So What’s Happened to the “Russian Choice”? 161
Melville A.Yu.,
Dr. Sci. (Phil.), Professor, Distinguished Scholar of Russia, Academic Supervisor and Dean, Faculty of Social Science, HSE University, amelville@hse.ru
elibrary_id: 251142 | ORCID: 0000-0002-1414-5783 | RESEARCHER_ID: B-1152-2014
DOI: 10.17976/jpps/2003.04.15
Melville A.Yu. So What’s Happened to the “Russian Choice”? 161 – Polis. Political Studies. 2003. No. 4. https://doi.org/10.17976/jpps/2003.04.15
Joining in the discussion about Russia’s political choice, that has unfolded in the Polis’ pages, the author states that fundamental questions: what is the real freedom of such “choice” like? where are the limits of this choice (including chronological limits) to be detected? has the choice gone through? and if not, what’s happened to it? — haven’t been ever answered. According to his estimate, we don’t yet know with all definiteness (as regards Russia, either), what agency is the optimum one for realizing radical socio-political choice (democratic transit), to what degree environment and circumstances predetermine its parameters, to what extent, if one resorts to sociological discourse, the freedom of choice is determined by “structure”, and to what extent — by the “agency” per se. The author, anyway, is convinced of the necessity to take cum grano salis the very idea of democratic transit, or, to be more exact, the “transitological paradigm”, according to which all countries that have “chosen” the democratic road, will sooner or later achieve triumph of democracy. Pointing to the impossibility of just “choosing” an ideal model and of implanting it into an alien social body, he notes, furthermore, that transitions met with are most various, and not all of them are of a democratic character.
See also:
Oganisyan Yu.S.,
Phenomenon of Totalitarianism: Exit to the Twenty-First Century. – Polis. Political Studies. 2020. No2
Rogozhina K.A.,
Russian Choice: from What Is Probable to What Is Obvious?. – Polis. Political Studies. 2004. No1
Yanov A.L.,
Slavophiles and Foreign Politics of Russia in the 19th Century.. – Polis. Political Studies. 1998. No6
Lapayeva V.V.,
Why the Intellectual Class of Russia Needs a Party of Its Own. – Polis. Political Studies. 2003. No3
Ufimtzev V.V.,
But Has There Been Any Choice? 165. – Polis. Political Studies. 2003. No4