Rodric Braithwaite on Russia's way to democracy

Following the recent parliamentary elections, Rodric Braithwaite, the former British Ambassador to Russia, asks whether Russia will ever be democratic. "Many people argue that the Russians have no democratic tradition, that they prefer the iron hand of the autocrat, that the place is too big, too heterogeneous and too disorderly to be ruled any other way. Vladimir Putin is more subtle: he believes that the Russians are not yet ready for democracy, that they need to be brought to it by a managed process ... To argue that [Russians] cannot go on to construct their own version of democracy is a kind of racism. It may take decades, even generations; the construction of democracy always does. ... [This position is] blissfully ignored by our policymakers who, like latter-day Christian missionaries, believe that we have a duty to spread the gospel of democracy, if necessary by military force (for which they are unwilling to pay). Not only Russians find that proposition distinctly suspect."

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