Russia 2025

Scenarios for the Russian Future

M. Lipman, N. Petrov, M. Lipman, N. Petrov

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781137336903
• eBook ISBN: 9781137336910
• Topic: Politica e relazioni internazionali
• Subtopic: Politica economica

Russia 2025 offers a compelling insight into Russia's future by exploring thematic scenarios ranging from politics to demographics. The widening rift between a modernizing, post-Communist society and a paternalistic government will ultimately shape developments in the coming years and will impact on state-society and Center-periphery relations.

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Forty Years in the Desert: The Political Cycles of Post-Soviet Transition

Kirill Rogov

What matters? Public demand and political supply in hybrid regimes

Over the past ten years, the phenomenon of hybrid regimes (electoral authoritarianisms) has become a central problem in comparative political science. The progressivist image of ‘Third Wave Democracy’ has been replaced by an understanding that, in many of the countries that underwent liberalization at the end of the 20th century, democratic consolidation has been unsuccessful and transitional, hybrid regimes are demonstrating long-term stability. It would not be a stretch to claim that the Russian case, in particular, imparts a particular sense of scale and drama to the problem.

While some authors have sought structural explanations for the failure of democratic consolidation (cultural patterns and traditions, levels of socio-economic development, etc.), others have preferred a more pragmatic, institutional approach, which focuses on the political actors and institutions of the newly formed hybrid regimes.¹

Proponents of the last instrumentalist approach assume that the stability of such regimes (electoral or competitive authoritarianisms) depends on their ability to create effective institutions, consolidate the elites, marginalize the opposition, and resist external pressure. Essentially, the idea is that weak popular support, which opens the door to the success of the opposition, is due to the regime’s own ineffectiveness. The correlation between support for a given regime and the regime’s effectiveness is not in doubt, but the question of causality is not so clear. In 2000, Vladimir Putin inherited from Boris Yeltsin an institutionally weak regime that comprised fragmented and competing elites, but, within a few short months, he came to enjoy tremendous support, which became one of the factors that allowed him to embark on his program of regime consolidation.

The Russian case of de-democratization should allow us to examine the more complicated, bilateral interactions between demand (public support) and supply (type of political regime). The high level of political competition in Russia in the 1990s, reflected in the outcomes of the 1993, 1995, 1996, and 1999 elections (no dominant player emerged and separation between the main contestants was negligible), together with the extremely low level of real security and legal protections, allows us to characterize the regime of this period as a competitive oligarchy (Robert Dahl’s term).² This meant that elite groups that possessed the appropriate resources could form their own ‘political representations’ (parties, media holdings, Non Government Organizations (NGOs)) and compete for influence and resources in the public domain, by mobilizing supporters from among the citizenry.

In the 2000s, this system was dismantled by Vladimir Putin and replaced by one of ‘imposed consensus’, which, unlike its predecessor, made the control of resources by various elite groups contingent on their staying out of politics (ceasing to mobilize the electorate on their behalf).³ This political transformation, along with the transition to a system of ‘imposed consensus’, served as a background to the famous ‘Yukos’ case.

This transformation, however, only became possible once support for the presidential office had increased. A system of ‘imposed consensus’ is not simply a product of ‘stick and carrot’ politics – the ability to punish the disloyal and reward the loyal. It also rests on the existence of political support ‘from below’, which raises the presumed costs of a confrontational strategy for elite groups. In the 1990s, an ‘anti-Kremlin’ stance nearly guaranteed popularity; the fact that, in the 2000s, such a stance returned minimal or negative dividends predisposed the majority of elite groups toward adopting a strategy of loyalty. In this way, the ‘supply and demand’ model focuses our attention on the interaction of two factors – elite competition and the fluctuation of public opinion. However, it does not appear that changes in public demand directly influence the political process. Rather, these changes influence the strategies of the elites and, consequently, the principles that govern their internal interactions. In other words, the ‘instrumentalist’ model described above has been turned upside down: strong support for the regime from ‘below’ contributes to a consolidation of the elites around the incumbent, which, in turn, allows the creation of effective institutions within an ‘electoral authoritarianism’. Weak support, on the other hand, encourages the elites to engage in opportunistic strategies in order to exploit the weakness of the regime for their own purposes and increase internal divisions at various levels, thus preventing consolidation and further diminishing the administration’s appeal in the eyes of the public. In other words, if support for a regime matters, then so does its value orientation – usually described as support for the principles and values of a regime or political demand.⁴

