Research in Politics & International Relations

Managed Democracy

Investigator: Prof. Stephen White
Funded by: The Leverhulme Foundation (Grant)
Date: October 2008 - October 2011

Stephen White has been awarded a Major Research Fellowship by the Leverhulme Foundation, for three years from October 2008, which is intended to allow the appointment of a replacement lecturer in order to free him to undertake a large-scale research project on ‘Managed Democracy’.

As is widely recognized, the end of communist rule has not simply seen a ‘transition to democracy’ but in much of the region to a different and distinctive type of regime that has been called ‘managed democracy’. Elections take place, but disproportionately advantage the incumbents; political parties and other countervailing institutions are weak; and power is disproportionately concentrated in a superpresidency. The Fellowship is intended to enable Professor White to undertake an extended analysis of this novel type of regime with particular reference to Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, using qualitative as well as quantitative evidence and emphasizing issues of broader comparative significance such as falling turnout, political disengagement and the ‘quality of democracy’.

The total value of the award (FEC) is £682,919.