Teaching Russia’s
“tandemocracy”
Janet Elise Johnson
Brooklyn College, CUNY
Johnson@brooklyn.cuny.edu
Two contentious--and one tough-topics to teach
1.
2.
3.
regime type
executive-parliamentary relations
gender
Outcomes: Knowledge and practice
a.
b.
c.
gain familiarity with some current
scholarly debates about current events
have a model for how to integrate theory
with the “facts”
some useful resources
1.regime type:
start with some democracy theory

Schmitter and Karl (1991) “What
Democracy Is….and Is Not” (introduce
during unit on Britain to define
democracy)
– “a system of governance in which rules are
held accountable for their actions in the public
realm by citizens, acting indirectly through the
competition and cooperation of their elected
representatives.”
– more than just elections: also civil society,
civil and political rights
and theory about hybrids

Diamond (2002) “Thinking about hybrid
regimes” (read during Russia unit)
– combining democratic and authoritarian elements,
usually the procedures of democracy, but not a more
comprehensive democracy; not full political and civil
rights, limited civil society
– “Elections are free when the legal barriers to entry
into the political arena are low, when there is
substantial freedom for candidates and supporters of
different political parties to campaign and solicit
votes, and when voters experience little or no
coercion in exercising their electoral choices.”
compare of Russia’s situation to
definitions from theory

procedures of democracy
– is there accountability? (no institutional mechanism)
– are elections competitive, that is, free, fair, inclusive,
and meaningful? (fraud, dominant party that creates
loyal opposition and manipulates the real opposition
out of the game through election rules and coercion)

goals of democracy (constitutional liberalism)
– is civil society unfettered? (paternalistic control
through selective enforcement of 2006 NGO law and
funding obedient NGOs; channeling/inhibiting protest)
– is the media free? (public control of TV and most
national newspapers)
– do people have meaningful civil and political rights?
(only in unimportant contexts)
Also compare to countries

less democratic than Britain, Mexico, and even
Nigeria
– e.g. the creation of loyal opposition parties (Just
Russia) has parallels to Mexico’s PRI and Nigeria
under Abacha and Babndiga (but more skillful in
Russia!)

less authoritarian than Iran and China
– media in Russia not censored directly as in China
Country
Political
Rights,
2009
Civil
Liberties,
2009
Press
Freedom
ranking,
2009
Socioeconomic
conditions
ranking,
2007
Environmental
Protection
ranking,
2008
Gender Gap
ranking, 2007
United
States
1
1
20
180
39
31
United
Kingdom
1
1
20
193
14
11
Russia
6
5
153
150
28
45
China
7
6
168
103
104
73
Mexico
2
3
137
112
47
93
Nigeria
5
4
135
14
126
107
Iran
6
6
172
73
67
118
Freedom House,
http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?
page=15 (score 1-7, 1=best)
Reporters without
Borders,
http://www.rsf.org/artic
le.php3?id_article=24
025 (1=best)
Infant mortality,
https://www.cia.gov/libr
ary/publications/theworldfactbook/rankorder/20
91rank.html (1=worst)
Yale researchers,
http://epi.yale.edu/CountryS
cores (1=best)
World Economic Forum,
http://www.weforum.org/en/initiati
ves/gcp/Gender%20Gap/index.h
tm (1=best)
Some helpful media
have students compare Soviet and Putin national
anthems (same music) to set the stage
 Frontline PBS (illustrates suppression of dissent)

– 2007 prodemocracy march before the 2008
presidential elections
– http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/blog/2007/12/russi
a_a_winter.html#

2002 song “Man like Putin” used again in 2008
elections (demonstrates the cult of Putin)
– English language version and Russian with subtitles
on Youtube
– background info
http://www.pbs.org/soundtracks/stories/putin/
from hybrid to “soft
authoritarianism”?
for example, Kesselman 2010 (DeBardeleben),
label Russia a “developing democracy,” still a
“hybrid”
 but the scholarly debate is moving toward “soft
authoritarianism”
 no consensus on definition: not quite
authoritarian

– opposition is legally allowed to operate, but can’t
challenge power
– not outright censorship of speech or suppression of
civil society, but little space for meaningful free speech
or critique of regime
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES


Freedom House Nation in Transit Reports
Slavic Review fall 2009 forum on “Managing Political
Society in Russia”
–

other key theory:
–

abstracts online at
http://www.slavicreview.illinois.edu/indexes/vol68/index.html#
_Number_3,_Fall
Fareed Zakaria 1997 “Rise of Illberal Democracy” in Foreign
Affairs
readable argument about Russia’s consolidation
–
Kotkin, Stephen. 2008. Armageddon Averted: The Soviet
Collapse 1970-2000. New York: Oxford University Press.
(Updated edition)
2. Executive-parliamentary relations
teach the various powers of the
Presidency, Prime minister, and Federal
Assembly
 highlighting especially the limited ways
that the Duma has oversight over the Pres