The supply-and-demand model and the cycles of post-Soviet political history

A quick glance at the public mood and the institutional tendencies of the political regime reflected in these sociological surveys reveals the surprising reversal they underwent in a mere ten years, from the late 1980s–early 1990s to the early 2000s. The wild enthusiasm for reform in the late 1980s had, by the mid-1990s, been succeeded by a sense of disappointment that was just as strong – a disappointment not only in the concept of ‘reform’, but in the entire complex of political doctrines (elections, independence, separation of powers) that had formed the basis of hopes and expectations at the time of the USSR’s collapse. This period of disappointment was followed by an energetic consolidation of society around the ideas of ‘stability’ and ‘order’, a return to centralization and vertical hierarchies (‘vertical power structure’).

This change provoked a wave of pessimistic commentary about how the installation of democratic institutions in Russia in the late 1980s and early 1990s had been an artificial project that was at odds with the true level of societal development. However, toward the end of the 2000s, sociological surveys began to detect a change in the public mood. This led me to speculate about the possible beginning of a new cycle in Russian politics.⁵ The idea was that the powerful pro-democracy movement of the late 1980s/early 1990s, together with the anti-democracy rollbacks of the early 2000s, had not been a movement toward a point of equilibrium, but, rather, a vacillation around a sort of trend line, and the shift in public opinion toward the end of the 2000s was an indication that the pendulum had begun to swing back. The events of 2011–12 and, specifically, the mass protests against the falsified elections provided further proof for this hypothesis.

My concept of political cycles is fundamentally different from that proposed by Henry Hale, who (in the spirit of the instrumentalist approach) believes them to be the result of the incompatibility of the principles of inter-elite cooperation, characteristic of hybrid regimes, with their constitutional design.⁶ In my view, the oscillations are caused by shifts in public opinion, which influence the strategies of the elites and, as a result, impact the dynamics of the political regime. In developing the ideas of his father, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr relied on Hirschman’s Shifting Involvements, which used models of consumer behavior to examine shifts in socio-political trends.⁷ In this context, the key concepts are those of consumer (public) ‘expectations’ and consumer (public) ‘disappointment’, which, together, determine the dynamics of consumer (public) preference. This suggests a slightly different interpretation of the two ‘poles’ between which the pendulum swings: periods when social problems are at the center of attention and citizens work to find solutions to problems of public good are succeeded by periods of disenchantment and a return to the idea of the private good and a focus on individual life and individual needs. These oscillations determine shifts in political preferences.⁸

What were the defining features of the public mood of the late 1980s/early 1990s? First, a nearly uniform demand for ‘independence’ and intense criticism of the centralization of the Soviet system; second, a feeling that nearly every aspect of economic and public life should be reformed, that public institutions were dysfunctional and that they should be replaced by ‘new’ ones; and, finally, a sharp increase in the public’s involvement in political life, caused by a disenchantment with the political institutions of the ‘Old Regime’. These three main points defined the reformist agenda of the first cycle.

Disappointment in each of the three elements of this agenda over the course of the 1990s provided the basis for the rise of the very different aspirations of the late 1990s–early 2000s. The costs of reform turned out to be unexpectedly high and its results appeared contradictory. The idea of ‘reform’ quickly lost its appeal. In a setting where the rule of law was weak, decentralization (the realization of the desire for ‘independence’) led to a decentralization of arbitrariness and exponential growth in the number of conflicts between various members of the social order, each armed with his own authority. These unfortunate results predictably led to a sharp decline in the value of political engagement in the eyes of the public. This disappointment set the stage for the consolidation of the counter-reformist agenda (the stability agenda), which appeared, to a large extent, as the mirror image of its reformist predecessor.

