A recent poll shows that 8% of Russians see their country as democratic, with another 40% labeling Russia as “partly democratic”.
The article to which I am referring is written by Forbes, and seems to discuss these designations of citizen-identified democracy (or lack thereof) to what the author refers to as “Western style democracy”; that is, free press, freedom of speech, and religious freedoms. This was an interesting description to me as I suppose I assumed that a democracy is a democracy regardless of geographic location.
One specific part of the article of note is the fact that this 8% who see Russia as democratic is increased from 4% in 2010; this number may seem insignificant, but comparatively, it’s double. The article gives credit to Vladimir Putin, who “is still seen as the best man for the job” according to a provided poll. (I would like to criticize the article in this regard, as the article provides results for a poll but does not seem to state anywhere what was actually asked. My best guess is “job approval”.)
As far as I can tell, this significant change in public perception isn’t due to any empirically observed changes in the democratic system according to Freedom House, which states that Russia is not free. Unfortunately the 2011 country reports for Polity IV are not yet available; interestingly, however, the popular measure for democracy has described Russia as democratic since the fall of the Soviet Union.
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