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 Regensburg, 9 May 2014

Trajectories of Russian Politics Russia’s political regime, : the path from the Soviet version of Communism to electoral authoritarianism What are the major features of such a regime trajectory in the case of Russia, what are its institutional foundations and political pillars? How did regime’s life cycle – the emergence, development, and further decay change over time? And which ways might it evolve in the foreseeable future?

Trajectories of Russian Politics The rise of “electoral authoritarianism” (Schedler, 2002) is a global phenomenon; These regimes are based upon meaningful elections, but the essence of these elections is an uneven level playing field (prohibitively high entry barriers, unequal access of competitors to resources, abuses of power of the state apparatus, and multiple instances of electoral fraud); Why “electoral” authoritarianism replaces “classical” forms (including Communist and other one-party regimes)? (1) elections as a tool of monitoring of elites and citizens by the ruling groups (risk-aversion strategy); (2) elections as a tool of domestic and international legitimacy of the status-quo regime;

Trajectories of Russian Politics Why in some countries electoral authoritarian regimes survived for a long while (Mexico under PRI, Egypt before the “Arab Spring”), while others are short-lived (victims of “color revolutions”)? Post-Soviet Russia as a “crucial case”, which might shade light on sources of strengths and/or weaknesses of electoral authoritarianism in a comparative perspective; Scholars tend to focus on causes of failures of electoral authoritarian regimes (international linkages/leverages, strength of the state/ruling party, role of the opposition, etc.) but paid less attention to their “success stories”

Trajectories of Russian Politics Russia (until the rise of the mass protests in ) - a “success story” of electoral authoritarian regime? Russia’s rulers invested tremendous efforts into building their political monopoly (hierarchical subordination of the state apparatus (“power vertical”) and the dominant party, UR); Regime averted challenges to the status quo through high entry barriers on political market, implementation of divide-and-conquer tactics, cooptation of loyal “fellow travelers” and coercion of “non-systemic” actors; Although the rise of protest activism in did somewhat shake the previous equilibrium, there is no grounds to consider the inevitability failure of electoral authoritarianism in Russia, at least, in the short run

Trajectories of Russian Politics Three schools of though in the study of Russian politics and society (similar to medical diagnostics): “pessimists” – path-dependent nature of post-Soviet politics because of the legacy of history and culture (like genetically transmitted deceases, no cure in the short term); “optimists” – a “normal country” argument time and economic development might help in the medium (like a post-traumatic syndrome); “realists” – special interests of political and economic actors played a major negative role (an equivalent of poisoning)

Trajectories of Russian Politics How these explanations work for analysis of post-Soviet Russia? Socio-economic development: Russia is above median level in many respects (GDP per capita, human development index), socio- economic inequality is lower than in most of the Third World countries; Culture – values, attitudes, and orientations: Russian citizens are far from being democratic (low tolerance toward minorities, low trust to institutions and interpersonal trust), but do not reject competitive elections and media freedom; Lack of democratic traditions; in many corners of the world the situation is not better but it is not an obstacle toward democracy as such…

Trajectories of Russian Politics And what about interests of political actors? There are almost no politicians, who would like to lose power voluntary; But “democracy is political regime where parties lose power by electoral means” (Przeworski, 1991); Thus, the most rational strategy of new power-holders after the collapse of authoritarianism is subversion, perversion, and undermining of electoral competition – the building of a new electoral authoritarian regime in a manner of vicious circle; However, the reality is different: many countries at the globe actually became democracies despite wested self-interests of political actors

Trajectories of Russian Politics Why democratization occur in various countries at the globe (but not in Russia)? (1) democratization as side effect of power struggle among elites (as an alternative to zero-sum game) and/or between elites and masses (democratic class struggle); (2) international influence of the West through “linkages” and “leverages”; (3) the impact of ideologically-driven perceptions of leaders of authoritarian regimes (for example, Gorbachev’s perestroika)

Trajectories of Russian Politics Russia met none of these conditions after the Soviet collapse: (1) elite conflicts resolved as zero-sum games (1991, 1993, ); (2) mass political participation (at least, before protests) was rather unimportant factor of politics; (3) international influence on Russia was and still rather weak; (4) ideology not matter much after the Soviet collapse (aka “Gorbachev’s curse”); If not democratization, then what?

