Constraining Elites in Russia and Indonesia : Political Participation and Regime Survival

Dominant theories of democratisation do not explain why some democracies survive and others fail. Focusing on Indonesia's and Russia's experience of democracy after the authoritarian regimes of the 1990s, this is an essential study for scholars and graduate students of comparative politics and democratisation, with an emphasis on Russia and Southeast Asia.

This is a thought-provoking analysis on why democracy succeeds in some countries but not others, comparing the post-transition experiences of two cases of contemporary democratisation: Russia and Indonesia. Following authoritarian regimes, democracy eroded in Russia but flourished in Indonesia - so confounding dominant theories of democratisation that predicted the opposite outcomes based on their levels of socioeconomic development and histories of statehood. Identifying key behaviours and patterns of political participation as a factor, Lussier interweaves ethnographic interview and quantitative public opinion data to expand our understanding on how mass political participation contributes to a democracy's survival. The integration of both micro- and macro-level data in a single study is one of this project's most significant contributions, and will enhance its appeal to both researchers and instructors.