Out of Order: Russian Political Values in an Imperfect World

Abstract

Out of Order: Russian Political Values in an Imperfect World, Ellen Carnaghan. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2007. 330 pp. $55.00.Ellen Carnaghan's Out of Order looks at Russians' understanding of democracy through a series of intensive interviews. Carnaghan's primary target is the thesis that Russian culture is somehow inimical to democracy and that this cultural straitjacket has hindered democratic consolidation. Various surveys have indicated that Russians hold ambivalent attitudes toward democracy and free markets. Carnaghan's argument is that such attitudes are not evidence of hostility among Russians toward democracy per se, but rather indicate dissatisfaction with the functioning of existing institutions. For Carnaghan, political values are more likely to be a function of the perceptions of one's own social environment than they are of any deep-rooted cultural legacies. Her goal is "to show that it is the disorderly nature of social life-not inherited authoritarianism-that best explains the nature of Russian social and political values" (39).In chapter 3, Carnaghan reviews the main limitations of mass surveys and lays out the research design. She conducted in-depth interviews with sixty Russians between 1998 and 2003. She appears to have maximized variance among her respondents as best as she could and also conducted similarly structured interviews with a smaller set of American respondents for a comparative perspective.Chapters 4-8 constitute the empirical core of the book. Chapter 4 looks at responses to questions about legislative and executive institutions. Her respondents registered many complaints about the State Duma, a finding that is echoed in much of the mass survey literature. Carnaghan argues that this does not represent disdain for representative institutions but instead demonstrates dissatisfaction with the way that Russia's parliament has operated. Indeed, many of her respondents acknowledged the essentiality of a legislature that acts as a check on the president's power. Much of the cultural-determinist literature that is skeptical of the prospects for democracy in Russia centers on the assumption that Russians have a preference for strong, authoritarian leaders who will provide stability. Many of Carnaghan's Moscow-based respondents voice such preferences through their praise of Mayor Yuri Luzhkov and their measured praise of Putin. However, Carnaghan argues that the popularity of Luzhkov and Putin does not reflect the authoritarian impulses of her respondents. Instead, these leaders were praised for their effectiveness. Overall, she found a great deal of overlap between her Russian and American respondents in terms of their criteria for effective presidential leadership, and her Russian respondents did not evince any notable enthusiasm for authoritarian rulers. …