Liberal Elites, Socialist Masses, and Problems of Russian Democracy

Judith S. Kullberg and William Zimmerman *

Tables

Errata

Strong showings and outright victories by antireform and conservative parties in several elections in Russia--most notably the 1993 and 1995 Duma elections--and in other postcommunist East European countries in the early and mid-1990s raised concerns about the long-term prospects for democracy in the region. Western analyses have largely explained these election outcomes as popular reactions to short-term economic costs arising from reform of command-administrative economies ¹ or as protests against radical restructuring by voters preferring a more moderate pace of reform. ² Such interpretations are essentially optimistic in that they do not question the commitment of postcommunist publics to democracy: they suggest that with improvement in economic conditions, support for communists and nationalists will evaporate.

In contrast to the general optimism of Western assessments, much of the commentary in the East has been more pessimistic. East European analysts have been inclined to interpret the victory of antireform parties as the explicit rejection by mass publics of the liberal ideology [End Page 323] and leadership of westernizing, reformist elites. ³ Such interpretations suggest that the dissatisfaction of publics with liberalism and the emergent postcommunist political order is indeed deep, too deep to be generated merely by short-term economic decline or opposition to reform policy.

Evidence presented in this paper from parallel Russian elite and mass opinion surveys, conducted at the end of 1992/early 1993 and from late 1995 through the summer of 1996, is consistent with the contention that an elite/mass ideological divide exists in certain postcommunist societies. In the survey data we find evidence of a considerable gap between elite and mass worldviews. Whereas elites overwhelmingly opt for liberal democracy, the Russian mass public is thoroughly divided. Although Boris Yeltsin triumphed in the 1996 presidential election--an election that was a referendum about both Russia's past and its future--it is nevertheless clear that a substantial segment of the Russian electorate has not accepted the westernizing liberalism of those who led the democratic revolution and has instead opted for socialism or authoritarian nationalism and the corresponding "red" or "brown" political parties. ⁴

What accounts for the ideological gap between elites and the mass public? We argue that ideological variation--both between elites and the masses and within the mass public--is largely the result of differences across groups and individuals in the postcommunist structure of economic opportunity. Support for liberalism is causally related to the ability of individuals to participate in the new economic order: those who are "locked out" of the new economy and are constrained by circumstances and context from improving their conditions will be more likely to express antiliberal values and attitudes. Thus, what largely accounts for the elite's embrace of liberalism and, conversely, its nonacceptance by a considerable proportion of the Russian mass public is not [End Page 324] simply economic decline, but the differential impact of economic restructuring on opportunities and, therefore, long-term material prospects of groups and individuals.

While a small segment of the Russian population has benefited dramatically from the collapse of the socialist economy, the economic position of a majority of the Russian population has been harmed. Within that majority, many have suffered extensively. The entry of Russia into the global economy resulted in the virtual collapse of entire industrial sectors. Individuals attached to these sectors, either directly through employment or indirectly through residence in regions where the sectors are concentrated, have experienced chronic unemployment or underemployment. Furthermore, millions are unable to acquire new skills or relocate, trapped by extremely low income and dependent upon sporadic distributions of back pay or "payments in kind" by employers or regional governments. Thus, poorly positioned to participate in the new market economy, many Russian citizens are unable to benefit from the emerging economic order. Even though aggregate economic growth may produce a general increase in support for democracy, ⁵ major subgroups of the population are likely to remain alienated from the democratic order as a result of the asymmetrical structure of economic opportunity. This alienation, in our view, will pose a long-term challenge to the postcommunist order and the legitimacy of Russian democracy.

Our argument concerning the determinants of popular support for democracy draws from democratic thought as well as from theories of political development and democratization. We examine the arguments concerning the relationship between the market economy and democracy in these literatures as prolegomena to the presentation of the concept of economic opportunity structure and the explication of its relationship to democratic ideology and legitimacy. We then pose a series of hypotheses regarding the ideological positions of elites and masses, as well as of various segments of the mass public, during the simultaneous transition to the market and democracy. We test these hypotheses with survey data and assess the effects of economic opportunity structure on the distribution of orientations to the political economy in Russia. We conclude by considering the implications of our findings for the long-term trajectory of political change in Russia as well as for comparative theories of democratic legitimacy and consolidation. [End Page 325]

The Market and Democracy

The tie between market and democracy is on many counts an astonishing historical fact. We understand neither market nor democracy well if we cannot explain it.

--Charles Lindblom⁶

Since the eighteenth century philosophers and scholars have agreed that capitalism constitutes the economic and social-structural foundation of parliamentary democracy. This agreement has been supported by the actual pattern of democratic development around the globe. Prior to the collapse of communism, representative democracy had emerged and persisted only in capitalist societies. The market thus appeared to be a necessary, although far from sufficient, condition for democracy.

With a keen awareness of this historical correlation, leaders of most postcommunist nations have committed themselves to both market and democracy. Indeed, many have assumed that dual economic and political transformation is the only viable path toward the "civilized world." However, simultaneous pursuit of both market and democracy from the starting point of state socialism--the antithesis of the liberal capitalist order--constitutes a unique, and therefore uncertain, historical trajectory. ⁷ Although it is now clear that such a dual revolution is at least possible, its success in all cases is far from certain.

Many scholars have identified the economic decline that accompanies economic restructuring as the essential dilemma of the dual transition, arguing that if the well-being of the majority of a population is substantially harmed by reforms, popular support for democracy will erode. ⁸ According to this view, the danger of such harm is particularly great in postsocialist societies. Given the relatively low standard of living and high degree of income equality in these countries, sharp economic downturn has the potential effect of throwing the majority of the population into poverty. ⁹ The high and broadly borne cost of reform [End Page 326] will subsequently erode support for the regime. Although some have argued that the masses may weight the costs of economic reform against the benefits of social and political freedom ¹⁰ or hope for long-term economic improvement, ¹¹ others emphasize the real limits of mass patience with poor economic performance. ¹²

In emphasizing the effect of changes in income on support for democracy during the transition period, the "costs of reform" argument obscures the character of the connection between the market economy and democracy. A market economy is not designed to produce an equitable and fair distribution of income; rather, it is a system of competitive exchange that takes place within a framework of rights, foremost among them property rights. ¹³ Under capitalism, the economic position of groups and individuals is a function of their possession of economic rights, their actual opportunity to participate in the market, and the value of resources and goods they are able to bring with them to market competition. ¹⁴ Keenly aware that their economic well-being depends on these conditions, individuals do not evaluate governmental performance purely on the basis of their short- and their long-term gains and losses in income, but rather through assessments of both their short- and their long-term economic opportunity. In sum, it is not simply the aggregate economic performance of a market economy that produces support for democratic institutions, but citizens' possession of economic rights and genuine economic opportunity.

The argument that democratic legitimacy is rooted in economic opportunity is supported by historical studies of the origins of democracy. Although there is disagreement as to the precise paths that led to representative democracy, most scholars concur that democracy was created out of the struggle of classes to maximize their economic rights [End Page 327] and opportunities. Industrial capitalism transformed traditional European societies by creating new social classes and groups with well-defined economic interests and identities. At different stages of industrial development, these new groups--capitalist bourgeoisie, the middle class, and the organized industrial proletariat--provided the impetus for democratization. ¹⁵ Occupying essential roles in the capitalist economic order, the new classes used their clout and resources, first to acquire guarantees of property rights and then to gain electoral rights that facilitated the representation of their economic interests in the legislative process. By extending economic rights and guarantees to the masses, liberal states defused discontent with capitalism and secured popular acceptance for the principles and institutions of democracy.

