MASS OPPOSITION TO THE SOVIET PUTSCH OF AUGUST 1991 - COLLECTIVE ACTION, RATIONAL CHOICE, AND DEMOCRATIC VALUES IN THE FORMER SOVIET-UNION

The attempted coup in August 1991 provides an acid test of whether a d emocratic political culture is emerging in the former Soviet Union. Th is paper considers the hypothesis that active resistance to the coup w as partly a function of attachments to democracy. Relying heavily on e arlier models of collective action, and based on a 1992 survey of mass opinion in all the republics, this hypothesis is tested within a broa der theory of rational choice and expectancy theory. Generally, it see ms that reactions to the coup were not based on strictly rational calc ulations and that basic commitments to the collective good of democrac y motivated resistance. My general conclusion is that a mass culture h as emerged in Russia that nurtures democracy. The 1991 coup demonstrat es that for many people in the former Soviet states there is little al ternative to democratic politics.