A new turn to authoritarian rule in Russia?

Democratization

Volumn 13, Issue 1, 2006, Pages 58-77

  Gill, Graeme ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY   (Australia)

Author keywords

Authoritarian rule; Civil society; Democratization; Elites; Russia; Transition

Indexed keywords

AUTHORITARIANISM; CIVIL SOCIETY; DEMOCRATIC TRANSITION; DEMOCRATIZATION; ELITE POLITICS;

EURASIA; RUSSIAN FEDERATION;

EID: 30944463430     PISSN: 13510347     EISSN: 1743890X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/13510340500378258     Document Type: Article

References (71)

1. Some of the terms used to describe the nature of Russia under Putin include 'managed pluralism' and 'managed democracy'; respectively, Harley Balzer, 'Managed Pluralism: Vladimir Putin's Emerging Regime', Post-Soviet Affairs, Vol. 19, No. 3 (2003), pp. 189-227
2. and Timothy J. Colton and Michael McFaul, Popular Choice and Managed Democracy. The Russian Elections of 1999 and 2000 (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2003). The essence of both formulations is that some participation is allowed, but both the identity of those who can participate and the forms of participation are tightly restricted.
3. For perhaps the earliest example, see Michael McFaul, 'Russia under Putin: One Step Forward, Two Steps Backwards', Journal of Democracy, Vol. 11, No. 3 (2000), pp. 19-33.
4. For example, this is implicit in McFaul (note 2), p. 19.
5. Although there are differences over what the regime is to be called and the degree to which it is authoritarian.
6. For one such culturalist discussion, see Vladimir Brovkin, 'The Emperor's New Clothes: Continuities of Soviet Political Culture in Contemporary Russia', Problems of Post-Communism, Vol. 43, No. 2 (1996), pp. 21-8.
7. For example, see Alexander Lukin, Political Culture of Russian 'Democrats' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000)
8. and Nicolai N. Petro, The Rebirth of Russian Democracy. An Interpretation of Political Culture (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995).
9. For example, see Olga Kryshtanovskaia, 'Liudi Putina', Vedomosti, 30 June 2003, Olga Kryshtanovskaya and Stephen White, 'Putin's Militocracy', Post-Soviet Affairs, Vol. 19, No. 4 (2003), pp. 289-306,
10. Gail W. Lapidus, 'The War in Chechnya as a Paradigm of Russian State-Building Under Putin', Post-Soviet Affairs, Vol. 20, No. 1 (2004), p. 14
11. and Pavel K. Baev, 'The Evolution of Putin's Regime: Inner Circles and Outer Walls', Problems of Post-Communism, Vol. 51, No. 6 (2004), pp. 4-8.
12. For the first major exchange on this issue, see Sarah Meiklejohn Terry, 'Thinking About Post-communist Transitions: How Different Are They?', Slavic Review, Vol. 52, No. 2 (1993), pp. 333-7
13. Philippe C. Schmitter with Terry Lynn Karl, 'The Conceptual Travels of Transitologists and Consolidologists: How Far to the East Should They Attempt to Go?', Slavic Review, Vol. 53, No. 1 (1994), pp. 173-85;
14. Valerie Bunce, 'Should Transitologists Be Grounded?', Slavic Review, Vol. 43, No. 1 (1995), pp. 111-27;
15. Terry Lynn Karl and Philippe C. Schmitter, 'From an Iron Curtain to a Paper Curtain: Grounding Transitologists or Students of Postcommunism?', Slavic Review, Vol. 54, No. 4 (1995), pp. 965-78;
16. and Valerie Bunce, 'Paper Curtains and Paper Tigers', Slavic Review, Vol. 54, No. 4 (1995), pp. 979-87.
17. Also see Valerie Bunce, 'Can We Compare Democratization in the East Versus the South', Journal of Democracy, Vol. 6, No. 3 (1995), pp. 87-100;
18. Valerie Bunce, 'Regional Differences in Democratization: The East Versus the South', Post-Soviet Affairs, Vol. 14, No. 3 (1998), pp. 187-211;
19. and Valerie Bunce, Subversive Institutions: The Design and Destruction of Socialism and the State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).
20. For a sophisticated attempt to use a common framework, see Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation. Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996).
21. For a more expanded discussion, see Graeme Gill, Democracy and Post-Communism. Political change in the post-communist world (London: Routledge, 2002), esp. pp. 11-14, 197-201.
22. For an analysis that highlights the differences between the experiences of different countries, see Bunce, 'Regional Differences' (note 8) and her 'Rethinking Recent Democratization. Lessons from the Postcommunist Experience', World Politics, Vol. 55, No. 1 (2003), pp. 167-92. The propensity of many analysts to focus purely on a single country is one source of the exaggeration of differences between the regions.