In short, the classical liberal argument that democracy is a grand bargain between the state and societal actors pursuing economic interests has been largely confirmed by historical example. However, the legitimacy of democratic orders is not cemented through the explicit contract imagined by Locke, Rousseau, and Jefferson. Rather, it is signified through consensual acceptance of the ideology of democracy, liberalism. The core tenet of liberalism is the right of individuals to life and property. To preserve life and well-being, they must also be free to engage in economic activity and exchange. Since rights are guarantees of the basic rules and procedures of social interaction but not of outcomes, ¹⁶ widespread acceptance of liberalism mitigates and even eliminates conflicts among individuals and groups over the distribution of resources and instead fosters acceptance of the socioeconomic inequality that is inevitably produced through market competition. ¹⁷ Liberalism is thus instrumental in creating the belief that the political-economic order is just.

Although states and societies possess a variety of methods for the inculcation of beliefs, popular acceptance of any ideology ultimately depends on congruence between the ideology and the actual experiences [End Page 328] of individuals and groups. ¹⁸ If the events of daily life over a period of time validate the ideology's depiction of the social order, the ideology is accepted. If, however, experience continually contradicts the tenets of fairness and justice espoused by the ideology and regime, adherence to the ideology as well as support for the regime are undermined. Given a sufficiently large gap between the image of justice and daily life and the existence of alternative ideologies, individuals and groups may opt for one of those alternatives. ¹⁹ Insofar as the concept of justice contained in the alternative ideologies contradicts that espoused by the regime and its allies, widespread adherence to such ideologies may presage significant societal conflict. Indeed, mass defection from the regime's ideology may contribute to the collapse of the entire sociopolitical order. ²⁰ A prime example of the consequences of widespread skepticism toward an official ideology is the collapse of communism. There can be little doubt that the contradiction between the promise of justice contained in Marxism-Leninism and the reality of daily life in communist societies contributed to the gradual erosion of support for state socialism and its rapid destruction in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s and early 1990s. ²¹

There is a similar tension between the experience of daily life and regime ideology in contemporary Russia. For many citizens, the structure of economic opportunity is highly constrained. Skilled and unskilled workers are still painfully attached to firms that have lost their domestic customers and are as yet unable to compete successfully in global markets. Mid- to lower-level bureaucrats, as well as academics, doctors, teachers, and military personnel, are all employed in state institutions that have experienced dramatic reductions in funding from the central and local governments since 1991. Many also face limited [End Page 329] prospects for finding private sector employment in the areas in which they were educated and trained. For such individuals, movement into the private sector involves the abandonment of careers and, often, a significant drop in social status. In an even weaker position are pensioners and older workers, who are unlikely to have time and energy to start businesses or acquire new skills that will enhance their marketability, and women, who have experienced an increase in employment discrimination since the collapse of socialism. ²²

Rooted in the political and economic inequality of the Soviet period, the weak position of the mass public has continued into the postcommunist present. In the first stages of economic reform in the late 1980s, most Soviet citizens lacked significant resources or access to resources to invest in new businesses and were therefore poorly positioned to take advantage of emerging markets. What savings they had were wiped out when prices were freed in early 1992 under the Gaidar "shock therapy" program. The resulting near hyperinflation quickly eliminated the "ruble overhang" of forced savings accumulated by the mass public from years of chronic undersupply of consumer goods. The high rates of inflation also resulted in a sharp reduction in real income and the impoverishment of almost half of the population. ²³ It is now also clear that the voucher privatization program, which was touted as a massive redistribution of state property, resulted in a relatively small transfer of property to the mass public. ²⁴

In contrast to the poor market situation and constrained opportunities of the mass public in the late Soviet period, managerial and political elites were well positioned in Russia for tremendous economic gain in the movement to the market. Indeed, they benefited substantially, even spectacularly, from the transition to liberal democracy. ²⁵ The advantage has been most pronounced for political elites, who used their [End Page 330] positions in a liberalized, but far from successfully reformed institutional arrangement, to accumulate significant economic resources. ²⁶ The problem of elite enrichment appears to have been more severe in Russia and other states of the former Soviet Union than in East Central Europe. ²⁷ The Russian postcommunist order features virtually no oversight mechanisms and has thus provided a situation of almost unlimited economic opportunity to those in authority.

The broad opportunity structure of elites highlights the way in which the role and performance of governments in postcommunist settings differs sharply from governments where capitalism is well established, particularly in the period of the transition to democracy. Since private property is not yet institutionalized and markets are undeveloped, postcommunist democratic regimes must create them. To do so, governments operate not as referees or arbiters among a multitude of already existing business and socioeconomic interests, but as distributors of property and resources. Where unconstrained by developed legal institutions, strong political parties, or social organizations, ²⁸ elites are able to construct reform programs that maximize economic gains for themselves and their allies. Largely because of their ability to transform their political positions and resources into capital, ²⁹ they support privatization and marketization.

To the extent that reform policies supported by democratizing elites undermined traditional bases of mass economic security--the state economy and firms through which most material benefits were dispersed to citizens--the interests of mass publics and elites in postcommunist societies were initially discordant. Should basic property rights and access to the postcommunist economy continue to be distributed narrowly and inequitably, large segments of the mass public may develop a profound sense of grievance with the regime and the entire postcommunist order. Acutely aware not only of the costs they have paid in the transition but also of their limited prospects in the new economic [End Page 331] order and the contrasting benefits and advantages accruing directly to elites, segments of the mass public may fail to accept liberalism or to support liberal institutions. Instead, mass publics may opt for illiberal ideologies, of either the communist or the nationalist variety.

The Nature of the Gap

Studies of public opinion in periods of transition may be used to analyze how the interests of various social groups play themselves out in the construction of democratic orders. When combined with parallel surveys of elites, public opinion studies reveal much about the structure and dynamics of postauthoritarian politics. We turn now to just such survey data to test the contention that vastly different opportunities arising from the market situations of elites and masses in some postcommunist societies may weaken public support for liberal principles and institutions and thus threaten the long-term prospects of democracy.

The data we use here to test our hypotheses come from parallel surveys of the Russian elite and mass public conducted in 1992-93 and 1995-96. (A description of the surveys is provided in the appendix.) The two elite studies and the 1993 mass survey were designed primarily to identify the distribution and underlying causal factors of perceptions of international relations and foreign policy preferences. Consequently, many measures focused specifically on international relations. However, because of the anticipated relationship between foreign policy preferences and domestic political attitudes, a number of measures of orientations to economic and political change were included in these questionnaires. The 1995-96 mass survey focused primarily on the December 1995 parliamentary election and the June-July 1996 presidential election.

We argued above that the different economic opportunity structures of elites and masses in the simultaneous political and economic transitions from socialism would produce quite distinct economic and political orientations. Furthermore, we suggested that the absence of essential concordance between elite and mass interests, generated by differences in the market situation and exacerbated by structural impediments to the representation of mass interests in the policy process, would result in adherence at the mass level to ideological alternatives to liberalism. Thus, we should find majority, even consensual, adherence to liberalism among elite respondents but lower levels of support for liberal values among masses, as well as evidence of greater attachment [End Page 332] to nonliberal ideological orientations. We now examine the data from the elite and mass surveys to test the validity of these assertions.

The first task was to construct a measure of ideological position that encompassed the major worldviews found in contemporary Russia and in postcommunist societies in general. Following Lindblom, we conceptualize the two central choices to be made in the construction of political-economic orders to be between democracy and authoritarianism on the one hand and between the state (plan) and the market on the other. ³⁰ With these two fundamental dichotomies in mind, we created a two-by-two typology to distinguish between the four possible mixes of political and economic order, displayed in Figure 1. ³¹ We then constructed scales of political and economic liberalism from groups of measures of political and economic values. Using these scales, we were able to categorize respondents according to whether they favored the market or state control of the economy and democracy or authoritarianism. On this basis we identified respondents as liberal or market democrats, market authoritarians, social democrats, and socialist authoritarians.

