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February 27, 2005

Democracy On The March: One Step Backward, Two Steps Forward?

Economists and rational theorists believe that incentives structure people's actions. The question to ask of reports in this morning's Washington Post that Russia removes judges who give light sentences to some offenders--or even acquit them--is "What are the incentives at play?"

If you answered that the incentives structure a system such that Moscow's current centralizing, anti-liberal policies are given the maximum possible reinforcement, you're right.

Writes the Post:

Judges are targeted for forced retirement or dismissal if they apply the law to acquit even everyday defendants, issue sentences that are seen as too lenient by court chairmen or fail to follow prosecution requests to send suspects to overcrowded pretrial prisons where they can languish for months, according to judges, law professors and lawyers.

And what is behind this?

According to legal scholars, efforts to bring about change have stalled. The goal of breaking old habits and creating a system in which judges act as independent arbiters between the state and the individual, has not been met yet.

"We are still living with an ideology of the past, and we haven't created a new legal culture," said Sergei Vitsin, a professor of law and deputy chair of the Presidential Council on the Reform of the Justice System. "Judges do not see themselves as in any way separate from prosecutors and police. You can write democratic laws, but you have to follow them, too."

It is instructive to remember liberal Russian expert Anatol Lieven's comments in Foreign Policy in January: "If Putin weren't there, we'd soon miss him." The current regime in Moscow, Lieven argues, is as liberal as it gets.

However, freedom may take two steps forward, but both will be uncertain and tentative. Post informs us that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak may seek multiparty elections for president, a major reform--if accomplished. The trial balloon comes after Secretary Rice canceled a planned trip to Cairo because of the "lack of reform iniatives there." But the presidential election will be held only in September, and the details of the proposal could render it toothless.

Kyrgyzstani voters head to the polls today in their first real elections. At stake: Control of their country's parliament, Post explains. The vote is a two-round process, and if opponents to the president capture 26 of the country's 75 parliamentary seats, they'll be able to block a constitutional change that would allow their president to seek a now-unconstitutional third term. It would be the first time a Central Asian leader has left office through constitutional means, still a rare experience in the former Soviet Union. A complicating factor: Both Russia and the United States have bases in the country. And here's a great paragraph that Noam Chomsky will never accept as factual:

Officials bristle at international allegations that Akayev is rolling back the country's democratic gains.

"Representatives of the American government talk like old Soviet commissars. They tell us what to do and then pull out their wallets to threaten us," Osmonakun Ibraimov, the country's secretary of state and the second-highest official in the executive branch, said in an interview, referring to what he said were threats to reduce or withdraw U.S. aid over alleged abuses. "It's embarrassing."

"We have shortcomings, yes, but we are building our democracy," he said, adding that he believed that Akayev would step down.

I am elated to hear that we're using our military bases to effect reform in an undemocratic country. The Cold War really is over.

Posted by Paul Musgrave at February 27, 2005 08:09 AM

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