Transcript A Christian-Historical Approach of Democracy in Post

A Christian-Historical Approach of
Democracy in Slavic Post-Soviet Europe
Jonathan van Tongeren
ECPYN Winter School “Morality and Politics. The
principles of Christian Democracy”
Lviv (Ukraine), January 2011
Scope
“If Russia would become democratic, it would not be Russia anymore.” Ihor
Lubyanov, 2011
“Russia has made its choice in favor of democracy. Fourteen years ago,
independently, without any pressure from outside, it made that decision in the
interest of itself and interest of its people — of its citizens. This is our final
choice, and we have no way back. There can be no return to what we used to
have before. And the guarantee for this is the choice of the Russian people,
themselves. No, guarantees from outside cannot be provided. This is
impossible. It would be impossible for Russia today. Any kind of turn towards
totalitarianism for Russia would be impossible, due to the condition of the
Russian society.” Vladimir Putin, 2005
“First, we are working hard now on creating a genuine multiparty system. {...}
Second, we are redistributing powers between the federal, regional and
municipal authorities.”
“We certainly would not want to have the same kind of democracy that they have
in Iraq, quite honestly.” Vladimir Putin, 2006
“People are always teaching us democracy but the people who teach us
democracy don't want to learn it themselves.” Vladimir Putin, 2007
Recent experience and
teething problems of
young democracies
► Relation
between president
and parliament
► Relation between government
and opposition
► Relation between state and
citizens/society
Bad reputation of democracy
► Associated
with division, conflict, lack of
strong leadership
► Associated with privatisation, oligarchs,
liberalism, capitalism, USA and other
‘foreign enemies’
 Putin’s answer: ‘sovereign democracy’
Viable Democracy in Russia
should be:
► Not associated with politics of
the 1990’s
 Ideologically non-liberal
 Not ‘sold’ as a ‘package deal’ with hard-line free
market capitalism
 Historically rooted in national political tradition
 Accompanied by strong and autonomous civil
society and constitutional order/institutes of
government
Christian democracy as an
alternative to liberal democracy
► Corresponds
better to traditional perception
of national identity
► Takes the importance of communities and
organisations (civil society) into account,
rather than only seeing importance of either
the state (socialism) or the individual
(liberalism)
► Socio-economically more moderate
Connecting democracy to historic
political tradition of own nation
► Democracy
is not ‘American’
or ‘Western’ per se
► ‘Russian’ realms of the late
Middle Ages were more
democratic than much of
Europe at that time
 So called ‘veche’ was a popular assembly of city or state
which can be compared to ancient Greek ecclesia
(ἐκκλησία) and polis (πόλις) or Germanic thing (þing)
‘Veche of Pskov’ by Viktor Vasnetsov
Early democratic tradition of
East-Slavic states
►
►
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The veche (вече/віче/веча) was an
assembly of the citizens that could
accept/reject a prince and control the
militia
The veche shared power with the prince
and a council of aristocrats (boyars)
Knyazes of Muscovy consolidated their
power and ended power of veches and
boyars
East-Slavic countries knew 5 centuries of
system of mixed power with democracy
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Jonathan van Tongeren
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