Hostname: page-component-8678677fb7-7wlfr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-10-11T11:30:35.289Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Yeltsin, Putin, and Clinton: Presidential Leadership and Russian Democratization in Comparative Perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 August 2009

David W. Rivera  and
Sharon Werning Rivera
David W. Rivera
Affiliation:
Hamilton College. E-mail: drivera@hamilton.edu
Sharon Werning Rivera
Affiliation:
Hamilton College. E-mail: srivera@hamilton.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Immediately after coming to power, the Clinton administration declared the consolidation of market and democratic institutions in Russia to be a vital American interest. The administration's central tactic for promoting this outcome was to help Boris Yeltsin remain in power. In a major assault on Clinton's historical legacy, much of the scholarly community maintains that U.S. policy was fundamentally flawed, both morally and strategically. In the view of these analysts, post-Soviet Russia's founding president was an autocratic leader who derailed the country's progress toward democracy. However, this body of research focuses exclusively on the Russian Federation and fails to utilize comparative referents. In contrast, we analyze the experiences of the full population of post-communist states of Eastern Europe and Eurasia from 1991 to the present. Whether examined in cross-national or longitudinal perspective, we find that Russian democracy under Yeltsin was, relatively speaking, a success. We conclude that the Clinton administration's policy of support for Yeltsin both served various American foreign policy interests and strengthened the prospects for democratic consolidation in Russia, thereby fulfilling the dictates of both real- and idealpolitik. In addition, the relative success of Russia's democratization in the 1990s, the reversal of that pattern in this decade, and the magnitude of the transformation of the polity under Putin all demonstrate the pivotal role played by presidential leadership in Russia's transition.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Perspectives on Politics , Volume 7 , Issue 3 , September 2009 , pp. 591 - 610
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Albright, Madeleine. 2003. Madam Secretary. New York: Miramax Books.Google Scholar
Arbatov, Alexei. 1993. Russia's foreign policy alternatives. International Security 18 (2): 5–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aron, Leon. 2000. Yeltsin: A Revolutionary Life. New York: St. Martin's Press.Google Scholar
Åslund, Anders. 1995. How Russia Became a Market Economy. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.Google Scholar
Åslund, Anders. 2002. Building Capitalism: The Transformation of the Former Soviet Bloc. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Åslund, Anders. 2007. Russia's Capitalist Revolution: Why Market Reform Succeeded and Democracy Failed. Washington, DC: Peterson Institute for International Economics.Google Scholar
Baker, Peter, and Glasser, Susan. 2005. Kremlin Rising: Vladimir Putin and the End of Revolution. New York: Scribner.Google Scholar
Balzer, Harley. 2003. Managed pluralism: Vladimir Putin's emerging regime. Post-Soviet Affairs 19 (3): 189–227.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berg-Schlosser, Dirk. 2004. The quality of democracies in Europe as measured by current indicators of democratization and good governance. Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics 20 (1): 28–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bollen, Kenneth. 1993. Liberal democracy: Validity and method factors in cross-national measures. American Journal of Political Science 37 (4): 1207–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bollen, Kenneth, and Paxton, Pamela. 2000. Subjective measures of liberal democracy. Comparative Political Studies 33 (1): 58–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Breslauer, George. 2001. Evaluating Gorbachev and Yeltsin as leaders. In Gorbachev, Yeltsin, and Putin: Political Leadership in Russia's Transition, ed. Brown, Archie and Shevtsova, Lilia. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.Google Scholar
Brinkley, Joel. 2005. “Pro-Democracy Groups Are Harassed in Central Asia.” New York Times, December 4.Google Scholar
Brown, Archie. 2001. Transformational leaders compared: Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin. In Gorbachev, Yeltsin, and Putin: Political Leadership in Russia's Transition, ed. Brown, Archie and Shevtsova, Lilia. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.Google Scholar
Brzezinski, Zbigniew. 2007. Second Chance: Three Presidents and the Crisis of American Superpower. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Bunce, Valerie. 2000. Comparative democratization: Big and bounded generalizations. Comparative Political Studies 33 (6/7): 703–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bunce, Valerie. 2004. Comparative democratization: Lessons from Russia and the post-communist world. In After the Collapse of Communism: Comparative Lessons of Transition, ed. McFaul, Michael and Stoner-Weiss, Kathryn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Carothers, Thomas. 2004. Critical Mission: Essays on Democracy Promotion. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.Google Scholar
