What Russia Can Learn For The Orange Revolution

The ongoing series of protests “for honest elections” has a lot of people, including a lot of Russians, talking about an “orange scenario” in which Putin is forced to leave office by a wave of people power and in which a new government with democratic legitimacy takes over. Without getting dragged into a discussion of how likely this scenario is, let’s just assume that the protest marches in Moscow continue to grow until they actually do force Putin out of power sometime in late 2012. What would this mean for Russia? How would things change? Would the rule of law improve? Would public services be provided more ably and more transparently? Would citizens see any appreciable changes in the way the Russian state actually functions?