Forging a Future for Russian Democracy
Zilka Grogan explores the role of history, politics, economics and personality in Russia’s nascent democracy.
It is around election time in Russia that the country’s retreat from democracy is most obvious. Since the 1990s, the pattern has been the same: opposition voices are reduced to a whimper, media coverage largely favours the incumbent and the President openly refuses to debate his political opponents.
Last year’s parliamentary elections were no exception. A joint statement released by foreign observers from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the Council of Europe described the elections to the state Duma as “not fair” and said the polls failed to meet any standard for democratic elections. United Russia, the pro-Kremlin party in power that is closely associated with Vladimir Putin, received approximately 64.1 per cent of the vote. No liberal opposition reached the seven per cent threshold required to secure seats in parliament. The OSCE – which sent fewer observers than it originally anticipated, as visas were reportedly delayed by Moscow – cited the abuse of resources and biased media coverage in its negative assessment of elections.
In the 2008 Freedom in the World report, Freedom House also criticised the 2007 Duma elections and rated Russia “not free”. According to the report, “the authorities continued to place strict limits on opposition parties, public demonstrations, the media and non-governmental organisations”.
Set against this backdrop, it may seem futile to try to define democracy in the Russian context. After all, from the time of the Imperial Tsars to the collapse of the Communist bloc, Mother Russia has never seriously flirted with democracy.
The impact of the collapse of the Soviet Union cannot be underestimated. The USSR was the home of the communist movement, a symbol of opposition to the West, a powerful nuclear superpower and an imperial empire that spanned all of Eastern Europe. Virtually overnight, all of these things were lost.
In December 1991, when the Soviet Union ceased to exist, Boris Yeltsin became the President of the Russian Federation. Yeltsin was to decide on a direction for economic, political and social reform. The entire basis of Soviet society had to be replaced. Conflict developed over the scale and speed of the reform process. In 1993, Yeltsin shelled parliament to avoid a coup by those in the Duma who opposed more radical reform.
“From the time of the Imperial Tsars to the collapse of the Communist bloc, Mother Russia has never seriously flirted with liberal democracy.”
In a referendum held shortly after the confrontation, a new constitution giving greater power to the president was established. This new constitution was to have enormous effect on the consolidation of democracy. The results of parliamentary elections held in December 1995 showed strong support for the Communist Party and nationalist forces. With the support of Russia’s powerful business elite, the oligarchs, Yeltsin was able to defeat the Communist leader, Zyuganov, in the 1996 presidential poll.
However, Yeltsin resigned on December 31, 1999 and passed power onto his appointed successor, Vladimir Putin, a former KGB officer and head of the Federal Security Service (FSB).
Under Putin, the Russian Federation has developed into a hybrid system, with the growth of democracy often stunted by the selfish interests of the political elite. The collapse of the USSR in the 1990s eliminated authoritarian communist rule but did not lead to the consolidation of democracy.
The question then remains: why has Russia’s transition to democracy failed?
A common explanation for the weakness of democracy in Russia is cultural. This cultural argument asserts that Russians favour a strong leader coupled with a powerful, centralised state and a passive civil society.
The list of leaders of this type is extensive: Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, Gorbachev. Along these lines, it could be argued that the authoritarian aspects of Putin’s rule are simply a continuation of an historical legacy, making democracy incompatible with the regime.
However, cultural and historical explanations alone are insufficient. Instead, authors such as Michael McFaul have focused on the circumstances of the transition from communism to explain the weakness of democracy.
According to McFaul, two factors influence the probability of a successful transition to democracy. First, a narrower agenda for change will mean democracy is more likely to emerge. In the immediate post-Soviet period, elites clashed over the course of economic transformation and constitutional issues. The 1993 clash between President Boris Yeltsin and the Parliament was a clear example of this.
Second, perceptions of the balance of power will determine the outcome of the transition. The period following the transition from communism saw a relatively equal distribution of power between those with democratic and those with illiberal aims. No single group was powerful enough to determine the rules of the game. The result was that the political system remained volatile.
