Vladislav Inozemtsev

Vladislav Inozemtsev spent one month at the IWM during 2016 as a Guest of the Russia in Global Dialogue Fellowship Program.

Everybody knows by now that Russia is not a democratic country, but, contrary to the majority of authoritarian states, its society consists of people who personally feel quite free. In 2010 I called this phenomenon “a free society under authoritarian control”. Later on, I criticized the paradigm of ‘sovereign democracy’ and presented the alternative concept of ‘preventive democracy’, proposing to introduce in Russia something resembling the system that was used for advanced modernization in some Asian countries, most notably Singapore. This needs to be explored more profoundly in order to assess the nature and perspectives of Russian-style ‘democracy’.

Everybody now knows that Russia is not a democratic country, but, contrary to the majority of authoritarian states, its society consists of people who personally feel quite free. In 2010 I called this phenomenon “a free society under authoritarian control”. Later on, I criticized the paradigm of ‘sovereign democracy’ and presented the alternative concept of ‘preventive democracy’, proposing to introduce in Russia something resembling the system that was used for advanced modernization in some Asian countries, most notably Singapore. This needs to be explored more profoundly in order to assess the nature and perspectives of Russian-style ‘democracy’.