Another Good Read

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From the Kennan Institute's 2006-07 Annual Report:

DIRECTOR'S REVIEW: Bumper Cars and Demolition Derby
Blair Ruble, Oct. 1, 2007

[...] Ukraine and Russia have been on different trajectories for some time, presenting an ideal setting for comparative social science research. Ukraine is a country visibly divided by fractures and fissures which run through the entire social landscape. Politicians are like bumper cars, clumsily careening toward one another in an amusement park before bouncing off more or less unharmed only to come crashing together yet again. Society sorts out its own coping mechanisms every day on the streets so as not to allow divisions to overshadow an increasingly good life.

Russian politics, on the other hand, resemble the American automobile sport of demolition derby, in which drivers of old, beat-up cars viciously crash together with increasing violence until only one victor is left to ramble around the field. The good life in Russia seems reserved for the strong.

Russian reality is more complex than its ever-more controlled political life might suggest, with very real divisions and contrasts existing across the sprawling Russian Federation. The social science question posed by contemporary Russia is more difficult than that presented by contemporary Ukraine. Ukraine’s complexities are open for all to see. Russia’s contradictions are hidden behind layers of obfuscation. No observers mistake Ukraine for the Soviet Union; analysts talk and write about the return of Soviet political practices in Russia every day. This perspective—which, at times, appears to be shared by the Russian political class—is misplaced. [...]

Read the whole article.