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From the authors. A Fulcrum and a Lever of Democracy

Published onFeb 22, 2024
From the authors. A Fulcrum and a Lever of Democracy

“Give me a fulcrum, and I will move the world…” It is believed that the author of this expression is Archimedes. In fact, the original phrase sounds a little diffe , rent: “Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which I can place it, and I will move the world.” That is, this is an instruction on how to budge the seemingly immovable.

But there are no eternal immovable objects. Not in nature, not in society. Stars go out, mountains collapse, glaciers melt, seas and oceans dry up or change their shape. Every process always has its own lever and its own fulcrum—something breaks the established balance, and then changes begin. In states and societies, everything happens similarly, only faster. Dictatorships are transformed into democracies, and vice versa, dormant institutions suddenly wake up, creaking judicial machines under the pressure of society begin to issue fair and professional decisions, and dictators sometimes go to jail along with their corrupt cliques. These processes always have their own leverage and their own fulcrum. And if in nature there are a huge number of factors that become a catalyst for change, then in democratic processes such a factor is elections. Yes, of course, they are not the only factor. But in the end, elections are the important ones. The freer, fairer and more competitive the elections, the faster the democratic transformation will come. And vice versa.

Today, it seems to some that the Russian state model is an unmovable authoritarian boulder firmly rooted in Russian soil. But this only seems to be the case. The political regime based on artificially constructed electoral authoritarianism is actively announcing something that does not really exist—its imaginary stability. And at the same time, it is trying to introduce the syndrome of learned helplessness into the psyche of people. But the very first free and fair elections can not only move this boulder out of the way, but also show that it is far from having a granite-like nature. This has happened more than once in history. Yes, of course, a lot will need to be changed, repaired and corrected later. But the leverage and fulcrum are still elections.

Elections (the electoral system, the state of the electoral legislation, and electoral practices) are a very accurate marker of the true goals and objectives of the authorities. If these goals differ from those officially proclaimed or embodied in the Constitution, then they can be fairly easily fixed by changes in the electoral legislation and certain electoral practices. This is what we will try to do when answering the first question about how and why the Russian elections became non-elections.

The second question—what to do about it?—is more difficult. And not just because it is difficult to correct the current electoral legislation in Russia. On the contrary, this is simple, especially considering that if you sort the burden of many years of anti-democratic accretions into a single framework, you can quickly free the electoral legislation from them. But how can such amendments be passed through a parliament formed according to non-democratic rules and which is not in its essence a representative body? And another important question: how do you prove to people who are disappointed in their government and who do not trust any government that only their will and their real participation can change the situation in the country? Here we can only speculate and theorize. However, this can also be useful.

This book was written by lawyers who tried to combine political and legal views on the problems of Russian statehood from the point of view of the dynamics of changes in Russian electoral legislation over the past quarter of a century. How does this work differ from many domestic electoral studies? First, it’s shorter. Details that interfere with the perception of the main idea were excised to the extent possible from a huge block of information, but at the same time, the accuracy of meanings was not distorted. We tried to show how and for the sake of what the changes took place, in what ways the results were achieved and how this affected representative power. For greater clarity of conclusions, two mathematicians joined the lawyers, and presented a mathematical model for establishing the administrative practices of electoral authoritarianism.

Secondly, we propose a tool for assessing non-democratic transition based on the classification of amendments to the electoral legislation.

Judge the results for yourself.

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