It is worth emphasizing that both agendas are part of the transitional paradigm: both are based on a sense that the political institutions are unsound and that the current state of affairs is in some way unbalanced. At the same time, the two agendas reflect fundamentally distinct reactions to such conditions: the reformist agenda rests on the belief that society can find a logical solution to the problems it faces; the counter-reformist agenda rests on a distrust of mass actions, an alienation from politics, a concentration on personal problems and personal consumption, and an increase in demand for ‘external management’ in politics.

The followers of the instrumentalist approach argue that Gorbachev’s ‘perestroika’ and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet system were the result of the breakup of the Soviet elite. In this context, mass actions such as the large-scale demonstrations in Moscow and other cities, worker strikes, and the results of the first competitive elections of 1989–91 are regarded as a function of this breakup. A breakup of the elite takes place when it becomes impossible to reconcile differences within the framework of the old institutions and procedures, and the competing entities expand the circle of actors involved in the conflict, mobilizing their supporters around alternative political doctrines. This, of course, presupposes weakening support for the fundamental values of a regime and a demand for alternative solutions.

The two-sided nature of this process hints at the existence of two phases in the political cycle. The first is characterized by an erosion of the values of the existing regime: during this period, the political regime continues to appear stable (its stability in this phase is usually exaggerated), but support for the regime begins to weaken noticeably at various levels of society, the public begins to perceive political institutions as ineffective, and the basic values and goals of the regime are called into question.

The next phase of the cycle is characterized by a breakup of the elite and the emergence of a consolidated alternative agenda. The demand for change creates, for certain elite groups, a window of opportunity that did not exist under the institutions and practices of the old regime. As the values of the old regime are questioned and rejected, a new system of ideals is formed – a ‘road map’ for the implementation of new values capable of mobilizing mass support. When a portion of the elite declares its allegiance to the ‘new agenda’, the opposition gathers strength, while the organizational (mobilizing) potential of the old regime falls abruptly. This leads to a period of crisis and political instability, which is followed by various attempts to implement the new set of political values as part of a program of political reform.

The breakup of the Soviet elite and the heady political developments of the late 1980s are difficult to comprehend without looking a bit further back in time. After Leonid Brezhnev’s death in 1982, the longstanding status quo was disrupted. The succession of funerals that followed was greeted with jokes, pointing to a crisis in the ideology of ‘stability’ and the institutions meant to maintain it. Despite the growing severity of repression against the dissidents themselves, dissident doctrines saw a sharp rise in popularity and entered mass discourse for the first time. The public was soon convinced of the total (systemic) ineffectiveness of the economic and social order and the need for change. At the same time, the elites began to formulate different plans of escape from the institutional crisis of the ‘Old Regime’ and seek support ‘from below’.

In contrast, during the mid-1990s, the difficulties and failures of reform led to the public’s profound disappointment in the foundational myths of reformism. An extremely low level of satisfaction with the political regime of the time – its institutions, elites, and leaders – created an increase in public demand for a new agenda, centered around such values as ‘order’ ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Tables and Figures
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Notes on Contributors
• Introduction
• 1. Forty Years in the Desert: The Political Cycles of Post-Soviet Transition
• 2. After Bolotnaia: Defining a ‘New Normal’ in Russian Public Politics
• 3. Four Russias: Human Potential and Social Differentiation of Russian Regions and Cities
• 4. Russia’s Population until 2025
• 5. Government Interference: An Institutional Trap
• 6. Russian Regime Dynamics through 2025: Comparative Thinking about the Future
• 7. Regime Changes in Russia: Trajectories of Political Evolution1
• 8. Frameworks of Political System Development
• 9. From a Federation of Corporations to a Federation of Regions
• 10. Becoming Modern Russian Style
• 11. The Kremlin Turns Ideological: Where This New Direction Could Lead
• 12. The World after Democracy Won
• 13. Russia and the World: The Path to 2025
• The Stalinization of Putinism: A Doomed Effort
• Index