Trajectories of Russian Politics Russia’s regime trajectory after the Soviet collapse: – early stage of authoritarian regime building: Limited coercive capacity of the state; economic transformation protracted recession; “state capture” by sectoral and regional interest groups; Elite fragmentation and heterogeneity of the “winning coalition”; Barriers toward institution building – partial equilibrium; Ad hoc compromises, omissions and loopholes (electoral system); Partial and temporary decisions and/or non-decisions (executive-legislative relations after 1993); Partial and arbitrary decisions and their selective implementation (federal- regional relations)

Trajectories of Russian Politics After 2000 – «empire strikes back?» Economic growth, consolidation of the Russian state and rebuilding of its coercive capacity, the decline of sectoral and regional interest groups; The decline of differentiation and the rise of integration of ruling elites = a more homogenous “winning coalition” led by the dominant actor; Lower barriers for authoritarian institution building; Maximization of ruling group’s control over nation-wide and sub- national decision-making; The rise of entry barriers on Russia’s political markets to prohibitively high levels; Cooptation of subordinated actors and selective punishment of dissenters

Trajectories of Russian Politics Three major “rules of the game” of Russian electoral authoritarian regime: (1) individual monopoly of de facto head of the state on key decision-making (regime’s personalism); (2) de facto taboo on open electoral competition among elites despite the fact that elections are meaningful and opposition often allowed to run (electoral nature of regime’s legitimacy); (3) de facto hierarchical subordination of sub-national authorities vis-à-vis higher governments (known as “power vertical”)

Trajectories of Russian Politics Major institutional sources, which provided the basis for the status quo regime: (1) superpresidentialism; (2) subnational authoritarianism; (3) dominant party Superpresidentialism - the zero-sum nature of presidential elections (Linz, 1990) dramatically increased the cost of the incumbent’s loss, which might affect the political as well as the physical survival of the rulers and their entourage: additional incentives to hold power at any cost Russia’s temptation to abolish presidential elections (1996) and risk of open elite conflict during “the war of the Yeltsin succession” (1999) – never again!

Trajectories of Russian Politics Lessons learned from the 1990s: (1) cooptation of local “political machines”, controlled by regional governors and city mayors, into a nation-wide Kremlin-driven “echelon” – centralization of sub-national authoritarianism; (2) reformatting of the party system into a highly controlled manipulative hierarchy under the dominance of UR; These institutional sources as such cannot make the status quo regime more attractive in the eyes of elites and the population at large, but they diminished the attractiveness and/or availability of alternatives to the status quo - a “resigned acceptance” effect (Rose et al., 2004)

Trajectories of Russian Politics “authoritarian equilibrium rests mainly on lies, fear, or economic prosperity” (Przeworski, 1991: 58): Economic growth of the 2000s contributed to a high level of popular support of Russia’s rulers (Rose et al., 2011; Treisman, 2011); But the nature of the regime’s popular support was specific rather than diffuse (Easton, 1975); Russian citizens endorsed regime as long as it provided them with material benefits but not because of mass beliefs in its legitimacy – risks of political disequilibrium due to the “dilemma of performance” (Huntington, 1991)

Trajectories of Russian Politics Fears of excessively high costs of political disequilibrium among various social groups (especially after the traumatic experience of turbulent reforms of the 1990s) contributed to the preservation of the status quo; Lies – the most visible element of Russia’s regime because of the monopolist control over major information channels, manipulative “virtual politics” (Wilson A., 2005), a wide range of propagandist techniques, etc.; Many voters evaluated the national elections in Russia as “fair” despite widespread practices of fraud and manipulations: “everything was fair… but 50% of the results were falsified” (Wilson K., 2012: 152); … but do it mean regime’s consolidation?

Trajectories of Russian Politics political supply side - Putin as a dominant actor was able to maintain a balance of sticks and carrots, which made to any actor no choice other than subordination (“imposed consensus” or “offer one can’t refuse”); political demand side - the increasing alienation of citizens from politics - when Russian citizens were faced with the regime, they preferred “exit” (Hirschman, 1970) to any instances of “voice”, thus contributing to the preservation of the status quo; All these features contributed to the rise of electoral authoritarianism but also played a major role in its subsequent decline;

Trajectories of Russian Politics a new “critical juncture” for the regime’s trajectory? inability to get 50% of votes for UR in December 2011, wave of mass protests – “stunning election” effect? Political pillars of electoral authoritarianism 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);

Trajectories of Russian Politics Fear, to some extent, has been overcome due to the demonstrative bandwagon effect of mass protests (Kuran, 1991) and because of the spread of the Internet and social media; Lies no longer effective as the “virtual politics” 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); To what extent the decline of electoral authoritarianism in Russia is just a partial and temporary effect, or, rather, is it faced with a systemic crisis? Spring 2014 – regime’s counter-attack; a risky game?

Trajectories of Russian Politics Possible regime’s further trajectories: (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; (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 or as a shift from one trajectory to another.

Trajectories of Russian Politics Thanks for your attention!