The scale of orientation to the political system was composed of five measures. Taken together, these items assess the extent of respondents' acceptance of core tenets and practices of liberal democracy--political [End Page 333] contestation, the presumption of innocence, the rights of the individual versus society, the free exchange of ideas, and philosophical pluralism. ³² The specific items were as follows: "Competition between various political parties makes our system stronger"; "The rights of the individual should be defended even if guilty persons sometimes remain free"; "The interests of society should be protected even if innocent people sometimes end up in prison"; "In any society it will always be necessary to prohibit the public expression of dangerous ideas"; and "It is apparent that of all the existing philosophies, there is only one that is clearly correct." Scale scores were calculated for all respondents who responded to at least three of the five items. ³³

The economic-orientation scale assessed attitudes toward essential features of the market economy: economic competition, private ownership of heavy industry, income inequality, and economic risk. The following are four items used in constructing the scale: "Competition between various enterprises, organizations, and firms benefits our society"; "All heavy industry should belong to the state and not be in private hands"; "It's normal when the owner of a prosperous enterprise, using the labor of his workers, becomes richer than many other people"; and "There's no sense in beginning a new business inasmuch as it might fail." Scores were calculated for individuals who responded to at least two of the four items.

We recognize that the typology is a rather blunt instrument; its chief advantage is that it parsimoniously captures the central choices--plan versus market, democracy versus dictatorship--that have faced decision makers and mass publics in postcommunist transitions. Empirically, it correlates well with actual system preferences of respondents. Among [End Page 334] the mass respondents interviewed in the third wave of the election study in July 1996, more than three-quarters (76 percent) of those categorized as liberal democrats indicated that they thought either "the present political system" or "democracy of a Western type" most suitable for Russia, as did more than two-thirds (67 percent) of those categorized as market authoritarians. Almost two-thirds (64 percent) of those identified as socialist authoritarians and 58 percent of the social democrats answered that the "Soviet system before perestroika" was most suitable for Russia. Those we coded as ambivalent were truly ambivalent: exactly half (49.9 percent) favored the old Soviet system and half (50.1 percent) preferred the present system or Western-style democracy.

Table 1 displays the distributions of the elite and mass samples across the categories of the typology. ³⁴ The table demonstrates that support for market democracy, the admixture of economic and political liberalism, was far greater among elites than among mass respondents in both 1993 and 1995. ³⁵ In both years elites were overwhelmingly committed to the market. Likewise in both surveys elite commitment to democracy is high. In contrast, the proportion of mass respondents who could be labeled as market democrats was less than half the proportion found among elites, and in 1995, less than a third. Conversely the proportion of illiberal respondents (market and socialist authoritarians) was approximately twice as great in both years. Overall a majority of the mass respondents were political liberals in 1993, falling into either [End Page 335] the market or social democrat category, and in 1995 a majority of those who had committed positions continued to favor political liberalism. Fewer than half overall were economic liberals (market democrats or market authoritarians) either in 1993 or 1995, and fewer than half of those with committed positions were market liberals in 1995. ³⁶ Among [End Page 336] those with committed positions in 1995, political liberals (market democrats and social democrats) constituted a majority, and economic liberals (market democrats and market authoritarians) represented less than a majority among both those with identifiable positions and overall. In 1993, as in 1995, liberal democrats outnumbered socialist authoritarians overall, but the ratio of those identified as liberal democrats and socialist authoritarians shifted between 1993 and 1995 in favor of the latter. Thus, support for political liberalism was considerably greater than support for the market in both 1993 and 1995, but levels of support for economic liberalism and probably for political liberalism appear to have diminished somewhat across the two-year period.

In order to explore the extent and character of the gap, the levels of response on specific measures used in our construction of ideological orientation are displayed in Tables 2 and 3. To capture the degree of elite and mass support for liberal policies, we employ, with slight modification, the categorizations of support suggested by Graham. ³⁷ In what follows, "majority" refers to support by more than 50 percent but less than 60 percent of those with committed positions, "consensus" [End Page 337] refers to support of between 60 and 79 percent, and "virtual unanimity," of 80 percent or more. Table 2 displays the extent of elite support for most of the dimensions of economic liberalism. Aside from responses to the question of state ownership of heavy industry, ³⁸ items used to construct the economic liberalism scale received either consensual or virtually unanimous support in both 1993 and 1995. In 1993 more than 80 percent of the elite sample responded in a liberal direction on three of the four items. They did not accept the notion that it was senseless to begin a new business, they endorsed economic competition as functional for society, and they agreed that it was reasonable for persons who ran successful businesses to become rich. Although support for these measures decreased modestly in 1995, more than 80 percent still supported the market overall.

Elite respondents also strongly endorsed liberal political beliefs and practices in both years. They were virtually unanimous in their support [End Page 338] for political liberalism (Table 3), with approximately four-fifths, excluding those few not taking committed positions, coded as liberal democrats overall in both 1993 and 1995. Of the various items constituting the political liberalism scale, only one, concerning the state's obligation to protect citizens from dangerous ideas, was supported by less than 60 percent of the elite respondents. (The proportion decreased to less than half in 1995.) In both 1993 and 1995 the other items were endorsed by at least three-fifths of those expressing an opinion. More than 80 percent of the elite respondents in 1993 rejected the proposition that societal rights should prevail at the expense of individual rights; they also disagreed (usually strongly) with a proposition that epitomized the historical divide between liberalism and socialism, namely, that there was a single "correct" philosophy. In 1995 they continued (1) to be virtually unanimous in their opposition to the notion that there was such a true worldview and (2) to evince consensual support for political competition and the precedence of individual over societal rights.

Comparison of the mass response pattern with the elite response pattern for individual scale items (Tables 2 and 3) reveals noticeably weaker support for market liberalism and somewhat weaker support for political liberalism among the mass public. To be sure, respondents in 1993 and 1995 were overwhelmingly supportive of economic competition in the abstract ("Competition between various enterprises, organizations, and firms benefits our society"), and in 1993 a majority among the mass public revealed that they were favorably disposed to entrepreneurial activities and the introduction of new business. In both years, however, they were strongly opposed, much more than elite respondents, to private ownership of heavy industry. A majority continued in 1995, as it had in 1993, to dispute the proposition that it was senseless to begin a new business. But only a minority in 1995 agreed that it was normal for an owner of a prosperous business to become rich. Whereas in 1993 among those with committed positions a majority had favored the market, in 1995 support had eroded such that only a minority supported an overall market orientation.

Among those in the mass samples who expressed views, there was consensual support for a democratic orientation in 1993 and majority support in 1995, but in neither year is there anything like the virtual unanimity for democratic principles found among the elite. The mass public was as likely as the elite to reject the claim that societal rights should take precedence over individual rights, but on other items it was less likely to take a liberal position. We find consensus in both years [End Page 339] that there is "no one right philosophy"--a proposition about which the elite respondents were virtually unanimous. In both years a majority favored political competition, the consensual position among elites. Again, mass respondents in 1995 were less supportive than elites of the statement that individual rights should receive priority. Both in 1993 and 1995 those opposing the prohibition of dangerous ideas were in the minority among the mass public.

In short, as predicted, the ideological orientations and values of Russian elites and masses are sharply divided, with masses exhibiting a greater proclivity to socialist and illiberal ideologies. Whereas a clear preponderance of elites had accepted market liberalism by 1993, a sizable fraction among the mass public had not. Furthermore, comparison of elite and mass response patterns on specific measures offers compelling evidence that the ideological positions of elites and the mass public reflect their respective opportunity structures. Elites, with their greater opportunities to acquire property and engage in profitable business activity, were virtually unanimous in their support for most elements of market liberalism in 1993. Consensus continued to exist in 1995 among elites that economic competition was beneficial, that entrepreneurial enrichment was normal, and that it was worth the risk to open a new business. In contrast, members of the mass public, with their more limited opportunities and greater likelihood of bearing the costs rather than the benefits of reform, were less positive about the various facets of the market economy. However, in their attitudes toward the various elements of democratic reform, particularly individual rights, the masses were more positive.

