Maria Snegovaya “Why Russia’s Democracy Never Began” argument

this article claims

Russia did not democratize in the 1990s. Instead: temporary authoritarian weakness. Old soviet elites stayed in power.

what a democratic transition is

• New rules and institutions

• Elite turnover

• Pluralism and competition

• Peaceful alternation of power 

what happened in Russia

• Lack of strong civil society 

• Support for predictable hierarchy rather than uncertainty of the 1990s 

• Dominance of Nomenclatura (support for those who have always been in power, belong to the elites/benefit from the system) 

• New elites were former regime insiders

• Informal soviet practices remained 

Conclusion: 

• Russia's transition was never real

• Authoritarianism persisted beneath the surface 

• Putin restored- not reversed the old system 

• Russia is not backsliding, it is an authoritarian system