The 1999-2000 Elections in Russia: Their Impact and Legacy by Vicki L. s> Hesli William M. Reisinger (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 787 Holocaust, the Allied bombing campaigns in Germany during the Second WorldWar, the use of atomic weapons againstJapan at the end of the War, the Rwandan genocide, the war in Sierra Leone and establishment of a Special Court, apartheid and the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the narrative returns time and again to the history of the Balkans,the Yugoslavwar and issuesrelatingto the ICTY duringthe critical years of 1997-2001. Chuter draws on detailed examples from the Balkansto show how social, political and historicalcontext can create a climate of moral vacuity in which the commissionof war crimescan become the norm, and showshow such acts are justified in the context of the overall strategy. Yet, he also makes an importantdistinctionbetween this sortof conduct and thatperpetratedby the 'small band of psychopaths who naturally come to the fore' (p. ix). Their freedom to commit atrociousactsisprovidedby the context in which they are operating, but such acts do not necessarily have any connection with the overallstrategy. At times, Chuter'sdisdainfor certainmembers of the advocacy networkof international lawyers and NGOs is palpable and he seeks to avoid what he callsthe 'sanctimoniousnessand emotionalism'(p. 4) of many writingson this subject. What results is a penetrating discussion of how and why atrocities occur and what can be done to bring the perpetratorstojustice. Throughout, Chuter takes a pragmatic approach, stressing the importance of politics, without which nothing can be done. Yet, his is not the blind cynicism that mars much of what is written at the opposite end of the spectrum to the sanctimonious.Instead, he ends with the somewhat uncomfortablebut highly realisticconclusion thatratherthanheraldingthe 'end of impunity'trumpeted by the 'never again' brigade, the establishment of the ICC and other mechanisms of internationaljustice mightjust help to ensure 'a bit less in the future'(p. 278). Department of WarStudies RACHEL KERR King's College, London Hesli, Vicki L. and Reisinger, William M. (eds). T7he I999-2000 Elections in Russia.TheirImpact andLegacy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge andNew York,2004. ix + 302 pp. Notes. Tables.Figures.Bibliographical references.Index. ?550.o: $75.00. RUNNING through this book is a concern to evaluate 'Russia's Prospects for Democracy' (which is indeed the title of the William Reisinger's concluding chapter). The conclusions are almost uniformly pessimistic. In Reisinger's words: 'the degree of democracy in Russian politics in I990 may well have exceeded the current degree' (p. 26I). But there is more to elections than democraticconsolidation, in Putin'sRussia. Vicki Hesli sets out the 'political landscape' in the winter of I999-2000, introducing some of the later themes presidentialism, regionalism, institutionaldevelopment, national integration,and democracy. 788 SEER, 83, 4, 2005 Several contributors highlight the paradoxically brief life of successful parties. Sarah Oates describesthe phenomenon of the 'broadcastparty' that does not exist outside the television studios,that has no recordto defend, and only the vaguest of policies for the future. It is a formula for success. Yet the phrase 'party of power' hints at more continuity than a truly ephemeral 'broadcastparty'suggests.Timothy Colton usesa varietyof indicatorsto look at party identification. Not surprisinglyhe concludes that party identifiers comprised 54 per cent of the Communist vote but only I3 per cent of the Unity (the 'partyof power')vote (p. 105) though that hardlyaddressesthe questionof whethertherearevoterswho in some senseidentifywith the 'party of power' irrespectiveof its currentmanifestation. Richard Sakwa describesregionalism stimulatedby 'the vacuum in the context of a debilitatedcentralleadership'(p. 14') in the mid-I990S and its electoral defeat by Putin. But Mikhail Myagkov views the elections in a somewhat differentlight. He askswhy so many Russiansvoted for the newlyformed Fatherlandand Unity. He argues that both were 'in fact parties of [regional] governors' (p. 144) and their success reflected not voters' own attitudestowardsreformor towardsregionalism-vs-centralismbut ratherthe 'hardwork'of governors(p. 157) who had signed up to one side or the other. Since his conclusion is based on an analysisof aggregateregionalstatisticsthe mechanisms by which governors delivered votes remain a matter for speculation. But if he is right the resultwas a defeat of regionalismdelivered, for the Kremlin, but byregionalgovernors. Two chapters discussvoters' attitudestowardsforeign policy -or simply foreigners. Andrei Melville notes the widespread feeling that 'Russia has always been perceived as an adversary by other countries and even...