McFaul argues that this contested and prolonged transition period hindered the consolidation of democratic institutions and values. As a result, Putin inherited a Russian state characterised by the centralisation of power in the office of the president, an ineffective state apparatus, a weak party system and a civil society unable to influence the political process.
“Under Putin, the Russian Federation has developed into a hybrid system, with the growth of democracy often stunted by the selfish interests of the political elite.”
Putin clearly faced a choice between strengthening the central role of the state and the presidency, and pursuing greater openness in Russia’s democratic institutions. His stated objective was to establish a “dictatorship of laws” in the country. At the end of his two terms in office, it is widely accepted that Putin did not take the democratic path.
In order to define the nature of regimes such as Putin’s Russia, Michael Steven Fish uses the terms ‘openness’ and ‘closure’ as a measure of the regime type. Fish argues that an open regime is typically characterised by: genuine political competition, freedom of political participation, freedom of communication, freedom of association for political ends, and government operations that are open to scrutiny.
In his book, Democracy Derailed in Russia, Fish defines democracy as “rule by the people – or, in practical terms in the contemporary world, popular control over the state”. In contrast to this definition, he uses the term ‘oligarchy’ to characterise contemporary Russia. Here, oligarchy refers to political rule by a section of the population. In other words, only the political elite that directly supports the president has the ability to influence Russian politics in any real way.
In particular, a strong civil society is widely seen as vital for the growth of democracy. Once the communist party-state was removed, no strong civil society groups developed to provide checks and balances on the state.
Both Yeltsin and Putin centralised power in the hands of the president at the expense of the development of civil society. The result is that Putin’s Russia has remained politically closed.
For this reason, Russia is best characterised as a ‘delegative democracy’ in which the president can claim a popular mandate through the electoral process but, once in power, rules unrestrained of forces in civil society.
Throughout his two terms in office, Putin has sought to centralise power and strengthen the role of the state. A number of institutional reforms have been ushered in that have undermined the quality of democracy in the country.
Federal districts were established. The head of each district was mandated to oversee local activities while remaining accountable to the president. The upper house of parliament, the Federation Council, was reformed with representatives no longer elected directly. The electoral system was also centralised, and voting now occurs entirely from party lists.
Additionally, press freedom has come under attack and the independence of the media has been compromised. Putin leaves behind a Russia where all of the main television networks are controlled by the state, either directly or through companies that are state-owned. The majority of print and online media are loyal to the Kremlin, with the Moscow-based weekly newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, the only remaining independent publication.
More alarming is the murder of investigative journalists reporting on sensitive issues such as corruption or the Chechen wars. In one of the most high profile cases, Anna Politkovskaya, a prominent critic of Putin, who had received death threats during her time reporting on war crimes in Chechnya, was assassinated in October 2006.
Under these circumstances, the outcome of the recent parliamentary and presidential elections was never in doubt. Putin’s chosen successor, Dmitry Medvedev, won the presidential poll with over 70 per cent of the vote. Much emphasis has been placed on the potential for greater liberalism under Medvedev, who has said that “no non-democratic state has ever become truly prosperous for one simple reason: freedom is better than non-freedom”.
Russia’s constitution prevents the president from contesting more than two consecutive elections. It was widely regarded as a positive sign for democracy that Putin chose not to change the constitution and seek a third term as president. Instead, Putin will work alongside his successor as prime minister. Under the Russian constitution, the prime minister is subordinate to the president. The president is responsible for all main domestic and foreign policy decisions, while the prime minister oversees the economy.
However, it remains to be seen how this power-sharing arrangement will function in practice. Superpresidentialism has created a situation in which the president is the only strong political actor. With Putin remaining in a position of power, the role of the prime minister and cabinet in the Russian state could be strengthened to balance the supremacy of the president.
The future trajectory of Russian democracy hinges on this balance of power between the two men, as well as the type of political system that Medvedev envisages for Russia.
Russia’s new President now faces a similar choice to the one that confronted Putin early in his first term. Medvedev can continue down the path of superpresidentialism chosen by his predecessor, or he can promote democratic values and institutions in a country whose history has been marred by authoritarianism.