– disbanded if disapprove of PM candidate three
times
– can be dissolved in Duma issues two votes of
no confidence
Introduce definitions



presidential system: system of government in which the chief
executive is elected in a national ballot and is independent of the
legislative branch
parliamentary: system of government in which the chief executive
is answerable to the legislature and may be dismissed by it.
semipresidential: a form of government in which presidents are
more than just figureheads but are ultimately subordinate to the
parliament
– a mix between presidential and parliamentary system, but president
dominates
– both president and parliament are directly elected (and then parliament
then chooses the PM)
– problem of cohabitation which changes the distribution of power in
favor of the PM
– no fusion of power in the legislature (note that cabinet members can’t
serves as MPs)
SOURCE: Kesselman 2007
but how to understand
“tandemocracy”
“tandemocracy” is pundit jargon for
the current form of dual executive
not from the word democracy, but tandem
 power sharing between Putin and Medvedev
since 2008 elections

– based on a personal agreement
– terms are not publicly known

despite the constitutional right of the pres. to
dismiss the PM, Putin seems more powerful, but
Medvedev sometimes disagrees
For more information, see “How Russia Works: An Assessment of the Medvedev Putin
System.” Russian Analytical Digest No. 49/08 (November 6;
www.res.ethz.ch/analysis/rad)
not semi-presidential…
presidential? superpresidential? or
perhaps superexecutivism?
Superpresidentialism
 huge apparatus of presidential power
 presidential control of the purse
 frequent use of presidential decrees
 almost impossible impeachment of president
 little legislative oversight
 little judicial oversight
SOURCE: M. Steven Fish, 2000, "The Executive Deception:
Superpresidentialism and the Degradation of Russian Politics," in
Sperling, ed., Building the Russian State, pp. 177-191
3. mainstreaming gender

women in formal politics:
– Women of Russia party, the first successful all
women’s party
– more women in parliament (and executive
power) under Putin than since the end of
communism
– but promotion of siloviki means the promotion
of men and a specific type of masculinity
Women in politics

Years with
Russian (or
elections in the
Soviet leader) lower house
Lower House
Upper House
Brezhnev
1980
33.0%
32.8%
Gorbachev
1990
5.4%
7.5%
Yeltsin
1993
13.5%
5.2%
1995
10.0%
1.0%
Yeltsin/Putin
1999
7.6%
3.4%
Putin
2003
9.8%
3.4%
2007
14.0%
4.7%
Interparliamentary Union, http://www.ipu.org/wmn-e/world.htm
3. mainstream gender

civil society:
– women dominated the NGOs that emerged after the
collapse
– the emergence of feminism within women’s studies
programs and women’s crisis centers dedicated to
ending violence against women
– example of state paternalism:
 Putin used oil revenues to support social services, including
state agencies providing assistance to victims of domestic
violence
 state-approved NGOs, mostly those that provide social
services, receive funding through the Public Chamber
Global Gender Gap
Report 2007
(data from
2005)
Report 2008
(data from
2006)
Rank (out Score
of 115)
Rank
Score
(out
of
123)
Rank
Score
(out
of
129)
Russia
49
.6770
45
.6866
42
.6994
USA
23
.7042
31
.7002
27
.7179
Report 2006
(data from 2004)[1]
0 to 1 scale: 0=inequality, 1=equality.
World Economic Forum. 2008. “The Global Gender Gap Index 2008 Rankings; Comparisons with 2007 and 2006,” online at
http://www.weforum.org/pdf/gendergap/rankings2008.xls (last accessed October 16, 2009).
[1]
The “woman question” has become
the “man question”

the problems: huge number of deaths of
working-age men from respiratory and
circulatory diseases and alcohol-related
accidents and violence

contributing to what the state sees as the
“demographic problem,” the rapidly
shrinking ethnic-Russian population
Social problems today
www.nationmaster.com
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_gin_ind-economy-gini-index
Population growth rate:
-0.484% (2007 est.)
Birth rate:
10.92 births/1,000 population (2007 est.)
Death rate:
16.04 deaths/1,000 population (2007 est.)
Net migration rate:
0.28 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2007 est.)
Life expectancy at birth:
total population: 65.87 years
male: 59.12 years
female: 73.03 years (2007 est.)
Putin’s “masculinity reclamation
project”
“Health like a habit”
Photo by Johnson 2008
Also, “Man like Putin” song
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
women in parliaments database,
http://www.ipu.org/wmn-e/world.htm
 global gender gap reports,
http://www.weforum.org/en/Communities/Wom
en%20Leaders%20and%20Gender%20Parity/G
enderGapNetwork/index.htm
 Stop Violence Against Women Russia page,
http://www.stopvaw.org/Russian_Federation.ht
ml

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES ON
RUSSIA IN GENERAL
Russian Analytical Digest
www.res.ethz.ch/analysis/rad
 Richard Sakwa’s Russia Politics and Society (on
google books): key text, includes full 1996
version, and previews the more recent versions
(includes maps)
 JRL Research & Analytical Supplement (online at
http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/jrl-ras.cfm):
summarizes the recent literature on Russia in
layperson language