Christopher, Warren. 1998. In the Stream of History: Shaping Foreign Policy for a New Era. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Clinton, Bill. April 5, 1993. A strategic alliance with Russian reform. U.S. Department of State Dispatch 4 (14).Google Scholar
Clinton, Bill. 2000. “Remembering Yeltsin.” Time, January 1.Google Scholar
Clinton, Bill. 2004. My Life. New York: Alfred Knopf.Google Scholar
Cohen, Stephen F. 2000. Failed Crusade: America and the Tragedy of Post-Communist Russia. New York: W.W. Norton.Google Scholar
Colton, Timothy. 2008. Yeltsin: A Life. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Colton, Timothy, and McFaul, Michael. 2002. Are Russians undemocratic? Post-Soviet Affairs 18 (2): 91–121.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Colton, Timothy, and Tucker, Robert, eds. 1995. Patterns in Post-Soviet Leadership. Boulder: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Dunlop, John. 1993. The Rise of Russia and the Fall of the Soviet Empire. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Ellison, Herbert. 2006. Boris Yeltsin and Russian Democratic Transformation. Seattle: University of Washington Press.Google Scholar
Evangelista, Matthew. 2002. The Chechen Wars: Will Russia Go the Way of the Soviet Union? Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.Google Scholar
Felkay, Andrew. 2002. Yeltsin's Russia and the West. Westport, CT: Praeger.Google Scholar
Fish, M. Steven. 1998. Democratization's requisites: The post-communist experience. Post-Soviet Affairs 14 (3): 212–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fish, M. Steven. 2001. Conclusion: Democracy and Russian politics. In Russian Politics: Challenges of Democratization, ed. Barany, Zoltan and Moser, Robert. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Fish, M. Steven. 2005. Democracy Derailed in Russia: The Failure of Open Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Freedom House. 2004. Survey methodology—2004. In Freedom in the World 2004: The Annual Survey of Political Rights and Civil Liberties, ed. Piano, Aili and Puddington, Arch. New York: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Freedom House. N.d. Freedom in the World 2000–2001. http://www.freedomhouse.org/research/freeworld/2001/countryratings/russia.htm. Accessed June 20, 2005.Google Scholar
Freedom House. N.d. Freedom in the World 2005, http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=22&year=2005&country=6818. Accessed January 25, 2006.Google Scholar
Freeland, Chrystia. 2000. Sale of the Century: Russia's Wild Ride from Communism to Capitalism. New York: Crown Business.Google Scholar
Freeland, Chrystia. 2004. “Vote Yeltsin.” Financial Times, March 3, as carried on Johnson's Russia List, #8099, March 4, 2004.Google Scholar
Frye, Timothy. 2002. The perils of polarization: Economic performance in the post-communist world. World Politics 54 (3): 308–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gaidar, Yegor. 1999. Days of Defeat and Victory. Trans. Miller, Jane Ann. Seattle: University of Washington Press.Google Scholar
Gastil, Raymond Duncan. 1991. The comparative survey of freedom: Experiences and suggestions. In On Measuring Democracy: Its Consequences and Concomitants, ed. Inkeles, Alex. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.Google Scholar
Gill, Graham, and Markwick, Roger. 2000. Russia's Stillborn Democracy? From Gorbachev to Yeltsin. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldgeier, James, and McFaul, Michael. 2003. Power and Purpose: U.S. Policy toward Russia after the Cold War. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution.Google Scholar
Gordon, Michael. 1999. “Moscow Says Its Envoy was a Key to Success.” New York Times, June 4.Google Scholar
Hahn, Gordon. 1996. Russia's polarized political spectrum. Problems of Post-Communism 43 (3): 11–12.Google Scholar
Hale, Henry. 2005. The makeup and breakup of ethnofederal states: Why Russia survives where the USSR fell. Perspectives on Politics 3 (1): 55–70.Google Scholar
Holmes, Stephen. 1996. Cultural legacies or state collapse? Probing the post-communist dilemma. In Post-communism: Four Perspectives, ed. Mandelbaum, Michael. New York: Council on Foreign Relations.Google Scholar
Huntington, Samuel. 1991. The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press.Google Scholar
Huskey, Eugene. 1999. Presidential Power in Russia. London: M.E. Sharpe.Google Scholar
Jehl, Douglas. 1993. “Clinton is ‘Foursquare’ Behind Yeltsin but Expects Russian Elections Soon.” New York Times, October 5.Google Scholar
Kaiser, Robert. 1999. “Pumping Up the Problem.” Washington Post, August 15.Google Scholar
Karatnycky, Adrian, et al. 1994. Freedom in the World: The Annual Survey of Political Rights and Civil Liberties 1993–1994. New York: Freedom House.Google Scholar
