The lack of a democratic tradition in Russia

Following Russia's parliamentary elections Björn Mansson asks whether the country will always be undemocratic. "In a historical and international context there are a number of models for explanation and comparison. The French Revolution ended one era of despotism only to pave the way for another. On the other hand, whatever else you may say about the development of the US, democracy has survived there uninterrupted for 230 years. China is said to be too big to be ruled democratically, but India is living proof of the contrary. And smaller former socialist countries have managed the leap to democracy. However if we only take Russian history into account, could it be that the chaos of the Yeltsin era was only a brief democratic parenthesis between two dictatorships, similar to the government of Alexander Kerensky in 1917?"

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