The Origins of the Gap

Although the elite and mass response patterns presented here are certainly consistent with the hypothesis that post-Soviet ideologies are rooted in the different economic opportunity structures of both elite and mass groups, more convincing evidence is needed. By comparing the ideological positions of various substrata of the mass sample, we can test several more specific causal hypotheses and test for evidence of association between various components of economic opportunity structure and ideological position.

The mean values of the economic and political liberalism scales by factors shaping individual and group economic opportunity are displayed in Table 4. On the basis of the foregoing discussion concerning the market origins of ideologies, we expect that upper-status individuals, [End Page 340] to the extent that their market situations are more similar to those of truly elite groups, to exhibit higher levels of support for economic and political liberalism. Individuals possessing those attributes most valued in emergent market conditions, such as youth and education, should also exhibit higher levels of support for market liberalism. Conversely, those people least in demand in the new labor market and/or facing the greatest impediments to finding satisfactory employment should be most resistant to liberalism. Included in this group are the less well educated, the elderly, and women. We should also find differences in ideological disposition across economic sectors and regions. Those groups most connected to the old state economy should evince lower levels of attachment to market liberalism, while those attached to firms and organizations operating within emergent market structures should evince higher levels of attachment. Given the wide disparity in economic conditions across Russia, a disparity connected with the regional concentration of specific industries, we also expect to find considerable regional variation in the level of attachment to market liberalism. Individuals from those regions most negatively affected by the economic downturn of the early 1990s should be less likely to accept the values and practices associated with the market. Finally, given the vast discrepancy in opportunities for economic gain between certain cities and most rural regions, we assume that urban residents will be more likely to support market liberalism than will those in the countryside. ³⁹

Variation in the mean economic liberalism score across various demographic, socioeconomic, and geographic categories presented in Table 4 largely confirms these hypotheses. First, as predicted, there is evidence of a considerable gender gap in both 1993 and 1995, with women scoring significantly lower on the economic liberalism scale. With regard to education and age, increases in level of education predict very well to increased attachment to market liberalism and younger age categories are indeed more economically liberal. Further, we find a strong, linear relationship between socioeconomic status, as measured by occupation, and support for market liberalism in the 1993 data and a similar, though less linear, pattern of variation in the 1995 data. In both years, except for the categories of manager and highly qualified professionals, we find mean scores that indicate adherence to more antimarket or socialist orientations. As would be expected, agricultural [End Page 341] [Begin Page 343] workers and unskilled laborers display the lowest levels of economic liberalism.

We also find variation in level of attachment to economic liberalism across sectors, regions, and types of communities. In 1993 the groups with the strongest socialist orientation were those working on collective farms and in state industrial enterprises; in 1995 those working on collective and state farms and in the state administration were the least [End Page 343] economically liberal. In both years those employed in co-ops, joint ventures, or private enterprises displayed high levels of economic liberalism. ⁴⁰ As expected, considerable regional variation in levels of market liberalism is present in both samples, though the pattern is much stronger in 1993 than in 1995. The regions with the most conservative scores in 1993, the Urals and the central black-earth region, are areas in which "traditional" socialist economic structures--large-scale heavy industry and collective agriculture--are concentrated. The weakening of the variation across regions in 1995 may indicate a growing homogenization of regional economic conditions, although the illiberalism of respondents in the Far East reflects that region's continuing depression. Finally, community size also appears to be a factor shaping economic liberalism. In both 1993 and 1995 considerably higher levels of economic liberalism are present among residents of Moscow and cities with populations exceeding one million; considerably lower levels are present in smaller communities. While in 1993 there was much less support for economic liberalism in medium-size (100,000 to 500,000 residents) to fairly large cities (500,000 to 1,000,000 residents) than in either smaller towns or cities with more than 1,000,000 residents, by 1995 the relationship between community size and economic liberalism was nearly linear. This change in the pattern of variation may also be a function of gradual equalization of conditions across Russia and a general improvement in the economic situation in larger cities. At the same time, resistance to economic liberalism appears to have deepened in the countryside, towns, and small cities, probably due to the particularly harsh conditions of life and limited resources in such settings. ⁴¹

The hypothesis that economic opportunity structure also affects individual support for liberal democracy is further confirmed by variation across most of the same factors in average political liberalism scores. Occupational status and education are positively correlated in both 1993 and 1995 with support for political liberalism, while age is negatively correlated. Such findings are consistent with the considerable body of comparative and single-country studies regarding the effect of upward social mobility, generational change, and material "satisfaction" [End Page 344] on support for democratic values. ⁴² We again find a significant gender difference, with women less inclined toward political liberalism. We also see considerable sectoral and regional variation in support for political liberalism. The presence of the latter is probably due in part to the previously noted variation in regional economic performance, particularly in 1993, but also to differential exposure across regions to the national mass media, which have been generally supportive of Western political institutions and norms since the late 1980s. The higher average political liberalism scores of citizens in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and the Russian northwest are probably at least partially an artifact of the public's greater exposure to the mass media in those areas.

Comparison of mean scale scores thus supports the general argument concerning the effect of opportunity structure on both economic and political liberalism. But which dimensions of opportunity structure are the most determinative of liberal orientations? To answer this question, we constructed linear models of economic and political liberalism. These models depict both economic and political liberalism to be a function of the factors hypothesized to shape individual economic opportunity structure: age, sex, education, income, occupation, community size, and region. In addition, we included in the regression analyses variables peculiar to each survey that may also serve as indicators of individual economic opportunity structure. In the 1993 survey these were self-reports of personal possessions and a measure of whether or not the respondent would like to start his or her own business. ⁴³ Included in the 1995 survey were assessments of change in family financial situation in the previous year, perceptions of the condition of the national and regional economy, and attitude toward the conduct of privatization. ⁴⁴ Perceptions [End Page 345] of economic conditions, both in the general economy and within the family, have repeatedly been demonstrated to be significant determinants of political attitudes, party support, and voting behavior across nations. ⁴⁵ We incorporate them into the model as crucial indicators of respondents' perceived and actual economic opportunity. We believe that respondents' attitudes toward the way in which privatization has been conducted in Russia taps into their sense of the fairness of the emerging economic order and the level of economic opportunity present.

where

The results of regression analyses of these models are presented in Tables 5 and 6. Table 5 indicates that in both 1993 and 1995 age, education, [End Page 346] sex, and type of community are the facets of economic opportunity structure with the greatest effects on economic liberalism, controlling for all other factors. The strength of their effects is not surprising, given that they are central determinants of individual economic opportunity in the Russian economy. The analyses also show that occupational category and family monthly income per capita do not exert statistically significant independent effects on economic liberalism. In the case of occupation, this failure is probably related to the high degree of collinearity with education, as well as to the imprecision of occupational category as an indicator of individual economic opportunity. As for income, its weakness as an explanatory factor supports our earlier contention that the structure of economic opportunity is primarily a function not of present income but rather of an individual's relative position within the market economy and her or his awareness of that position.

In addition to these common factors, the survey-specific measures of opportunity included in the models also exert significant influence on economic liberalism. Individual material wealth, as roughly measured by reported number of possessions, was a significant, if not powerful, predictor of economic liberalism in 1993, while reported desire to start a business was both significant and robust. Similarly, the composite measure of individual perception of general economic conditions in the country and the region (so), assessments of change in family financial situation, and attitude toward the way in which property was being privatized all explained a considerable amount of the variation of individual economic liberalism in 1995.