Karatnycky, Adrian, et al. 1995. Freedom in the World: The Annual Survey of Political Rights and Civil Liberties 1994–1995. New York: Freedom House.Google Scholar
Karatnycky, Adrian, et al. 1996. Freedom in the World: The Annual Survey of Political Rights and Civil Liberties 1995–1996. New York: Freedom House.Google Scholar
Karatnycky, Adrian, et al. 1999. Freedom in the World: The Annual Survey of Political Rights and Civil Liberties 1998–1999. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.Google Scholar
Kastellec, Jonathan, and Leoni, Eduardo. 2007. Using graphs instead of tables in political science. Perspectives on Politics 5 (4): 755–71.Google Scholar
Khazanov, Anatoly. 2004. What went wrong? Post-communist transformations in comparative perspective. In Restructuring Post-Communist Russia, ed. Brudny, Yitzhak, Frankel, Jonathan, and Hoffman, Stefani. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
King, Charles, and Melvin, Neil. 1999/2000. Diaspora politics: Ethnic linkages, foreign policy, and security in Eurasia. International Security 24 (3): 108–38.Google Scholar
Knight, Amy. 1997. Is the old KGB still in power? Washington Quarterly 20 (1): 59–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kopstein, Jeffrey, and Reilly, David. 2000. Geographic diffusion and the transformation of the post-communist world. World Politics 53 (1): 1–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kryshtanovskaya, Olga, and White, Stephen. 2003. Putin's militocracy. Post-Soviet Affairs 19 (4): 289–306.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kullberg, Judith, and Zimmerman, William. 1999. Liberal elites, socialist masses, and problems of Russian democracy. World Politics 51 (3): 323–58.Google Scholar
Lake, Anthony. 1993. “From Containment to Enlargement.” Speech delivered at Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies, Washington, DC, September 21.Google Scholar
Lapidus, Gail. 1998. Contested sovereignty: The tragedy of Chechnya. International Security 23 (1): 5–49.Google Scholar
Leeson, Peter, and Trumbull, William. 2006. Comparing apples: Normalcy, Russia, and the remaining post-socialist world. Post-Soviet Affairs 22 (3): 225–48.Google Scholar
Lijphart, Arend. 1971. Comparative politics and the comparative method. American Political Science Review 65 (3): 682–93.Google Scholar
Lloyd, John. 1999. “The Russian Devolution.” New York Times Magazine, August 15.Google Scholar
“Making of a Neo-KGB State: Russia under Putin.” 2007. The Economist, August 25.Google Scholar
Marsden, Lee. 2005. Lessons from Russia: Clinton and US Democracy Promotion. Burlington, VT: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Matlock, Jack Jr.. 1995. Autopsy of an Empire: The American Ambassador's Account of the Collapse of the Soviet Union. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
McColm, R. Bruce, et al. 1993. Freedom in the World: The Annual Survey of Political Rights and Civil Liberties 1992–1993. New York: Freedom House.Google Scholar
McFaul, Michael. 2001. Russia's Unfinished Revolution: Political Change from Gorbachev to Putin. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
McFaul, Michael. 2007. Ukraine imports democracy: External influences on the Orange Revolution. International Security 32 (2): 45–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mendelson, Sarah. 2001. Democracy assistance and political transition in Russia: Between success and failure. International Security 25 (4): 68–106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Merry, Wayne. 2001. Russian aspirations meet American ambitions. Problems of Post-Communism 48 (3): 10–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mikheyev, Dmitry. 1996. Russia Transformed. Indianapolis: Hudson Institute.Google Scholar
Motyl, Alexander. 2004. Communist legacies and new trajectories: Democracy and dictatorship in the former Soviet Union and East Central Europe. In Restructuring Post-Communist Russia, ed. Brudny, Yitzhak, Frankel, Jonathan, and Hoffman, Stefani. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Olcott, Martha Brill, Åslund, Anders, and Garnett, Sherman. 1999. Getting It Wrong: Regional Cooperation and the Commonwealth of Independent States. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.Google Scholar
OMRI Daily Digest. 1996. May 20.Google Scholar
Owen, John IV. 2006. Democracy, realistically. National Interest 83: 35–42.Google Scholar
Petrov, Nikolai. 2008. Boris Yeltsin: Catalyst for the Cold War's end? In Turning Points in Ending The Cold War, ed. Skinner, Kiron. Stanford: Hoover Institution Press.Google Scholar
Reddaway, Peter, and Glinski, Dmitri. 2001. The Tragedy of Russia's Reforms: Market Bolshevism Against Democracy. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press.Google Scholar
Remnick, David. 1998. Resurrection: The Struggle for a New Russia. New York: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Renz, Bettina. 2006. Putin's militocracy? An alternative interpretation of Siloviki in contemporary Russian politics. Europe-Asia Studies 58 (6): 903–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rice, Condoleeza. 2000. Promoting the national interest. Foreign Affairs 79 (1): 45–62.Google Scholar
