WHY DO WE CARE ABOUT RUSSIAN POLITICS?
• Why do the Russians have great power status?
• What can Russia tell us about “communism”? (Maybe it’s just a better
seen as a case of “totalitarianism”)
• What can Russia tell us about the capitalist model for “late”
developers? What legacies did socialist Russia have for democratic
socialism in Europe?
• What can Russia tell us about our own processes of enemy formation
and nationalism?
• What can it tell us about how totalitarianism evolves into
authoritarianism? What can it tell us about what authoritarian states
need to survive and prosper?
• What can it tell us about the stability of multi-national states before and
after democratization? What about ethnic violence in the process?
• What can Russia tell us about the challenges of consolidating
democracy? About building a democratic political culture? About the
use of democratic institutions? About the “curse” of oil?
SOME EARLY HISTORY THAT MATTERS FOR
UNDERSTANDING RUSSIAN PRIORITIES
•Why do Russians like strong leaders? Functionalism and Maslow vs. “Live free
or die!” (11 time zones, 14 neighbors, geography, & winter)
•Ivan the Terrible: (1553-84)… Consolidation of the territory with defeat of the
Mongols leads to absolute monarchy.
•Peter the Great (1682-1725): Copies the west’s industries and monarchial
federalism with mixed results (Westernizers vs. Slavophiles… a split that still
exists today in some ways)
•How did the Napoleon’s seizing of Moscow (1812) Crimean War (1854) and
losses to FR and GB lead to Russia’s very late development? How did it
develop? Parallels with Germany?
•The 1904-05 war with Japan… How embarrassing, but it creates an opening for
political change and splits elites; “Revolution of 1905”
•WWI and the February 1917 revolution: Remember that pro-western,
“provisional governments” usually have a terrible time in societies that aren’t
ready for democratization
•October 1917: the Bolshevik Revolution leads to the 1917-1921 Civil War
•V.I. Lenin on democratic centralism & “War communism.” Could things have
been different as communist apologists sometimes argue?
•Stalin vs. Trotsky: Why did Russia end up picking the totalitarian even though
Lenin said not to?
A BIT OF A REVIEW: HOW IS
TOTALITARIAN DIFFERENT THAN
AUTHORITARIANISM?
•How are these regimes main goals different?
•How is each produced?
•How do they use violence?
•How do they deal with other elites?
•Is violence by non-state actors ok?
•What do they think about mass mobilization?
•What is the content of their official ideology
•What role do they see for civil society?
WHAT INSTITUTIONAL STRUCTURE
DID COMMUNIST USSR HAVE?
•In what sense was Stalin’s Russia totalitarian?
•The economic system: A command economy & 5-year
Plans
•New parallel political structures: The relationship
between the Communist party and the Russian state
•An unusually closed party/state/economic elite: the
Nomenklatura and purges (1 million dead)
•Mostly shared political power: The Secretariat and the
Politburo… After Stalin, there was balance
•Feedback and dissemination institutions: The Central
Committee and some type of general party assembly
exists in communist societies
RUSSIA’S TRANSITION FROM TOTALITARIANISM
TO AUTHOR.
•Khrushchev (1955-1964): Not as bad as we thought at the time?
•Brezhnev (1964-1982): A run of the mill authoritarian who
consolidated an unsustainable authoritarianism by the normal
methods of patronage and limited elite rotation
•Gorbachev (1985-1991): A real reformer? (Not at first)
•Glasnost
•Perestroika
•His version of democracy: Competition but not mass
accountability?
•Why was he nicer with the west than previous Russians?
•Why did he let the Warsaw Pact countries go? (1989)
•Why did he let the USSR implode? Why did he hand power over
to Boris Yeltsin (1991)? Why did the west support this?
•What legacies did Yeltsin leave? Why do first democrats matter so
much? What can Russia tell us about trying economic shock therapy
and democratization at the same time?
•How and why did Putin institutionalize very soft authoritarianism?
WHO HAS POLITICAL POWER IN
TODAY’S RUSSIA: The big picture
•The Constitution: Why was it rewritten in 1993 rather than
1991? Who wrote it? Why didn’t it change the system?
•Russia has a rich Bill of Rights, but why don’t they
enforce it?: http://www.constitution.ru/en/10003000-03.htm
•It looks like a French-style presidency/parliament on
paper, but is it? More to come
•Its electoral system looks a lot like Germany’s but with
key differences… more to come
•Why does Russia have federalism?:
•89 Regions, 21 Republics, 52 Oblasts
HOW DOES RUSSIAN “DEMOCRACY”
WORK?
WHAT IS THE DUMA (Lower House)? IS IT A JOKE?
•The basic structure of the Duma: 450 members, 5-year terms (was SMD, then a
Germ mixed elect sys., now natl. PR w/ 7% threshold, in 2016 will be 5%)
•It’s powers on paper look a lot like ours, but reality only Putin’s party matters
•What does the PM do?
•Manages what pres doesn’t; introduces pres. agenda
•Why is this position presidentially appointed?
•Why does it have a cabinet of bureaucrats rather than peers
•Can the Duma fire or reject PMs like a normal parliament? Yes, but pres
can respond with Duma elections
WHAT ABOUT THE FEDERAL COUNCIL? (THE RUSSIAN SENATE)
•Its basic structure: 2 reps per region/republic = 166 members; one selected by
state governors, one by state legislatures… But president can reject choices
•Who selects the governors? Since 2004, the national president (with approval
by each state legislature)
•Powers: it can stop legislation, but can be over-ridden by 2/3 of the Duma ; It
approves pres appointments to Russian Constit. Court
WHO IS MOST POWERFUL?
THE RUSSIAN PRESIDENCY
•Directly-elected, two-ballot system, with 2, 6-yr terms
•What are the main powers?
•Select the PM and the Constitutional Court
•Controls army, FSB (interior police + KGB);
•Issues biding Presidential decrees, & vetoes (can be overridden by 2/3 of the multiparty Duma)
•Why no vice-president?
OTHER POWER CENTERS
• The Constitutional Court: Lots of formal powers, including
“abstract” judicial review, but who dares to use it?
•Organized crime is now giving way to the security forces
(especially Putin’s clique)
•The declining power of the oligarchs and the growth of state
capitalism
WHY NO DEMOCRACY IN RUSSIA?
•Why are constitutional moments so important?
•First leaders really matter: Yeltsin, Putin, & the creation of superpresidentialism
•Simultaneous economic and political reform: Is it a good idea?
•Does no civil society mean you probably have no civil liberties?
•Does Russia have a democratic political culture?
•Is it more important to first build a coherent party system? Perhaps
the PRI (Mexico) or the CCP (China) is Putin’s goal since Russia
emerged from the USSR without coherent parties
•Why aren’t oligarchs, oil, and democracy aren’t a good mix?
•The decay and resurgence of Russian intl. power. What do
Russians really want?