The World Political Forum in Yaroslavl will become a venue where experts and politicians could share their experience in building and developing democratic institutions, the director of Democracy Problems Research Foundation said.
The Forum will be held in Yaroslavl, 250 km northeast of Moscow, on September 9-10. It will have four sections: the State as an Instrument of Technological Modernization, Democracy Standards and Diversified Democracy Experience, New Challenges and the Concept of International Law; and Regional Systems of Global Security.
The Forum's section, Democracy Standards and Diversified Democracy Experience, will focus on Russia’s experience in building and developing democracy.
“Our experience – of modern Russia, Soviet and Tsarist – in building and developing democratic institutions – may be interesting and informative for other countries and regions. It is wrong to say that democratic institutions in Russia were formed recently, they existed before,” said Maxim Grigoriev, director of Democracy Problems Research Foundation.
The expert said even in the Soviet era both the mechanisms of the democratic decision-making and the civil society existed. “It’s another matter that this was in a rather perverted form, but the mechanisms themselves existed,” Grigoriev said.
“We have experience in building democratic institutions, we cannot refuse it, and our development will be based on it and our national specifics…I think that our experience will be interesting for other countries as well as the experience of other countries may be interesting for Russia,” the expert said.
Grigoriev said the effect of modernization, which Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said is inevitable, will become noticeable in the society if authorities take into account the people’s opinion in drafting important laws and reform packages.
Grigoriev said the Forum will bring the Russian and Western experts and officials closer together.
“This is a forum of mutual rapprochement between Russian and Western specialists in various spheres, officials and the expert community. It will give an opportunity to enrich the expert community and state power with Russian and Western ideas,” he said.
MOSCOW, August 27 (RIA Novosti)
