Russian Democracy

In the last stop of his European "Let's Be Friends Again" tour, President Bush of the United States has met with President Putin of Russia.

The meeting was intended to help ease tensions that have arisen between the countries in the last few years: the US has had concerns regarding Russia's commitment to democracy and freedom, and Russia has had concerns about the growing interest that the US is taking in former-Soviet Eastern Europe. According to the BBC ("Bush pushes Putin on democracy"), the issue that Bush most wanted to address in the meeting was state of and future of Russian democracy:

"Democracies have certain things in common - a rule of law and protection of minorities and a free press and a viable political opposition," Mr Bush said. "I was able to share my concerns about Russia's commitment in fulfilling these universal principles."

Putin apparently takes the position that Russian democracy does not necessarily have to accord with American conceptions, citing examples from Russia's history of being ruled by authoritarian governents:

A senior administration official told journalists travelling with Mr Bush that Mr Putin had recently told the US president that the Russian people had a history of strong tsars, and that they were accustomed to government playing a strong role in their lives.

The official said President Bush had rejected that notion.

In an example of tu quoque, Putin is reported to have concerns about the current state of American democracy,as the New York Times reports:

Russian officials had also said that Mr. Putin might challenge Mr. Bush on his own concerns about the actions of the United States around the world and the American election system.

Bush administration officials had suggested that such concerns include the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and the disputed 2000 election in which Mr. Bush became president by a single vote of the Supreme Court.

Whether or not each side's messages got through is not sure. After the meeting, Bush described it as "frank", however what he meant by that term is not entirely clear:

Mr. Bush did not say what he meant by "frank," but a senior administration official who briefed reporters on Mr. Bush's meeting with President Jacques Chirac of France this week said he did not want to describe that session as "frank" because "it usually means a euphemism for 'bad.'

Bush, after the event, took the time to note the rise of democracy in formerly authoritarian areas of the world, including a dubbing of the events of the recent Iraqi election as a revolution:

"In recent times," he said, "we have witnessed landmark events in the history of liberty, a Rose Revolution in Georgia, an Orange Revolution in Ukraine, and now, a Purple Revolution in Iraq."

Mr. Bush was recalling the 2003 revolution in Georgia in which the rose was the symbol of Mikhail Saakashvili's party, and last year's Orange Revolution in which orange was the symbolic color of Viktor A. Yushchenko's party.

The "Purple Revolution" has not been used by Iraqis to describe the recent events in their country; Mr. Bush appears to be the first person to have given voice to the term.

The term "Purple Revolution" is not a reference to Prince, but rather to the colour of the ink used on the Iraqi ballots. Apparently proud voters displayed purple ink-stained fingers outside polling booths.

In another NYTimes piece, Strobe Talbott (President of the Brookings Institution and former Dep Sec of State under Clinton) considers how not only the United States but also other major western powers, should deal with Putin's Russia. In "To Russia With Tough Love", Talbott considers the future of Russia's membership of the Group of 8:

Members of the group (Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan as well as Russia and the United States) are supposed to share a commitment to multiparty democracy, rule of law, freedom of the press, protection of human and civil rights, and respect for the sovereignty of their neighbors. Mr. Putin's concentration of power, his crackdown on the independent news media, his scorched-earth policy in Chechnya, and his bullying of Georgia and Ukraine have jeopardized Russia's membership in that club.

Rather than summarily evict Russia from the Group, as some members of Congress from both sides of the political divide have demanded, Talbott suggests a more moderate approach of subtly influencing Putin to address the Group's concerns through the threat of a public denouncement of Russia. This, Talbott wisely argues, would have a better chance of getting the desired result (Russian reform) than by the more final action of expulsion: you can't banish a man from the kingdom twice, and once he is in the wilderness, there are fewer ways to constrain him.