‘Perestroika and the Challenge for Democracy in Russia’

The period since the onset of perestroika is examined as a single process in which a number of fundamental metapolitical factors are identified. These processes

transcend the specific personalities of Gorbachev,Yeltsin, and Putin, yet shape and constrain their leaderships. Path dependency is important, but cannot be entirely

determining. Postcommunist restorationism shares some features with earlier restorations but its focus on the rebirth of politics and a set of normative values is distinctive.

Charismatic leadership cannot be taken in isolation and is a crucial factor in helping shape the character of institutions and the state. The appropriation of the concept

of civil society in postcommunist Russia differs from its practices in Central Europe, as does the relationship between the state and regime. Two types of politics

can be identified, the ideological and the axiological, but the triumph of the latter in the exit from communism has not allowed the displacement of sovereignty, typical of

the Soviet period, to be transcended.