23. On pacting see, Terry Lynn Karl, 'Dilemmas of Democratization in Latin America', Comparative Politics, Vol. 23, No. 1 (1990), pp. 1-21.
24. For a discussion of the Round Table talks in Eastern Europe, see Helga A. Welsh, 'Political Transition Processes in Central and Eastern Europe', Comparative Politics, Vol. 26, No. 4 (1994), pp. 383-8.
25. Even in Poland, where the head of state was the military chief, the military did not play an active part in the transition process. This generalization is less true of the former Yugoslavia.
26. On the role of international factors, see Laurence Whitehead (ed.), The International Dimensions of Democratization. Europe and the Americas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996).
27. Samuel P. Huntington, The Third Wave. Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (Norman, OK and London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991).
28. This tone was set by the path-breaking Guillermo O'Donnell, Philippe C. Schmitter and Laurence Whitehead, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Prospects for Democracy (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986).
29. Much of the earlier literature tended to downplay the importance of such contextual factors and exaggerate the freedom of action of elites. For a sophisticated discussion of such constraints, see Linz and Stepan (note 8), esp. Part 1.
30. For a critique of this, see Graeme Gill, The Dynamics of Democratization. Elites, Civil Society and the Transition Process (Basingstoke, Macmillan, 2000), pp. 71-9.
31. Michael McFaul, 'The Fourth Wave of Democracy and Dictatorship: Noncooperative Transitions in the Postcommunist World', World Politics, Vol. 54, No. 1 (2002), pp. 212-44;
32. also Michael McFaul, Russia's Unfinished Revolution. Political Change from Gorbachev to Putin (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001).
33. See Gill, Democracy and Post-Communism (note 9).
34. The absence of this checking mechanism is vital. While Gordon Hahn, in his stimulating study of what he calls 'revolution from above' in Russia, recognizes the importance of elite autonomy from civil society, he places primary emphasis on the domination of the process of regime change by 'many of the former regime's governing institutions and personnel', that is, on the nature of the elites that dominate the process. His argument is thus consistent with that focused on the siloviki noted above. But in all cases of democratic regime change including those accepted as paradigmatic cases, such as Spain, many aspects of the process are dominated by those who held official office under the old regime. Indeed, this is often crucial to the pacting process which Hahn emphasizes - the need to guarantee security to incumbent elites. More important than elite identity in ensuring a democratic outcome is control from below. For Hahn's argument, see Gordon M. Hahn, Russia's Revolution from Above. Reform, Transition, and Revolution in the Fall of the Soviet Communist Regime, 1985-2000 (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2002). The quotation is from p. 498.
35. On the importance of civil society control, see Gill, Dynamics (note 16).
36. To borrow the terminology of an influential study of early party development, M. Steven Fish, Democracy from Scratch. Opposition and Regime in the New Russian Revolution (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995).
37. On the 'informals', see Spravochnik po neformal'nym obshchestvennym organizatsiiam i presse (Moscow, SMOT Informatsionnoe agenstvo, 1989, Informatsionnyi biulleten' no. 16) and Neformal'naia Rossiia. O neformal'nykh politizirovannykh dvizheniiakh i gruppakh v RSFSR (opyt spravochnika) (Moscow: Molodaia gvardiia, 1990).
38. On this burgeoning wave of public discussion and debate, see Judith Devlin, The Rise of the Russian Democrats. The Causes and Consequences of the Elite Revolution (Aldershot: Edward Elgar, 1995).
39. For a contemporary study of the components of Democratic Russia, see Argumenty i fakty 46, 1990.
40. See Michael E. Urban, 'Boris El'tsin, Democratic Russia and the Campaign for the Russian Presidency', Soviet Studies, Vol. 44, No. 2 (1992), pp. 187-207.
41. For one discussion of the debate within Democratic Russia over the question of whether to become a party rather than remain a movement, see Geir Flikke, 'From External Success to Internal Collapse: The Case of Democratic Russia', Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 56, No. 8 (2004), pp. 1217-27.
42. On the presidency, see John P. Willerton, 'The Presidency: From Yeltsin to Putin', in Stephen White, Alex Pravda and Zvi Gitelman (eds), Developments in Russian Politics 5 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001), pp. 21-41;
