Speech and Democracy in Russia: Responses to Political Texts in Three Russian Cities

Theories ascribing democracy to inclusive contestation imply that the speech of authoritarian rulers will differ from the speech of electoral politicians. Authoritarian rulers will use an official language that insulates them from populations under their control. This official language insults subject populations by implying that the vernacular in which they formulate their thoughts is inadequate for the discussion of political ideas. Electoral politicians, praising the competence of citizens to decide political questions, take care to frame their ideas in ordinary language, as otherwise the politicians would contradict their message that bearers of ordinary language are politically competent. If rulers implicitly insult and politicians flatter, citizens should respond with disaffiliation to rulers' language and affiliation to the language of politicians, at least of those politicians whom the citizens favour. This hypothesis is tested using an experimental paradigm in three Russian cities at the end of 1993. The prediction that Russians will affiliate to the texts of some electoral politicians contrasts with the claim that Russians evaluate political ideas mainly by contemplating change in their standard of living, since Russia represents an unusual case in which authoritarian speech is associated with greater affluence, while electoral speech is associated with increasing impoverishment for most people.