The peculiarity of Russian politics: authoritarianism, civic culture, and the issue of electoral falsification

In recent years much has been said both about Russia's status as a democracy, as well as the issue of falsification in Russian elections. While there is little reason to challenge the assertion that Russia's transition from dictatorship to democracy has been far from satisfactory, much more can be said about the nature of its elections. While the nature of Russian politics are such that virtually no national election is fair, I argue that it is not clear that elections in Russia do not represent, on the whole, the will of the Russian people. This thesis draws primarily on two approaches: the use of opinion poll results and the comparison of returns form national and local elections. Utilizing these two resources I argue that it is rational to conclude that the majority of Russians support and vote for Putin, Medvedev, and generally candidates of the party United Russia. Given this conclusion, I examine several hypotheses which attempt to explain why Russians support their leaders, paying particular attention to the popularity of Putin and the cultural aspect of authoritarianism