Out of the Frying Pan, into the Fire? Post-Soviet Regime Changes in Comparative Perspective
| Published date | 01 March 2008 |
| Date | 01 March 2008 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0192512107085610 |
| Author | Vladimir Gel'Man |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
International Political Science Review (2008), Vol. 29, No. 2, 157–180
DOI: 10.1177/0192512107085610 © 2008 International Political Science Association
Sage Publications (Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, and Singapore)
Out of the Frying Pan, into the Fire?
Post-Soviet Regime Changes in
Comparative Perspective
Vladimir Gel’man
Abstract. Why do some countries become democracies, while others
move from one nondemocratic regime to another? Post-communist
transformations in the countries of the former Soviet Union could be
viewed as a “natural experiment” in regime change: the politics of post-
Soviet states demonstrate a great diversity. In this article, I present a partial
theory of post-Soviet regime change and attempt to explain the outcomes
of elite conflicts in post-Soviet states and their consequences for regime
change. The account of political transformations in Russia, Ukraine, and
Belarus will outline certain common features and peculiarities of regime
change in each case and provide several implications for comparative
studies of regime change.
Keywords: • Regime change • Post-communism • Elites
• Political conflict
Why do some countries become democracies, while others move from one non-
democratic regime to another? Considerable effort has been invested in the study
of democratization and its alternatives, and the proliferation of hybrid regimes
has led to the rejection of the paradigm of worldwide democratization (Carothers,
2002). New frameworks for the study of hybrid regimes, such as “competitive
authoritarianism” (Levitsky and Way, 2002), focus on alternative paths of regime
change in a theoretical and a comparative perspective. Specification within
the gray zone of hybrid regimes, which focuses on the concentration of power
(“dominant power politics”) and on the hyper-fragmentation of competition
(“feckless pluralism”) (Carothers, 2002), and in-depth analyses of the factors
influencing regime stability and trajector y of change, are very promising. But
many questions about the causes and consequences of the dynamics of regime
change remain both theoretically and empirically unanswered.
158 International Political Science Review 29(2)
In this respect, post-communist political transformations in the countries of
the former Soviet Union could be viewed as a natural experiment in regime change.
After the breakdown of the Soviet Union in 1991, the trajectories of post-Soviet
states’ political development differed considerably. The Baltic countries evolved
into fully-fledged democracies, while in some Central Asian states authoritarian
regimes developed; these countries are unlikely to experience further regime
change in the near future. Still other post-Soviet countries, most notably Russia
and Ukraine, experienced pendulum-like swings between democratic and non-
democratic courses of regime change (Hale, 2005; Way, 2005). But why have the
politics of post-Soviet states, formerly parts of the same country, demonstrated
such diversity in 15 years? Why have some of these political regimes become
unstable and how can we explain the ups and downs of regime change? The study
of these issues will help analyze the causes and consequences of regime change
in a broader comparative perspective. However, as yet, the explanatory power of
existing theories is insufficient. For example, the modernization argument has
failed to explain why Moldova and Ukraine, which are much poorer in terms of
GDP per capita than Belarus and Russia, have made more progress in developing
democratic politics than their affluent neighbors. Culturalist arguments generally
fail to explain the diversity of regime change despite the fact that various surveys
demonstrate many similarities in values and attitudes among post-Soviet citizens.
In addition, institutional theory, which blames the negative impact of initial
institutional choices on post-communist regimes (Fish, 2005), cannot adequately
explain the survival, or further evolution, of newly established institutions.
New approaches for solving this puzzle are required, and in this article I will first
build a theory that can assist in analyzing post-Soviet regime change. Then, I will
explain the outcomes of elite conflicts in post-Soviet states and their consequences
for regime change. An account of the political transformations in Russia, Ukraine,
and Belarus will outline certain common features and peculiarities of regime
change in each case and will provide a basis for discussing the implications for
the comparative study of regime change.
Regime Change: From Legacy to Choice
First and foremost, the very terms “political regime” and “regime change” need to
be defined. For the purposes of this discussion, “political regime” is understood as
a particular political game, consisting of two basic elements: (1) a set of actors, or
players, who possess available resources and pursue certain strategies for achieving
their goals and (2) a set of institutions, or the actual “rules of the game,” which
impose certain constraints on or provide certain incentives for the political actors’
actions. This formal definition is designed for the specific purpose of the study
of regime change (Gel’man et al., 2003: 19–32). It allows us to draw a distinction
between competitive and noncompetitive regimes: in noncompetitive regimes
only one dominant actor matters. The definition also allows us to replace the
ill-defined concept of regime consolidation with the more precise concept of
equilibrium. If political regimes have reached equilibrium (whether democratic
or not), actors have no incentives to change the status quo. In these terms, the
process of regime change might be described as a destabilization of the equilibrium
of a political regime, leading to the eventual replacement of one equilibrium
by another.
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