The relative effects of various components of individual economic opportunity structure also differ in 1993 and 1995. First, region, which we entered into the equation as a set of dummy variables, explained a considerable amount of variation in economic liberalism in 1993 but rather little by 1995. This difference reinforces the observation made above of the apparent decline in the importance of region as an explanatory factor. Comparing the results of the 1993 and 1995 regression equations more generally, the economic opportunity structure model explained more variation in individual economic liberalism in 1993 than in 1995, 21 percent versus approximately 18 percent. Some of the change is probably due to the use of different independent variables in the two equations and also to the different response categories of the items used to construct the economic liberalism scale. ⁴⁶ However, [End Page 347] [Begin Page 350] the reduction in the robustness of the model may also be due to a decline in the total amount of variation in economic opportunity in Russia between 1993 and 1995. Certainly, the Russian GDP per capita slid from 1993 to 1995, which means that economic opportunity for the average citizen worsened. Indeed, a worsening of economic opportunity may account for the previously noted drop in the level of economic liberalism of the 1995 sample. Another possible explanation for the decreased explanatory power of the model in 1995 is that occupational status and education have declined across the postcommunist period as determinants of economic opportunity whereas individual qualities, such as willingness to work several jobs, entrepreneurial skill, or ability to survive in the competitive and often brutal Russian business world, have become crucial factors shaping individual economic opportunity. ⁴⁷ Measures of entrepreneurial inclination were incorporated only in the 1993 survey.

The economic opportunity structure model accounts for much less variation in political liberalism, only about 9 percent in 1993 and 5.3 percent in 1995 (Table 6). The core components of opportunity--sex, age, education and type of settlement--still largely appear as significant determinants, but their effects are lower and not consistent across the two samples. Regional factors are less important and disappear altogether in the analysis of the 1995 data. Furthermore, most of the other measures of individual economic opportunity--personal possessions, desire to start a business, family economic situation, and attitude toward the conduct of privatization--fail entirely to exert significant effects on political liberalism. Only the sociotropic assessment of the economy significantly affects political liberalism.

These analyses thus seem to indicate that economic opportunity structure has only limited effects on individual political liberalism. However, further analysis of the data suggests a more complex relationship between economic opportunity, economic liberalism, and political liberalism. For attitudinal measures, political liberalism and economic liberalism are strongly correlated: the correlation is .36 in the 1993 survey data and .31 in 1995. When economic liberalism is included as an explanatory variable in the model of political liberalism, it boosts the R ² to .164 for 1993 and .126 for 1995. Indeed, economic liberalism is so much stronger a predictor of individual political liberalism that the various indicators of economic opportunity disappear as significant [End Page 350] independent factors when it is included in the regression equations. What can be concluded is that although economic opportunity structure is only of limited strength in terms of its direct effects on political liberalism, it also exerts an indirect effect, through economic liberalism. The relationship between economic opportunity structure, economic liberalism, and political liberalism is illustrated in the path model in Figure 2. The analysis of the survey data thus supports the theoretical position taken at the beginning of the paper: the amount of individual economic opportunity determines the level of support for the market and its institutions, which in turn drives support for democratic principles.

Further analysis of the survey responses indicates that the structure of economic opportunity not only affects individual support for liberal principles but also heavily influences political system preference. In the third wave of the 1995-96 panel study, conducted in July 1996 immediately after the Russian presidential election, respondents were asked their opinion of what type of political order was most suitable for Russia at the present time. They were provided with three options: the Soviet system as it existed before perestroika, the present political order, and a representative democracy of the Western type. Almost half (49 percent) of the respondents regarded the erstwhile Soviet political system as preferable to either the present order (preferred by 34.4 percent of respondents) or representative democracy of the Western type (preferred by 17 percent). To assess whether system preference could be explained by individual economic opportunity, we constructed a logistic regression model, dichotomizing preference between a system of the Soviet type and the other two options (the existing order or a representative democracy of the Western type) combined. The economic opportunity [End Page 351] model correctly predicts more than 71 percent of respondent preferences (Table 7). The results clearly demonstrate that those citizens with the least opportunity to engage in and benefit from the market--those who are less educated, female, and older, and who reside in rural regions and smaller towns or cities--are most likely to prefer a Soviet-type system. Thus, the limited economic opportunity of these groups is directly undermining the legitimacy of the present Russian political system.

Conclusion: Postcommunism and Theories of Democratization

We spoke of the many absurdities of our life and came to the conclusion we just couldn't go on like this.

--Eduard Shevardnadze⁴⁸

Our findings concerning the character and determinants of Russian elite and mass ideological orientations have important implications both for our understanding of the factors driving post-Soviet political change and for the theory and analysis of democratic transition and consolidation.

The observation of the gap between elite and mass ideology and the identification of its sources in differences in economic opportunity corresponds well to a growing scholarly consensus that the democratic revolution in Eastern Europe did not rise from society, from social and political movements, but rather was launched and led from above by elites. ⁴⁹ What precipitated the elite decision to liberalize, fundamentally restructure, and finally abandon communism was the development among elites (including the subelite intelligentsia) of a consensus that the system they managed was morally bankrupt. ⁵⁰ Our data provide evidence of the continuity of this elite consensus in Russia and suggest that it has developed into a strong attachment to liberal ideology. Awareness of the depth of liberal sentiment at the elite level allows us to interpret the economic programs of Yeltsin and his prime ministers as the expression of the genuine preferences and ideological orientation [End Page 352] [Begin Page 354] of the Russian national elite in the postcommunist era, rather than as the product of IMF and Western influence.

While the foregoing analysis suggests a general warning about the high political cost of radical economic dislocations in periods of transition, it also speaks directly to the nature of the Leninist legacy in Russia. The Soviet social structure, the evolution of which produced reformist elites, also produced mass publics whose economic interests were tightly interconnected with socialist institutions. Millions are still painfully attached to and dependent upon these institutions and the disintegrating state. Our results indicate that poverty and limited opportunities in the new market economy are impeding the successful internalization of democratic norms by large segments of the Russian population. Combined with the poor development of institutionalized channels for the articulation and aggregation of interests and grievances, the limited opportunities and hardships experienced by many Russians may yet produce the social explosion feared since the beginning of the reform period.

Such an outcome would seriously undermine the considerable political progress that has occurred in Russia since 1991. Analysis of the survey data presented elsewhere indicates that the mass public has sufficient knowledge about leaders and their policy orientations to play the role of the informed electorate envisaged in democratic theory. ⁵¹ Moreover, electoral participation is substantial. ⁵² At the elite level, not only have elites embraced liberal values, ⁵³ but they also appear to be adapting behaviorally, albeit gradually, to democracy. They quickly embraced electoral competition and now appear to be accepting the norms so essential for democratic stability: accountability, bargaining, and compromise. The selection of Yevgeny Primakov as prime minister in the aftermath of the 1998 ruble devaluation bespeaks both a new elite concern with mass discontent and an understanding of the importance of achieving a modus vivendi with the parliamentary opposition. Yet, despite these grounds for optimism, the continued resistance at the mass level to both economic and political liberalism and the limited support [End Page 354] for the present order evidenced in the survey data indicate that Russian democracy is not yet consolidated. ⁵⁴ The gap between the limited support among mass publics for Russia's democratic regime and the elite's democratic consensus harks back to Gramsci's contention that ideologies and the orders they support are ultimately based upon material interests. ⁵⁵

Whatever the eventual outcomes of the East European and post-Soviet transitions, our results clearly suggest a need to refocus empirical democratic theory to include not only elite preferences but also structural and mass-attitudinal factors that exercise real constraints on the politically possible. The literature on democratic transitions has contributed greatly to the conceptualization of political process ⁵⁶ but has tended to assume a specific context, which is that of a relatively well-developed market economy with all the related institutions and behavioral norms. Only when theories of democratic change are amended to take into account the role of structural factors, particularly those related to the structure and organization of the economy, will they provide satisfactory blueprints for crafting democracy that are applicable to market and nonmarket societies alike.

The theoretical reconnection of the market and democracy and the related reincorporation of mass interests into the study of democratic change also have implications for the growing body of literature on the relationship between economic reform and democratization. ⁵⁷ Our analysis suggests that it is not the level of economic development and the total amount of wealth generated by a society's economy that are the important determinants of mass support for democracy, ⁵⁸ but rather the availability of economic opportunities to specific socioeconomic [End Page 355] groups and individuals. If the opportunities for groups and individuals to enter or to compete in the market in democratizing societies are highly restricted, they are unlikely to become enthusiastic supporters of democracy.

