Public power and private interests: The media, the law and democracy in Russia

Abstract

This examination of both the formal and informal relationship between media activity, legislative development, and the democratic process affords an insight into the central development of Russian politics, that of the formation, expression, and consolidation of public and private interests. In doing so it illustrates the fluidity of both power and control, the differentiated and partial use of law and democratic discourse. The aim is to encourage a fundamental rethinking of the presumed relationship between the rule of law, the market economy, and democratic politics.The explicit focus is on the role the media has played, since the 1999 parliamentary election campaign, in influencing public opinion, and on its relationship to formal institutions and informal mechanisms of powe. The article maintains that both the 'media war' that characterised the last Russian electoral cycle, and the policies pursued by the Putin administration, illustrate the general failure to accept the relationship between public authority and private rights promoted by the norms of the new constitutional framework. It is within this context, one that emphasises the contradictions between continuity and change in political and legal culture, that the article assesses the problems of attempting to legislatively' construct a democratic market economy.Perspectives on European Politics and Society, 4:2