Activists in the Trap of Anti-Politics. An Exploration of the Powerlessness of Human Rights NGOs in Russia.
Résumé
In Russia, the "democratic transition" took place about ten years after the transitions in Latin America. Many comparative works have highlighted the role played by civil societies in the fall of these authoritarian regimes. However, ten years later, at the end of the 1990s, as disappointment with the democratization process grew, scholars insisted that the weakness of civil society in Russia was to blame for the failure of the transition. Russian sociologists highlight the differences between Russia and the Latin American countries. For what reasons did civil society fail to become a substitute for political opposition in Russia? This paper focuses on the human rights movement in Russia and its attitude toward politics. At the end of the 1980s, former dissidents decided to participate in the development of civil society through the creation of nongovernmental organizations. Well-known Russian organizations such as Memorial, the Moscow Helsinki Group, and Committees of Soldiers' Mothers contributed to the democratization of the country. However, their influence gradually waned. A sociological analysis of human rights activists' attitudes toward politics shows that the liberal democratic rules, supposing a separation of associative engagement and partisan activism, were reinforced by their aversion to partisan involvement inherited from the Soviet past. Most human rights activists preferred to dedicate themselves to their associations rather than to political action.
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