Our analysis demonstrates that the level and intensity of support for liberal democracy is a question to be explored: mass support for democracy, that is, should never be assumed. It can be predicted in part by the market situation facing various social groups. When confronted with structural impediments to their entrance into the market or if they are unable to compete successfully in it, social groups and individuals are likely to prefer alternative, illiberal ideologies, as well as illiberal parties and candidates. Going beyond the scope of our findings, we would postulate that, given the presence of effective electoral institutions, limited mass support for liberalism is quite capable of undermining elite adherence to democracy. In this regard, our finding of a mild weakening of Russian elite support for liberal democracy between 1993 and 1995 appears to contradict recent work asserting that elites shape the beliefs and perceptions of masses. ⁵⁹ Rather, at least in certain historical contexts, elites may follow the mass public. ⁶⁰

Finally, we suggest that the relations between democratizers and the mass public should be brought more fully into the analysis of democratic development. While the conversion of postcommunist elites to the market and democracy was necessary for the abandonment of communism, it was far from a sufficient condition for the consolidation of representative democracy. Indeed, it may in itself pose problems in the short run. Where linkage institutions are weak and social interests are poorly articulated, the liberalism of postcommunist elites has often translated into a democratic-authoritarian style of leadership and policy-making. ⁶¹ To the extent that elites conceive of themselves as possessing a superior or advanced ideology, they may be tempted to impose reform without consultation. The proclivity toward authoritarian leadership style is certainly present in postcommunist societies. Its continuation is facilitated greatly by the construction of a new set of transformative goals that provides leaders with a moral imperative needed to justify both their policies and their refusal to yield or compromise [End Page 356] with opponents and unhappy groups of citizens, whose criticism or protest is dismissed as reactionary. ⁶²

To create popular support for democratic regimes and thereby facilitate consolidation, postcommunist elites should enter into agreements, even if only implicit or symbolic, with the mass public, much as they entered into negotiations, round tables, and pacts with one another in the period of transition. As Larry Diamond has noted, elites may channel mass preferences, shape mass perceptions, and build mass support for representative democracy. ⁶³ The Russian case illustrates that elites may also fail to speak the language of the people and to connect with social groups, as they concentrate instead on maximizing their economic gain and competing in the related intraelite struggle for the spoils of office. Their failure to expand the economic opportunity of citizens or to engage the people in the democratic undertaking appears to be adversely affecting the long-term prospects for Russian democracy.

Appendix

The 1992-93 surveys were designed by William Zimmerman and conducted under the supervision of Yelena Bashkirova and her public opinion research firm, Russian Public Opinion and Market Research (ROMIR). The mass sample, comprising 1,243 individuals from European Russia, was selected by means of a five-stage stratified random sampling design. After a three-stage narrowing process, households and apartments on address lists served as the primary sampling units; persons were then randomly selected from the identified households. The elite sample consisted of two hundred individuals whose primary expertise and position involved the analysis and/or conduct of foreign policy. These elites, interviewed in December 1992 and January 1993, were drawn equally from five "strategic" elite groupings: editors and journalists, economic managers, government officials (both elected and appointed), academics, and military officers. Individuals were selected randomly from lists of the approximate universe of actors in each of these areas. Those interviewed were genuinely elites. They were editors of major dailies, foreign policy observers for major television channels, [End Page 357] persons on the foreign affairs-oriented committees of the erstwhile Supreme Soviet.

Many of the measures from the 1993 elite/mass survey were included in a 1995-96 panel survey. The panel was interviewed before and after the 1995 Duma elections and after the second round of the presidential election in July 1996. As the timing suggests, these surveys were designed primarily to assess the voting behavior of Russian citizens. The sample was drawn from the entirety of Russia absent Kaliningrad, Chechnya, and extreme northern Siberia. As in the 1993 mass survey, respondents were chosen through a multistage selection process and interviews were conducted face-to-face. In the first round 2,841 respondents participated. These mass surveys were conducted by the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Science and were designed by Timothy Colton, William Zimmerman, Polina Kozyreva, and Mikhail Kosolopov.

At approximately the same time, November 1995, the original 1993 elite/mass survey instrument, slightly modified, was administered to another elite sample. One hundred eighty persons were interviewed across six domains. Rather than interview forty respondents from state and private firms with foreign trade ties, as was done in 1992-93, thirty persons each from the state sector and the private sector were interviewed, along with thirty persons apiece from the military, the government, the academy, and the media.

Judith S. Kullberg is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the Ohio State University and Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan. Her current research is on problems of democratic development in Russia and Eastern Europe, including the determinants of mass and elite support for democratic institutions.

William Zimmerman is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for Political Studies at the University of Michigan. In addition to articles in many journals, his most recent books have been, as editor, Beyond the Soviet Threat: Rethinking American Security Policy in a New Era (1992) and, as coeditor, Behavior, Culture, and Conflict in World Politics (1994). He is currently completing a book-length manuscript assessing the links between democracy, markets, and elite and mass foreign policy attitudes in the Russian Federation.

Notes

* Earlier drafts of this paper were presented at the 1995 meeting of the American Political Science Association and the 1996 meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies. The authors thank, without implicating, Brian Silver, Erik Hoffmann, John Higley, and the three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. They also express their gratitude to Elena Bashkirova and her staff at ROMIR and Polina Kozyreva and her colleagues at the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences for their professional administration of the surveys on which this paper relies. Zimmerman wishes to express his gratitude to the National Council for Eurasian and East European Research for funding the 1993 surveys and to the Carnegie Corporation and MacArthur Foundation for a grant that made possible the 1995-96 panel study (Timothy Colton, principal investigator).

1. Stephen Whitefield and Geoffrey Evans, "The Russian Election of 1993: Public Opinion and the Transition Experience," Post-Soviet Affairs 10 (January-March 1994); and Adam Przeworski, "Economic Reform in Poland and the East European Experience," in Carlos Bresser-Pereira and Adam Przeworski, eds., Economic Reforms in New Democracies: A Social Democratic Approach (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).

2. Jerry F. Hough, "The Russian Election of 1993: Public Attitudes toward Economic Reform and Democratization," Post-Soviet Affairs 10 (January-March 1994).

3. See Pawel Spiewak, "Kto rzadzi w Polsce?" in Moroslawa Grabowska and Antoi Sulek, eds., Polska 1989-92: fragmenty pejzazu (Warsaw: ifis pan, 1993); Jerzy Szacki, Liberalism after Communism (Budapest: Central European University Press, 1995); Adam Michnik et al., "The Return of the Left in Central Europe?" Constellations 2 (April 1995); and Václav Havel (address to a joint session of the Czech Parliament, Prague, December 9, 1997.

4. Any interpretation of the 1996 presidential election must acknowledge the effect of the electoral rules and the uneven playing field on the outcome. Electoral support for Yeltsin was intensified by the use of a two-round system that forced voters to choose in a second round between the two candidates with the strongest showing in the first round. Thus, in the first round in June, Yeltsin received only 35.3 percent of the vote versus 32 percent for the leader of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Gennadi Ziuganov, but received 53.8 percent of the vote to Ziuganov's 40.3 percent in the second round in July. Yeltsin's success in drawing votes from those who had cast ballots for other candidates in the first round was facilitated by a pro-Yeltsin, anticommunist media blitz in late June and early July.

5. Timothy J. Colton, "Economics and Voting in Russia," Post-Soviet Affairs 12 (October-December 1996).

6. Charles Lindblom, Politics and Markets: The World's Political-Economic Systems (New York: Basic Books, 1977).

7. Claus Offe, Emanuel Richter, and Pierre Adler, "Capitalism by Democratic Design? Democratic Theory Facing the Triple Transition in East Central Europe," Social Research 58, no. 4 (1991); and Joan M. Nelson, ed., Intricate Links: Democratization and Market Reforms in Latin America and Eastern Europe (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 1994).