Rivera, David. 2003. Engagement, containment, and the international politics of Eurasia. Political Science Quarterly 118 (1): 81–106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rivera, Sharon Werning, and Rivera, David. 2006. The Russian elite under Putin: Militocratic or bourgeois? Post-Soviet Affairs 22 (2): 125–44.Google Scholar
Roeder, Philip. 1999. Peoples and states after 1989: The political costs of incomplete national revolutions. Slavic Review 58 (4): 854–82.Google Scholar
Rose, Gideon. 2000/01. Democracy promotion and American foreign policy: A review essay. International Security 25 (3): 186–203.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rothschild, Joseph. 1974. East Central Europe between the Two World Wars. Seattle: University of Washington Press.Google Scholar
Rummel, R. J. 1997. Power Kills: Democracy as a Method of Nonviolence. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.Google Scholar
Russett, Bruce, and Oneal, John R.. 2001. Triangulating Peace: Democracy, Interdependence, and International Organizations. New York: W.W. Norton.Google Scholar
Rustow, Dankwart. 1970. Transitions to democracy: Toward a dynamic model. Comparative Politics 2 (3): 337–63.Google Scholar
Rutland, Peter. 1997. Yeltsin: The problem, not the solution. The National Interest 49: 30–39.Google Scholar
Sciolino, Elaine. 1993. “Russia and Realpolitik.” New York Times, March 22.Google Scholar
Second 2000. Gore-Bush Presidential Debate. October 11, 2000. http://www.debates.org/pages/trans2000b.html. Accessed April 28, 2005.Google Scholar
Sen, Amartya. 1999. Development as Freedom. New York: Alfred Knopf.Google Scholar
Shevtsova, Lilia. 1999. Yeltsin's Russia: Myths and Reality. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.Google Scholar
Shevtsova, Lilia. 2001. From Yeltsin to Putin: The evolution of presidential power. In Gorbachev, Yeltsin, and Putin: Political Leadership in Russia's Transition, ed. Brown, Archie and Shevtsova, Lilia. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.Google Scholar
Shevtsova, Lilia. 2007. Russia—Lost in Transition: The Yeltsin and Putin Legacies. Translated Tait, by Arch. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.Google Scholar
Shliefer, Andrei, and Treisman, Daniel. 2005. A normal country. In A Normal Country: Russia after Communism, ed. Shleifer, Andrei. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Simes, Dimitri. 1999. After the Collapse: Russia Seeks Its Place as a Great Power. New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
Smith, Hedrick. 1991. The New Russians. Rev. ed.New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Smyth, Regina, Lowry, Anna, and Wilkening, Brandon. 2007. Engineering victory: Institutional reform, informal institutions, and the formation of a hegemonic party regime in the Russian Federation. Post-Soviet Affairs 23 (2): 118–37.Google Scholar
Speaker's Advisory Group on Russia, U.S. House of Representatives. 2000. Russia's Road to Corruption: How the Clinton Administration Exported Government Instead of Free Enterprise and Failed the Russian People. http://policy.house.gov/russia/index.html.Google Scholar
“Summit in Vancouver; Excerpts from a News Session: Cementing a Superpower Relationship.” 1993. New York Times, April 5.Google Scholar
Talbott, Strobe. 2002. The Russia Hand: A Memoir of Presidential Diplomacy. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Terry, Sarah Meiklejohn. 1993. Thinking about post-communist transitions: How different are they? Slavic Review 52 (2): 333–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Timoshenko, Viktor. 1996. “SNG stanovitsya vliyatel'noi organizatsiei [The CIS is becoming an influential organization].” Nezavisimaya gazeta, May 18.Google Scholar
Vujacic, Veljko. 1996. Gennadiy Zyuganov and the “third road.” Post-Soviet Affairs 12 (2): 118–54.Google Scholar
Walicki, Andrzej. 1989. The Slavophile Controversy. Notre Dame: Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
Way, Lucan. 2005. Authoritarian state building and the sources of regime competitiveness in the fourth wave: The cases of Belarus, Moldova, Russia, and Ukraine. World Politics 57 (2): 231–61.Google Scholar
White House. 1995. A National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement. Government Printing Office, February.Google Scholar
White House. 2006. The National Security Strategy of the United States of America. http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss/2006, March.Google Scholar
Yeltsin, Boris. 1994. The Struggle for Russia. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Yeltsin, Boris. 1996. “Svoboda i demokratiya—glavnoe uslovie progressa i protsvetaniya: Vystuplenie Prezidenta Rossiiskoi Federatsii Borisa El'tsina pered Federal'nym Sobraniem” [Freedom and democracy are the main prerequisites for progress and prosperity: Address of the President of the Russian Federation Boris Yeltsin to the Federal Assembly]. Rossiiskaya gazeta, February 24.Google Scholar