Virtual Politics: Faking Democracy in the Post-Soviet World by Andrew Wilson (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 589 Szlachta's choice of contributors is also somewhat tendentious. Rather than being presented with 'the criticism of some of themost eminent represen tatives of Polish social and humanist thought' (p. 19), the reader is 'over whelmed' by conservative writers, only a few of whom could be described as 'prominent' in Polish culture. The lecture of biographical notes indicates threemain categories under which the authors could be grouped: catholic priests (A. Szymanski, J. K. Rostworowski, S. Wyszyriski, J. M. Bocheiiski, W. Kalinka), catholic/conservative activists (H. Dembinski, A. Kliszewicz, W. L. Jaworksi, J. Gofuchowksi, Z. Krasinski) and nationalists (Z. Stahl, I. Czuma, J. Kucharzewski, R. Dmowski, K. Grzybowski). Hardly a representative selection. On a more positive note, however, and looking at it from a completely different point of view, this collection serves, albeit unintentionally, as a useful resource for those interested in the development of Polish catholic, nationalistic and conservative thought. School ofSlavonic andEast European Studies Robert Kulpa University CollegeLondon Wilson, Andrew. VirtualPolitics: Faking Democracy in the Post-SovietWorld. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT and London, 2005. xviii + 332 pp. Illustrations. Tables. Notes. Index. -?20.00. For those of us following the break-up of the Soviet Union and rise of newly independent states with some enthusiasm, the emergence of democracy in countries likeRussia and Ukraine has been an increasingly perplexing process during the last ten years. Though all themajor institutions thatmake the Western states what they are were created in the early 1990s, and have been in existence for some time now, there has been a growing feeling that some thing is going not quite right.One expected that democracy would consoli date and mature with every year passing. But thisdid not happen. A proper conceptualization of what has been taking place in the post-Soviet republics (excluding the Baltics) instead was missing until recendy. Andrew Wilson has now given us the long-needed clue to solving this contradiction with his elaborate notion of 'virtual polities'. Without doubt, this book will have a formative influence on future post Soviet studies and should lead to re-assessment ofmany former findings on post-Soviet politics. To be sure,Wilson has neither introduced here any neologisms, nor produced a criminological study with entirely new data. Yet, he has still done political science a service by demonstrating in admirable detail how hidden control of information flows, party-building and electoral processes by the powers-that-be have been perverting democracy, in the post Soviet world, to such a degree as to create a relatively novel system of state society relations in which fundamental democratic procedures are formally observed, but made largely senseless through theirmore or less sophisticated manipulation. Thus, Wilson does make a terminological innovation in so far 590 SEER, 85, 3, JULY 2OO7 as he, inmy reading, liftsthe, until now, largely colloquial, peculiarly post Soviet construct of 'political technology' to a proper political science concept, i.e. to a term specifically designed to distinguish certain post-Soviet political practices from those political PR campaigns that are also well-known in the West. What to this reader seems particularly important in Wilson's argument is that he explicidy argues that 'political technology' should only partiy be understood as a radicalization of some dubious Western political practices, such as themassive negative advertising that has been typical of recent US presidential election campaigns. Instead,Wilson shows that 'political technol ogy' is, above all, rooted in Russia's and the other republics' Soviet past, namely in thepeculiar manipulation strategies that theKGB and other Soviet bloc security services had developed in theirfight against anti-Soviet dissent. On the one hand, Wilson has strengthened the Soviet element within the construct 'post-Soviet transitions', lending support to those researchers emphasizing the continued relevance of the area studies element ? as opposed to cross-civilizational comparative approaches ? in the study of con temporaryRussia, Ukraine, etc.On the other hand, we might be dealing here with a case where post-Communist studies can make a contribution to general political science: 'Political technology' or 'virtual polities', as introduced byWilson, might be concepts thatwill travel to other regions of theworld and could help us to understand better various perversions of democratic procedures...