8. Adam Przeworski, Democracy and the Market (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991); Joan Nelson, "Linkages between Politics and Economics," in Larry Diamond and Marc F. Plattner, eds., Economic Reform and Democracy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995); and Charles Gati, "If Not Democracy, What? Leaders, Laggards and Losers in the Postcommunist World," in Michael Mandelbaum, ed., Postcommunism: Four Perspectives (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1996).

9. Przeworski (fn. 8), 177-78.

10. James L. Gibson and Raymond M. Duch, "Emerging Democratic Values in Soviet Political Culture," in Arthur H. Miller, William M. Reisinger, and Vicki L. Hesli, eds., Public Opinion and Regime Change: The New Politics of Post-Soviet Societies (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1993).

11. Stephan Haggard and Steven B. Webb, "What Do We Know about the Political Economy of Reform," World Bank Observer 8 (1993); Susan C. Stokes, "Public Opinion and Market Reforms: The Limits of Economic Voting," Comparative Political Studies 29 (October 1996).

12. Peter McDonough, "Identities, Ideologies, and Interests: Democratization and the Culture of Mass Politics in Spain and Eastern Europe," Journal of Politics 57 (August 1995); Przeworski (fn. 2 ).

13. Douglass C. North, Structure and Change in Economic History (New York: W. W. Norton, 1981), 191.

14. Our concept of economic position is inspired by Weber, who saw an individual's "chance in the market" or "market situation" as the "decisive moment" shaping his or her "fate." Weber argued that the key determinant of the market situation of individuals or groups is possession of property, because property provides power in the market. The market situation of individuals and groups lacking property depends upon the value of their labor and how much control they are able to exercise over the disposition of the products of their labor. See Max Weber, Economy and Society (1914; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968), 927-28.

15. For various perspectives on the contribution of specific social strata or classes to the development of representative democracy, see Seymour Martin Lipset, "Some Social Requisites of Democracy," American Political Science Review 53 (March 1959); Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba, The Civic Culture (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963); Barrington Moore, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (Boston: Beacon Press, 1966); Samuel Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968). On the role of the working class in democratic development, see Dietrich Rueschemeyer, Evelyne Huber Stephens, and John D. Stephens, Capitalist Development and Democracy (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992); and Charles Tilly, Popular Contention in Great Britain, 1758-1834 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995).

16. Robert Dahl, Pluralist Democracy in the United States (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1967).

17. Judith N. Shklar, Political Theory and Ideology (New York: Macmillan, 1966); and Giovanni Sartori, "Politics, Ideology, and Belief Systems," American Political Science Review 63 (June 1969).

18. North (fn. 13), 48-54; Antonio Gramsci, Prison Notebooks (New York: International Publishers, 1971); Karl Marx, The German Ideology (New York: International Publishers, 1986).

19. Disadvantaged and aggrieved individuals may also use an ideology's tenets of justice to stimulate and justify collective action to correct perceived inequity. See David Apter, ed., Ideology and Discontent (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1964), chap. 1; and Sidney Tarrow, Power in Movement (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 22-23.

20. This is so, particularly insofar as the regime's ideology justifies authority relations and sustains its legitimacy. For a theoretical examination of the relationship between regime and societal patterns of authority and the importance of congruence between them, see Harry Eckstein, Regarding Politics: Essays on Political Theory, Stability and Change (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992); and idem, "Congruence Theory Explained," in Harry Eckstein et al., eds., Can Democracy Take Root in Post-Soviet Russia? (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 1998).

21. Václav Havel et al., The Power of the Powerless (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1985). The validity of Havel's incisive and eloquent examination of the causes and consequences of socialist dualism is confirmed by the thousands of autobiographical and firsthand accounts of life under communism, which almost invariably contain some discussion of the ways in which everyday life, experience, and perception were affected by the discordance between socialist ideology and socialist reality.

22. See G. V. Osipov, V. K. Levashov, and V. V. Lokosov, Rossiia u kriticheskoi cherty: vozrozhdenie ili katastrofa (Moscow: Respublika, 1997); Linda Racioppi and Katherine O'Sullivan See, "Organizing Women before and after the Fall," Signs 20 (Summer 1995); Katherine Verdery, What Was Socialism and What Comes Next? (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), chap. 3; and Ulla Grapard, "Theoretical Issues of Gender in the Transition from Socialist Regimes," Journal of Economic Issues 31 (September 1997).

23. Institut sotsial'no-politicheskikh issledovannii Rossiiskoi Akademii Nauk, Reformirovanie Rossii: Mify i real'nost (Moscow: Akademia, 1994), 89-208; Stefan Hedlund and Niclas Sundstrom, "The Russian Economy after Systemic Change," Europe Asia-Studies 48 (September 1996).

24. See Joel S. Hellman, "Winners Take All: The Politics of Partial Reform in Postcommunist Transitions," World Politics 50 (January 1998).

25. In 1986 the average wage of the top decile of income earners was 2.5 times greater than that of the bottom decile; by 1996 the average income of the top decile was twenty times greater than that of the bottom decile. Henryk Flakierski, Income Inequalities in the Former Soviet Union and Its Republics (Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1993), 16-17; and Nikolai Shmelyov, Literaturnaia gazeta (December 4, 1996), 3.

26. Larisa Piasheva, "Proigrannyi shans: zametki rynochnogo romantika," Znamia 9 (1994); Olga Kryshtanovskaia and Stephen White, "From Soviet Nomenklatura to Russian Elite," Europe-Asia Studies 48 (July 1996); Joseph R. Blasi, Maya Kroumova, and Douglas Kruse, Kremlin Capitalism (Ithaca, N.Y.: ilr/Cornell University Press, 1997); Stephen Solnick, Stealing the State: Control and Collapse in Soviet Institutions (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998).

27. The Economist Intelligence Unit (January 27, 1997).

28. For explanations of the weaknesses of nonstate organizations, see Stephen Crowley, "Barriers to Collective Action: Steelworkers and Mutual Dependence in the Former Soviet Union," World Politics 46 (July 1994); and Stephen Fish, Democracy from Scratch: Opposition and Regime in the New Russian Revolution (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994).

29. Jadwiga Staniszkis, "'Political Capitalism' in Poland," East European Politics and Societies 5 (Winter 1991); and idem, The Dynamics of the Breakthrough in Eastern Europe: The Polish Experience (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 164.

30. Lindblom (fn. 6).

31. Needless to say, each cell encompasses considerable regime variation. For example, the Japanese and American political economies are quite different, but we would classify both as liberal or market democracies. Similarly, Pinochet's Chile was quite distinct from the "soft authoritarian" regimes of East Asia, but it falls along with them into the "market authoritarian" category. For an earlier use of this typology, see William Zimmerman, "Markets, Democracy and Russian Foreign Policy," Post-Soviet Affairs 10 (April-June 1994).

32. See J. Roland Pennock, Democratic Political Theory (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979).

33. For each statement in the 1993 elite and mass surveys and in the 1995 elite survey used to construct the economic and political system preference indicators, respondents were given four possible response categories from which to choose, ranging from "completely" and "somewhat" agree, to "somewhat" and "completely" disagree. Scores on both scales were calculated for each individual by summing response values on nonmissing items and then dividing the sum by the number of responses. The resulting scales range from -2 to 2, with positive values indicating adherence to liberalism and negative values indicating an illiberal orientation. In the 1995 mass survey, respondents had a fifth choice, between agree and disagree--"I hesitate to say" (koleblius'). Since examination of 1995 response patterns led to the conclusion that koleblius' is the expression of an ambivalent position and not identical to "don't know" or "refuse to answer," we coded it as 0, midway between -2 and 2. In order to make the 1993 and 1995 scales roughly comparable, we adjusted the response categories of the 1993 elite and mass survey and the 1995 elite survey, setting strongly agree and disagree positions at 2 and -2, but the somewhat disagree and somewhat agree responses at -.666 and .666. This coding scheme retained equal intervals between all responses, but weakened the somewhat agree and somewhat disagree responses to compensate for the absence of a true middle response position on these measures. This decision was made in recognition of the fact that without such middle option, truly ambivalent respondents were forced to take a position.

