Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire: Trajectories of Regime Changes in Post-Soviet Russia

1. Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire: Trajectories of Regime Changes in Post-Soviet Russia Vladimir Gel’man (European University at St.Petersburg / University of Helsinki) Uppsala University, 6 September 2013

2. “We are in power – that’s democracy” (“Мы у власти – это и есть демократия”) (Anatoly Sobchak, August 1990) “Someone should be the boss in the country – that’s it” (“Кто-то должен быть главным в стране: вот и все”) (Boris Yeltsin, Zapiski prezidenta, Moscow, 1994, p.15)

3. Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire • Why Russian politics demonstrated a major “flight from freedom” in more than two decades after the Soviet collapse? • Russia’s political regime is widely attributed as the case of electoral authoritarianism; • What are the major causes of this developmental trajectory of Russia’s political regime? How did its life cycle – the emergence, development, and decay change over time? Which ways might it evolve in the future?

4. Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire Three schools of thought on Russian politics (and society): “pessimists” – impact of the historical and cultural “legacy of the past” (akin genetically transmitted decease); “optimists” – time and economic development matters (similarly to post-traumatic syndrome); “realists” – special interests played a major negative role (equivalent of “poisoning”)

5. Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire • How these explanations works in case of analysis of Russia’s post-Soviet political trajectory? • Socio-economic development: Russia is well above the global median level (GDP/per capita, human development indexes, etc.): even though Russia is rather non-egalitarian society, but not worse than Third World countries; • Cultural values, attitudes, and orientations: Russians are not the most democratic nation at the globe (high degree of intolerance, relatively low level of interpersonal trust, lack of belief in political institutions beyond elections) but not completely anti-democratic; • Lack of democratic traditions: even though some countries at the globe shared heavily non-democratic past, it not preclude their political evolution

6. Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire • And what about the role of agency? • None of politicians at the globe would like to lose power voluntary (Sobchak and Yeltsin are not unique); • But democracy is a system where parties lose power because of electoral defeats; • Thus, the logic of democracy distortion (e.g., “we are in power – that is, democracy”) or its complete denial is the very rational behavior after collapse of authoritarian regimes (the logic of “vicious circle”); • But it is not always the case – many countries at the globe actually became democracies (even recently)

7. Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire • Why democratization occurs (but not in Russia)? • (1) democracy as a by-product of power struggle – either among elites (as an alternative to zero-sum resolutions of conflicts) or between elites and masses; • (2) international influence through “linkages” and “leverages”; • (3) ideologically-driven democratization process (aka Soviet perestroika under Mikhail Gorbachev)

8. Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire • None of these conditions were met in post-Communist Russia: • (1) political conflicts amongst elites were resolved as zero-sum games (1991, 1993, 1999-2000); • (2) mass political participation was weak and inept after the Soviet collapse – until very recently; • (3) international influence on Russia was (and remained) rather weak; • (4) ideology not played a serious political role after the Soviet collapse; • If not democratization, then what?

9. Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire • Russia’s political trajectory after the Soviet collapse: • 1991-2000 – early stage of regime changes and institution building: • limited state capacity; • «state capture» by sectoral («oligarchs») and regional interest groups; • fragmentation of elites and heterogeneity of the «ruling coalition» • barriers for coherent, conscious and consistent institution building – partial equilibrium; • ad hoc compromises, full of «loopholes» and omissions (electoral system); • partial and temporary solution or postponing of key decision (presidential-parliamentary relations); • individual and arbitrary decisions and selective implementation of rules (center-regional relations)

10. Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire • After 2000 – «empire strikes back?» • consolidation of the Russian state, the rise of its coercive capacity, the decline of the previous sectoral and regional interest groups; • the decline of differentiation and the rise of integration of ruling elites; more homogeneous «ruling coalition» around the dominant actor; • lowering barriers for coherent, conscious and consistent institution building; • maximization of control of the ruling group over decision-making on federal and regional political arenas; • the rise of entry barriers on Russia’s political market, no access for real and/or potential challengers; • cooptation of subordinated actors and selective punishment of «dissenters»

11. Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire • As a result, present-day Russia exhibited the dominance of three major political institutions of an authoritarian regime: • (1) a near-monopoly of federal chief executive on key decision-making – at least, as a veto player (regime’s personalism); • (2) a taboo on open electoral contestation among political elites despite meaningful elections (electoral authoritarianism); • (3) de-facto hierarchical subordination of sub-national authorities vis-à-vis the higher levels of government(“power vertical”)

12. Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire • Whether or not major changes are possible? • A large part of the Russian elites and society-at-largedeeply dissatisfied with the current status quo, but have limited incentives for changes («Gorbachev’s curse»); • “Communist manifesto”: “proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains: they have a world to win” - Russian citizens have something to lose in the case of regime change, the chains were not so heavy binding, while winning after disequilibrium was not so obvious • an existing equilibrium contributed to the very fact that the preservation of the status quo at any cost (regime’s «stability») became the goal as such for Russia’s rulers; • risks of unintended worsening of positions of elites after breaking the status quo overweight possible benefits of major changes for the ruling groups and for the country as a whole

13. Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire • 2011-12 - a new “critical juncture” for the regime’s political trajectory of Russia? • inability to get 50% of votes for the “party of power” in December 2011 parliamentary elections, wave of mass protests – “stunning election” effect? • Political pillars of electoral authoritarianism in Russia – lies, fear, and economic prosperity - were questioned: • (1) Economic prosperity no longer secured support of the status quo regime from the “advanced” part of voters (i.e., young-educated-well-to-do-big-city-residents) but it was also insufficient for maintaining loyalty of “peripheral” voters (i.e., aged-unskilled-relatively-poor-small-town-residents): rising demand for a “good governance”

14. Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire (2) Fear, to some extent, has been overcome due to the demonstrative “bandwagon effect” of mass protests, because of the spread of the Internet and social media, and because of generation changes against the background of relatively low repressiveness of the regime; (3) Lies is no longer effective as regime’s manipulations in the 2000s– “one can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but cannot fool all of the people all of the time” (Lincoln); Ruling group’s reaction – inconsistent “tightening screws” (making unattractive/unavailable alternatives to the status-quo)

15. Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire • To what extent these trends in Russian politics are just partial and temporary effects, or, rather, symptoms of a systemic crisis? • Possible further trajectories of regime changes in Russia: • (1) the preservation of the status quo regime (and its further decay); • (2) the turn to an “iron fist”, or systematic “tightening of the screws” by the ruling group towards a more repressive regime (2012-13 regime’s counter-attacks); • (3) a step-by-step creeping (and quite probably, inconsistent) democratization. • The real practice of Russian politics could develop as a combination of these trajectories

16. Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire The slogan of protest rallies of the opposition – “Russia will be free!” might become a key item for the political agenda of Russian society. In fact, Russia will be free, but the question is when, how, and at what cost the country will take in its path to freedom. The good news for scholars – Russian politics most probably will not be a boring object of analysis; The bad news for scholars – democratization in Russia will become an increasingly difficult process over time

17. Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire • Comments are welcome (gelman@eu.spb.ru) • Thanks for your attention!