Pavlov V.S., Maslanov D.V. Foreign view upon the Russian post-Soviet Parliament of the 1994-2007

Abstract: The subject of this research is the view of the foreign and particularly English-American scholars upon one of the imperative institutions of state authority of any country – the Parliament, or in this case, the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation.  The perception of Russian in public consciousness of Western countries has always been synonymous with controversy, bordering disapproval and condemnation, which generally reflects the overall relationship between Russian and the West. The foreign researchers of the Russian democratic transit demonstrate that the main vector of the analysis lies in the President of the Russian Federation, but we can also observe pool of the research dedicated to the legislative branch of authority. The authors examine several most illustrative articles on the development of the Russian Parliament of the first four convocations, and based on this, their view upon the genesis of this institution can be traced. The scientific novelty consists in the use of particular little-studied works on this topic on the language of origin. Analyzing these works, the authors conclude that the attitude towards the Parliament changes with time, which correlates with the relation of the Western society regarding the Russian reality. The descriptions differ from the very “democratic” parliament during the time of B. N. Yeltsin to the rubber-stamp parliament of the Presidential Administration during V. V. Putin’s presidency.

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