elections to be held in May” (Krasynska and Martin 426).
Even though Ukrainian democratic regime shouldn’t have allowed the violence to happen, it provided the key to the effective conflict solvation – dialogue between the authorities and the citizens. This is what the situation with Russian conflict lacked. Due to its nature, Russian authoritarian government did not attempt on negotiating the issue with the protestors. Instead, it decided to limit their rights through manipulating laws and the constitution, as well as arresting the leaders of the movement (Sakwa 201). Knowing that the authority of the country Russians live in is able to adjust the laws and use the legal system how ever they want, people got no choice – the opposition had to be stopped. An unpredictable and unsafe environment made the citizens follow the main human instinct: save yourself first. Withal, results of the hypothesis test supported the initial hypothesis.
To summarize, a country’s regime type has a significant impact of the effectiveness of people’s response to the governmental abolition in case of it taking place. Main reason for that is the nature of regimes themselves. Therefore, people living withing the countries with authoritarian regime tend to respond ineffectively to the governmental suppression, since such regime leaves no space for freedom of expression. The government in such countries is controlling to the extend that it can even manipulate laws and constitution, rig the election results, kill and imprison those out of favor: “Authoritarian leaders often exercise power arbitrarily and without regard to existing bodies of law, and they usually cannot be replaced by citizens choosing freely among various competitors in elections. The freedom to create opposition political parties or other alternative political groupings with which to compete for power with the ruling group is either limited or nonexistent in authoritarian regimes” (“Authoritarianism”). The example of Russia is not the only one out there. To illustrate, in the second half of the year 2020 Belarus faced a similar problem that Russia did in 2011-2013: “Belarus is gripped by mass protests, triggered by an election widely believed to have been rigged in favour of the long-time leader Alexander Lukashenko” (“What’s happening in Belarus?”). The government of Belarus acted just as violently, aggressively and uncompromisingly as Russian government did. Police brutality, mass arrests, intimidation of the population and other forms of oppression were used to stop mass demonstrations: “Earlier an estimated 100,000 demonstrators marched for the 11th successive Sunday of protests. […] According to Russian news agencies, citing their correspondents at the scene, at least 10 stun grenades went off. There were also reports that riot police had fired rubber bullets. […] It is common for masked men with batons to grab protesters, drag them into unmarked vans and drive off” (“Belarus protests”). By year 2021 the protests scaled down significantly without achieving any important changes.
Simultaneously, governmental suppression in countries with democratic regime gets more effective response, since this regime allows more freedom of expression, favors discussion and negotiation over violence and manipulation with laws: “States with democratic governments prevent rule by autocrats, guarantee fundamental individual rights, allow for a relatively high level of political equality, and rarely make war on each other. As compared with nondemocratic states, they also better foster human development as measured by indicators such as health and education, provide more prosperity for their citizens, and ensure a broader range of personal freedoms” (“Democracy”). Besides Ukrainian case, an example of successful and effective response to the governmental inhibition can be recent 2019-2020 rallies in Georgia: “Some 240 people were hurt in clashes as protesters tried to storm Georgia’s parliament after a Russian MP took the speaker’s seat in parliament” (“Georgia protests”). In response to the protest arousal, the government of Georgia tried to stop the unrest with the help of brute force of the police and failed, because the rage of protestors appeared to be unbeatable (“Georgia protests”). People demanded resignation of Mr Gavrilov, Russian MP. However, the rallies continued after the demand was satisfied. This time Georgians demanded more: “Calling for the Speaker and other officials to resign, about 10,000 protesters breached the police cordon in the capital, Tbilisi” (“Georgia protests”). The protest ended with the resignation of all the public officials demanded and new elections for Georgians. This example as well as the example of Russian, Ukrainian and Belarus protests supports the initial hypothesis, its test results and the overall theory of the paper.
All in all, the people’s response matters. Some societies are able to show how important their opinion is, they can bring changes into their countries, when the others are being ignored and left unheard. Using the example of such countries as Russia, Ukraine, Georgia and Belarus I proved that people living in the states that adopted authoritarianism are less likely to respond effectively to the governmental abolition, whereas those living withing democratic countries are more likely to effectively respond to it and, thus, to be heard.
Works Cited
Sources for Control variables #1-6:
“Ukrainian Language”. Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia, World Book, Inc., Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia, 2018.
“Ukraine”, “Russia”. Britannica Academic, 2013. Encyclopædia Britannica.
Sources for the rest of the paper:
“Authoritarianism”, “Democracy”. Britannica Academic, 2013. Encyclopædia Britannica.
“Belarus protests: National opposition strike gains momentum”. BBC News, 26 October 2020, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-54684753. Accessed 1 April 2021.
“Georgia protests: Thousands storm parliament over Russian MP’s speech”. BBC News, 21 June 2019, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48710042. Accessed 1 April 2021.
“Georgia protests: Riot police block crowds storming parliament”. BBC News, 20 June 2019, https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-48710047. Accessed 1 April 2021.
Krasynska, Svitlana and Eric Martin. “The Formality of Informal Civil Society: Ukraine’s EuroMaidan”. Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary & Non-profit Organizations, vol. 28, no. 1, 2017, p. 420-449. Academic Search Complete, doi: 10.1007 / s11266-016- 9819-8.
Kowal, Paweł et al. Three Revolutions: Mobilization and Change in Contemporary Ukraine II: An Oral History of the Revolution on Granite, Orange Revolution, and Revolution of Dignity. Stuttgart, 2019.
Sakwa, Richard. “Questioning Control and Contestation in Late Putinite Russia.” Europe-Asia Studies, vol. 67, no. 2, 2015, p. 192-208. Academic Search Complete, doi: 10.1080/09668136.2014.1002680.
“What’s happening in Belarus?” BBC News, 8 September 2020, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53799065. Accessed 1 April 2021.