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Brief outline1. Institutional peculiarities of new democracies: as it is widely observed third wave ofdemocratization produced regimes, which have formally applied institutions of democracyand market economy, but this institutions work differently, than in Western social context.Many authors refer to the peculiarity of Western experience, where formal politicalinstitutions are uneasy mixture of three political traditions – democracy, liberalism andrepublicanism. Liberal constitutional principles, as Zakaria points out, were established therefar before democracy. Principles of limited government, which is core principle ofconstitutional arrangement of power, comes in contradiction with the principles of people’sdemocracies, which are more traditional for the post-Soviet space. First lecture will bedevoted to the principles of constitutionalism and to their origins in political thought andhistorical context of the West. To underline peculiarity of post-Soviet development, severalcomparisons will be emphasized: constitutionalism vs. democratic centralism; pluralism vs.state ideology; multiparty system vs. party-state system, et. Specific knowledge, such aspresidential, semi-presidential and parliamentary systems, majoritarian and proportional rule,et. will be touched in brief, provided that not all students will be aware of these theories.Specific focus will be made on constitution. A country’s constitution defines how a country’spolitical system is organized. The constitution, if abided by, builds a “skeleton” of politics bysetting the rules and laws of political action that in turn prescribe norms of conduct andstrategies of action for the participants in political processes. The participants in politicalprocesses, for their part, have their own expectations of the political system, know what isthe most valued and why a given political system is acceptable or unacceptable for them.The process of such interaction between the constitution and the citizens establishes thegenuine essence and significance of the constitution to society, reveals its strong and weakpoints and outlines the prospects of its further reform.Society, on its turn, is a space where people who have subjective views and opinionsinteract. While interacting with each other and the institutions of the political system, citizensdraw up their own versions of reality that are tinted by their own political views andideologies. Therefore such notions as democracy, law, constitution, etc. may carry differentmeanings and may have different values for different people. Thus, apart from beingheterogeneous, political society consists of large groups of people whose views are more orless similar and who evaluate political developments in a similar manner. Such a cohesivesystems of political views are referred to as political discourses.2. New democracies of the third wave of democratization have developed as a project,heavily influenced by institutional approach as a main principle of democratization policies.Theoretical thinking of new democracies also is based mostly on this (institutional)methodology of research. Both create problems and have limitations, which do not allowpractitioners and researchers to overcome gap between formal arrangement and realfunctioning of these institutions, which is far from expected standards. This extreme ofactivities, which is highly optimistic in its expectations, produced reaction, which goes to theopposite extreme. The opposite, conservative opinion and stream of research concentrateson political culture. It produces pessimistic perspectives for new democracies, saying, thatpolitical culture of given societies is not favorable for democracy, and that functioning of theinstitutions of democracy cannot be achieved there due to the civilization differences andpeculiarities of the correspondent societies.The middle way between these two extremes is exemplified by discursive approach todemocracy research, and correspondent flexible policies of democracy building. Thisapproach is aiming to study neither separately institutions, nor political culture, but takesthem in their interrelation. It studies discursive fields – institutions taken with their meaningfor society. Being phenomenological, rather than empirical, this approach has advantagesand disadvantages as well. In terms of measurement, labeling and comparison, it does notprovide criteria for democracy practitioners and democracy researchers, which could serveas a checking point for the success or failure in democracy building activities in a givencountry. Positive side of this is that from discursive perspective the process should not bemeasured in teleological manner, as a linear development with the known in advance output.Democracy is not what experts think it is. Democracy, according to the discursive approach,48