Elections are about what people want; government is what people get. In the Soviet era, there were elections without choice. The Communist Party told people who to vote for and election results were literally too good to be true. In the past decade Russians have voted in five free elections, and in the year 2000 Vladimir Putin won a much bigger and much less controversial election victory than did George W. Bush. Elections to the Duma, the chief house of Parliament, return more than half a dozen different parties and Duma members are more effective in obstructing executive initiatives than are MPs in the British House of Commons.

Yet something is missing in how Russia is ruled. From the prescriptive view of democratic theory, what is needed is more democracy. But from the point of view of Russians, what the country lacks is order. The order taken for granted in a democratic modern state cannot be taken for granted in Russia, because it is not a modern state. The legacy of Russia's past is that of despotism and totalitarianism. The Federation established by Boris Yeltsin has rejected that tradition and institutionalized free elections, but the means used have not established a Western system of government.

What is normal in the West is not normalno in Russian politics. The great challenge facing Vladimir Putin is not how to win re-election; it is how to bring order to Russia.