34. Placement of respondents into the ideological categories was done in the following manner: those persons whose aggregate scores on the political and economic liberalism scales were above 0 were coded as liberal democrats; those whose political liberalism score was below 0 and economic liberalism score was above 0 were treated as market authoritarians; those whose political liberalism score was above 0 and whose economic liberalism score was below 0 were labeled social democrats; those whose scores on both scales were below 0 were categorized as socialist authoritarians. We categorized respondents with 0 scores on either scale as "ambivalent," and those for whom scale scores could not be calculated because of nonresponses to the scale items as "unmobilized."

35. The gap between elite and mass orientations reported here is real. The obvious objection is that the elite sample is unrepresentative of the Moscow elite stratum as a whole and that the chasm seen between elite and mass respondents is thus more a reflection of the particular character of the sample than of any genuine distance between the elite and the mass public. There are two possible responses to this objection, one methodological, the other empirical. First, the sheer size of the elite sample allows us to make plausible inferences about the distribution of ideological orientation within the Moscow elite. Second, a study conducted in 1991 found a comparable proportion of market democrats among Moscow elites. See Judith Kullberg, "The Ideological Roots of Elite Political Conflict in Post-Soviet Russia," Europe-Asia Studies 46 (1994). A more recent study of elite values, with a sample drawn from the Russian government and the state Duma found a similar proportion of democrats among elites, but a larger proportion of social, rather than market, democrats. See Sharon Werning Rivera, "Communists as Democrats: Elite Political Culture in Post-Communist Russia" (Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 1998). The difference between Werning Rivera's findings and those presented here is a function of her sample--a larger proportion of her respondents were drawn from the communist-dominated Duma--and her use of different criteria to distinguish between market and social democrats.

36. On similar findings from Polish, Hungarian, Bulgarian, and Romanian surveys, see Mary E. McIntosh et al., "Publics Meet Market Democracy in Central and East Europe, 1991-1993," Slavic Review 53 (Summer 1994).

37. Thomas W. Graham, "The Politics of Failure: Strategic Nuclear Arms Control, Public Opinion, and Domestic Politics in the United States, 1945-1980" (Ph.D. diss., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1989), 57.

38. As in the Soviet period, the overwhelming majority of both elites and masses continue to favor state ownership of all heavy industry. See James Millar, ed., Politics, Work, and Daily Life in the USSR: A Survey of Former Soviet Citizens (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987).

39. Heightened exposure to elite-influenced mass communications has probably also reinforced the liberalism of the urban population.

40. As can be observed in the tables, different response categories were used for place of work in the two surveys. For example, in 1995 individuals working in judicial administration were placed with members of the armed forces and militia in the category of "security services and judicial administration," whereas such respondents in 1993 were categorized as being employed in the state administration. Differences in categorization almost certainly account for the discrepancy between the 1993 and 1995 economic liberalism means of workers in "state administration."

41. David J. O'Brien et al., Services and Quality of Life in Rural Villages in the Former Soviet Union (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1998), esp. 243-47.

42. Examples include Alex Inkeles, Becoming Modern: Individual Change in Six Developing Countries (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974), Ronald Inglehart, The Silent Revolution: Changing Values and Political Styles among Western Publics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977); and William Reisinger et al., "Political Values in Russia, Ukraine and Lithuania: Sources and Implications for Democracy," British Journal of Political Science 24 (April 1994).

43. Reports of personal possessions can be used to indicate both whether an individual has the basic resources necessary to engage in economic activity and how much capital he or she would be able to invest in economic activity. In the 1993 survey respondents were asked to report whether they had any of the following possessions: telephone, color television, vcr, dacha, personal automobile. The variable incorporated into the regression analysis is a simple count of these possessions. As a further indicator of perceived economic opportunity structure, we included responses to the following question: "Imagine that you had an idea to open a new enterprise, which, if successful, would strongly increase your income. Would you want to begin such a business?" Response options were a simple yes or no.

44. The measures of national and regional economic conditions were questions regarding the general condition of the Russian national economy (with response categories from "excellent" to "very bad" shape), change in the state of the economy over the last twelve months, and change in the state of the economy over the last twelve months in the area in which the respondent resided (possible responses to the latter two items ranged from "improved a lot" to "worsened a lot." The measure of sociotropic evaluation was constructed by summing responses across the three items. The measure of change in family finances was "How has your family's material situation changed over this past twelve months?"

45. Michael Lewis-Beck, Economics and Elections: The Major Western Democracies (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1990).

46. See fn. 33.

47. Tatiana Protassenko, "Dynamics of the Standard of Living in St. Petersburg during Five Years of Economic Reform," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 21, no. 3 (1997), 446.

48. Shevardnadze is describing his meetings with Mikhail Gorbachev in the early 1980s. Shevardnadze, The Future Belongs to Freedom (New York: Free Press, 1991), 26.

49. John Higley, Judith Kullberg, and Jan Pakulski, "The Persistence of Postcommunist Elites," Journal of Democracy 7 (April 1996).

50. Judith Kullberg, "The Origins of the Gorbachev Revolution: Industrialization, Social Structural Change and Soviet Elite Value Transformation" (Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1992).

51. See William Zimmerman, "Foreign Policy, Political System Preference, and the Russian Presidential Election of 1996" (Paper presented at the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, Boston, November 1996).

52. In the 1995 parliamentary elections 64.7 percent of eligible voters cast ballots. Turnout in the first and second rounds of the 1996 presidential election was 69.8 percent and 69.9 percent.

53. Scholars at the University of Iowa have also documented considerable Russian elite support for democratic principles and institutions. See Arthur Miller, Vicki L. Hesli, and William Reisinger, "Conceptions of Democracy among Mass and Elite in Post-Soviet Societies," British Journal of Political Science 27 (April 1997).

54. For discussions of the concept and indicators of consolidation, see Scott Mainwaring, Guillermo O'Donnell, and J. Samuel Valenzuela, eds., Issues in Democratic Consolidation : The New South American Democracies in Comparative Perspective (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992); and Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996).

55. Gramsci (fn. 18), 105.

56. See Guillermo O'Donnell and Philippe C. Schmitter, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986); Giuseppe Di Palma, To Craft Democracy: An Essay on Democratic Transitions (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990); and Samuel P. Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991).

57. Stephan Haggard and Robert R. Kaufman, The Political Economy of Democratic Transitions (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995); and idem, "The Political Economy of Democratic Transitions," Comparative Politics 29 (April 1997); Larry Diamond, "Democracy and Economic Reform: Tensions, Compatibilities, and Strategies for Reconciliation," in Edward P. Lazear, ed., Economic Transition in Eastern Europe and Russia (Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 1995).

58. For a similar argument, see Kennth A. Bollen and Robert Jackman, "Income Inequality and Democratization Revisited: Comment on Muller," American Sociological Review 60 (December 1995).

59. John Zaller, The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).

60. In a recent article, Zaller also appears to be reconsidering the causal connections between elite and mass views. John Zaller, "Monica Lewinsky's Contribution to Political Science," PS 31, no. 2 (1998).

61. Przeworski (fn. 1).

62. A recent example of this tendency was Yeltsin's reaction to a miners' strike in Siberia. Commenting on the protest, Yeltsin accused the miners, who struck because of unpaid wages amounting to 172 million rubles ($27.8 million), of having not yet learned "to work in a market economy"; "Yeltsin Urged Investigation of Miners' Protests," Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (May 25, 1998).

63. Larry Diamond, "Three Paradoxes of Democracy," in Larry Diamond and Marc F. Plattner, eds., The Global Resurgence of Democracy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993).

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