Civil Society and Democratic Consolidation in Russia

Abstract

This paper explores the democratic functions of civil society and provides a framework of analysis for understanding the development of civil society in Gorbachev’s soviet Union and Yeltsin’s Russia. To identity the trends and patterns of Russian civil society, I clarify some conceptual issues of civil society and review different approaches to its origins in Russia. I argue that the origins, formation, strength, and weakness of Russian civil society were shaped by the broader set of political opportunities and institutional arrangements unique to the national content in which they were embedded. I use a framework of opportunities and constraints to explain and analyze the dynamic pattern of three types of civil society during three critical junctures within the context of changing state-society relations: (1)1985-88: a regime-imitated civil society; (2)1989-93: a society-mobilized civil society; and (3)1994-99: an uninstitutionalized civil society.