British Academy: The UK's National Academy for the Humanities and Social Sciences

BA PDF Symposium 2004: Abstracts

21 April 2004

Dr Elena A. Korosteleva-Polglase

Demagogical Democracy in Belarus and Ukraine

A re-examination of the role of agency suggests that although the endurance and the lawful functioning of democratic systems do matter for new democracies, what, however, appears to be of greater importance is the citizens’ ‘enlightened understanding’ of the workings of democracy, without which the progress towards good governance and full partnership between the rulers and the ruled cannot be achieved. Like many other new states in post-communist Europe, Belarus and Ukraine display a varied progress on their path towards democracy, instead witnessing an increasing discrepancy between people’s ‘behavioural’ acceptance of democratic institutions and their ‘emotional’ attachment to the authoritarian past. Their experience may lead us to the question whether there is necessarily an ‘end point’ to transition, inevitably resulting in a democracy? Conversely, is it possible for post-communist states to settle into a some form of a ‘demagogical regime’, a ‘quasi’ democracy remaining neither fully democratic nor fully authoritarian, and operating, as the above regimes suggest, through mass approval and reliance on the personalised power of a demagogue who governs by decree and seeks legitimation directly from the electorate.

Elena A. Korosteleva is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Politics, University of Glasgow. From 1 August 2004 she will join the Department of International Politics, University of Wales, Aberystwyth. Her recent publications include Contemporary Belarus: Between Democracy and Dictatorship (RoutledgeCurzon 2002, co-edited with Rosalind Marsh and Colin Lawson), and Postcommunist Belarus (Rowman & Littlefield 2004, co-authored with Stephen White & John Löwenhardt). The support of INTAS (99-00245) and the British Academy (SG-31102 and PDF/2001/174) is gratefully acknowledged.