43. Eugene Huskey, Presidential Power in Russia (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1999);
44. and Thomas M. Nichols, The Russian Presidency. Society and Politics in the Second Russian Republic (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1999).
45. This is a particularly important aspect of charisma as seen by its chief interpreter, Max Weber. See Max Weber, in Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich (eds), Economy and Society. An Outline of Interpretive Sociology (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1978), Vol. 1, pp. 241-55, 1111-58.
46. See Graeme Gill and Roger D. Markwick, Russia's Stillborn Democracy? From Gorbachev to Yeltsin (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), ch. 4;
47. and Eugene Huskey, 'The State-Legal Administration and the Politics of Redundancy', Post-Soviet Affairs, Vol. 11, No. 2 (1995), pp. 115-43.
48. See the comments by Justice Minister Nikolai Federov, Izvestiia, 29 January 1992.
49. On 'the family' and its influence, see Aleksei Mukhin, Korruptsia i gruppy vlianiie. Kniga 1 (Moscow, SPIK-Tsentr, 1999), pp. 20-37;
50. A. A. Mukhin and P. A. Kozlov, Semeinye tainy ili neofitsial'nyi lobbizm v Rossii (Moscow, Tsentr politicheskoi informatsii, 2003);
51. and V. A. Lisichkin and L. A. Shelepin, Rossiia pod vlast'iu plutokratii (Moscow: Algoritm, 2003).
52. For Korzhakov's account of his role, see Aleksandr Korzhakov, Boris El'tsin: Ot rassveta do zakata (Moscow; Interbuk, 1997).
53. For example, Paul Klebnikov, Godfather of the Kremlin. Boris Berezovsky and the Looting of Russia (New York; Harcourt Inc., 2000), pp. 118-19.
54. Such access was also used by people and groups who gained privileges and favours from the regime, such as the 'red directors'.
55. A subsequent report claimed that the turn-out was artificially inflated (to legitimize the adoption of the constitution) and large numbers of votes were misallocated between the parties: Izvestiia, 4 May 1994.
56. For Yeltsin's comments on this, which imply that it was a mistake not to have done so, see Boris Yeltsin, The View from the Kremlin (London: Harper Collins, 1994), pp. 126, 127.
57. Unlike the referendum of April 1993 whose questions did not ask whether the populace preferred a presidential or a parliamentary system.
58. For an inside account, see Iu. M. Baturin et al., Epokha El'tsina (Moscow: Vagrius, 2001), Parts II and III.
59. The mayors of Moscow and Leningrad/St Petersburg, Yurii Luzhkov and Anatoly Sobchak, used their offices to construct party organizations.
60. Scott Mainwaring and Timothy R. Scully (eds), Building Democratic Institutions. Party Systems in Latin America (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1995), pp. 32-3.
61. For an early application of this notion to Russia, see Paul Kubicek, 'Delegative Democracy in Russia and Ukraine', Communist and Post-Communist Studies, Vol. 27, No. 4 (1994), pp. 423-41.
62. For the transcript of one such episode, see V. Putin: Razgovor s rossiei, Stenogramma priamogo tele- i radioefira ("Priamaia liniia s Prezidentom Rossii") 18 dekabria 2003 goda (Moscow: Olma-Press, 2003).
63. For details, see John P. Willerton, 'Uncertainties of the Putin Hegemonic Presidency', in Geir Fikke (ed.), The Uncertainties of Putin's Democracy (Oslo: Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, 2004), pp. 25-32.
64. On this party, see Nikolai Petrov, 'The 2003 Duma Elections and the Unified Russia Phenomenon', Fikke (note 41), pp. 93-107.
65. 'Russian Federation Elections to the State Duma, 7 December 2003', OSCE/ ODIHR Election Observation Mission Report, Warsaw, 27 January 2004, pp. 15-17.
66. On this, see Peter Rutland, 'Putin and the Oligarchs', in Dale Herspring (ed.), Putin's Russia. Past Imperfect, Future Uncertain (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), p. 148.
67. See the discussion in Matthew Hyde, 'Putin's Federal Reforms and Their Implications for Presidential Power in Russia', Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 53, No. 5 (2001), pp. 719-43;
68. and Nikolai Petrov and Darrell Slider, 'Putin and the Regions', in Herspring (note 44), pp. 203-24.
69. For example, former Primorskii krai governor Yevgeny Nazdratenko became head of the State Fisheries Committee while former St Petersburg governor Vladimir Yakovlev became a deputy prime minister.
70. They were given a symbolic advisory role through the establishment of the Presidential State Council.
71. Although this does not mean that it has everything its own way; witness the back-down over harsh proposed restrictions on demonstrations in April 2004.