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PowerPoint Presentation "The Kremlin and the Orange Revolution: Paratotalitarian Reactions of the Russian Leadership to the Ukrainian Electoral Uprising of 2004" (in English)

Dr. Andreas Umland, DAAD Associate Professor of German and European Studies, Department of Political Science, National University of "Kyiv-Mohyla Academy," http://ku-eichstaett.academia.edu/AndreasUmland/

When: 1 March 2011, 16:30 - 18:00
Where: National University of "Kyiv-Mohyla Academy", KMBS, 8/5 Voloska street, NaUKMA Building 4, room 410

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ABSTRACT: The presentation introduces the term "para-totalitarianism" as a heuristic tool to conceptualize certain aspects of the changes in the behavior of the Russian leadership during the period of 2005-2008. Russia's political system had already transited from a defective democracy to an "electoral autocracy" in 2000-2004. It underwent, after ther Orange Revolution, however, a further transformation. During Putin's first term as President of the RF, the regime was mainly engaged in restricting political rights and freedoms. During his second term, this trend continued, yet was supplemented by a number of mobilizational measures as well as some important policy and rhetorical innovations. These activities were designed to purposefully promote Russian "uncivil society" (anti-democratic youth groups, TV propaganda channels, pseudo-academic institutes etc.) and ethnocentric mass culture (revisionist documentaries, nationalist movies, xenophobic
 ideologies etc.) that would prevent the spread of the wave of post-Soviet electoral revolutions to Russia. These - often unsuccessful - measures did not only strengthen the traditionally authoritarian character of Putin's rule. They also modified the regime's nature - an alteration that might be labelled "para-totalitarian." This term is designed to emphasize the continuing non-totalitarian character of the Russian regime ("para") while at the same time indicating some family resemblances between Putin's policies and the instruments used by properly totalitarian regimes.


On the concept of totalitarianism used here:

Peter Bernholz, "Ideology, Sects, State and Totalitarianism: A General Theory," Forum für osteuropaeische Ideen- und Zeitgeschichte, vol. 1, no. 1 (1997), pp. 51-84.

Roger Griffin, "The Palingenetic Political Community: Rethinking the Legitimation of Totalitarian Regimes in Inter-War Europe," Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, vol. 3, no. 3 (2002), pp. 24-43, http://ah.brookes.ac.uk/resources/griffin/palingcomm.pdf (or in Russian: http://www1.ku-eichstaett.de/ZIMOS/forum/docs/2Griffin.pdf ).


My texts, on this topic, in German and Russian:

"Orange Revolution als Scheideweg: Demokratisierungsschub in der Ukraine, Restaurationsimpuls in Russland," Osteuropa, vol. 59, no. 11 (2009), pp. 109-120. http://ku-eichstaett.academia.edu/AndreasUmland/Papers/130994/Orange_Revolution_als_Scheideweg_Demokratisierungsschub_in_der_Ukraine_Restaurationsimpuls_in_Russland

"Novyi 'osobyi put'' Rossii posle 'oranzhevoi revoliutsii': radikal'noe antizapadnichestvo i paratotalitarnyi neoavtoritarizm 2005-2008 godov," in: Emil' A. Pain (ed.), Ideologiia "osobogo puti" v Rossii i Germanii: istoki, soderzhanie, posledstviia (Moscow: Institut Kennana / Tri kvadrata, 2010), pp. 245-265. http://ku-eichstaett.academia.edu/AndreasUmland/Papers/397694/Novyi_YAML_Syck_MergeKey_0xb448ad78_osobyi_put_Rossii_poslie_YAML_Syck_MergeKey_0xb448ad78_oranzhievoi_rievoliutsii_radikalnoie_antizapadnichiestvo_i_paratotalitarnyi_nieoavtoritarizm_20052008_ghodov


Related texts (in chronological order):

Aleksandr Etkind and Andrei Shcherbak, "Prizraki Maydana brodiat po Rossii: Preventivnaya kontrrevoliutsiia v rossiiskoi politike," Neprikosnovennyi zapas, vol. 8, no. 5(43) (2005). http://magazines.russ.ru/nz/2005/43/sh6.html

Jeanne L. Wilson, "Coloured Revolutions: The View from Moscow and Bejing," The Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, nos. 2-3 (2009), pp. 369-395.

Thomas Ambrosio, Authoritarian Backlash: Russian Resistance to Democratization in the Former Soviet Union (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009).

Jonas Graetz, "Zwischen Macht- und Ordnungspolitik: Russlaendische Mediendiskurse über die 'orangene Revolution'," in: Melanie Tatur (ed.), Nationales oder kosmopolitisches Europa? Fallstudien zur Medienoeffentlichkeit in Europa (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag, 2009), pp. 264-284.

Robert Horvath, "Putin's 'Preventive Counter-Revolution': Post-Soviet Authoritarianism and the Spectre of Velvet Revolution," Europe-Asia Studies, vol. 64, no. 1 (2011), pp. 1-25.
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Further literature and networks:

Trilingual academic book series SOVIET AND POST-SOVIET POLITICS AND SOCIETY: http://www.ibidem-verlag.de/spps.html

Biannual web journal FORUM NOVEISHEI VOSTOCHNOEVROPEISKOI ISTORII I KUL'TURY: http://www1.ku-eichstaett.de/ZIMOS/forumruss.html

Biweekly electronic newsletter THE RUSSIAN NATIONALISM BULLETIN: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/russian_nationalism/

LinkedIn scholars network RESEARCHERS OF RUSSIAN NATIONALISM: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?about&gid=157897&trk=anet_ug_grppro