ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on political culture, and then addresses the three fundamental questions: Is there a European or Western political culture that transcends the variations among the national political cultures of European nations, does European political culture remain different in important ways from Russian political culture, and are European and Russian political cultures doomed to difference. It then argues against nave expectations that the end of the Cold War meant immediate cultural convergence between Russia and the West, but it also weighs in against essentialist arguments that Russia is sui generis. The concept of culture refers to the goals, values, and pictures of the world shared by particular group. The goals, values, and pictures of the world frequently associated with Russian political culture by many Western and Russian observers seem quite different from those of the West. The conventional wisdom includes many of the following attributes of Russian political culture: Personalized Authority, Statism, Sobornost, Order, Unity of Church and State.
