russia’s dual state janet elise johnson brooklyn college, cuny johnson@brooklyn.cuny.edu presented...

Russia’s dual stateJanet Elise JohnsonBrooklyn College, CUNYJohnson@brooklyn.cuny.edu

Presented June 13, 2011 at the AP reading for Comp GoPo

Objectives

PRACTICAL

•To update information about Russia

•To introduce a potentially useful theoretical framework for understanding Russia

NORMATIVE

•To illustrate how to integrate social justice concerns

MORE SPECULATIVE

•To suggest some radical ways to begin to reimagine comparative politics

Janet Elise Johnson@brooklyn.cuny.edu

Context

• Upcoming “elections” in Russia • Duma elections scheduled for December 2011

• Presidential elections for March 2012 

• “Democratic recession” around the globe since 2008*

• Moving beyond the transition paradigm1. thicker concept of democracy: electoral democracy vs.

constitutional liberalism

2. many states in the grey zone: “hybrid regimes” and “soft authoritarianism”

3. ?

Janet Elise Johnson@brooklyn.cuny.edu *Larry Diamond. 2008. “Democracy

Rollback,” Foreign Affairs

censored last Thursday by EP

for restricting opposiition rights

The basic way I teach comparative political institutions*

STATE POLITICAL SOCIETY

CIVIL SOCIETY

Executive

Bureaucracy

Judiciary

Military and Intelligence

Parliaments

Parties

Elections

Key organizations and their prominenceConditions for civil society:independence of the mediaProtection of civil liberties

Corrup-tion

*thanks to Jean C. Robinson

The dual state

• like 1930s Germany where a prerogative state that exercised power arbitrarily and without constraints existed alongside a constitutional state • legitimacy is rooted in constitutionalism, but a parallel Byzantine

parapolitics of factions & informal groups• not just de facto vs. de jure, but paraconstitutionalism

• consolidated through Putin’s modernization program to “normalize” the Yeltsin period

1. Executive-parliamentary relations

• most obvious example of dual state: Putin’s 2008 move from Pres to PM• Putin’s commitment to a modernizing project and the letter

of the constitution vs. his commitment to governance rooted in Russian traditions

• result: what Russians call tandemocracy*

Janet Elise Johnson@brooklyn.cuny.edu

• power sharing between Putin and Medvedev since 2008 elections

• based on a personal agreement• important disagreements

*Perhaps the “The Team” for the oligarchy see http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/papers/view/-/id/1070/

Semi-presidential

• Constitution: Duma must approve president’s PM nominee

• Typical categorization by comparative politics textbooks• a form of government in

which presidents are more than just figureheads but are ultimately subordinate to the parliament

Superexecutive

• Costs of rejecting nominee three times precipitates dissolution

• Fish (2000): superpresidentialism• huge apparatus of executive

power• presidential control of the purse• presidential decrees• almost impossible

impeachment• little legislative oversight• little judicial oversight

Janet Elise Johnson@brooklyn.cuny.edu

Neither or both?Failure of constitutional liberalism or lack of a spirit of constitutionalism?

Janet Elise Johnson@brooklyn.cuny.edu

2. The media

Freedom of expression

• def: freedom to say what you want

• independent small audience media proliferating: print dailies and weeklies, smaller TV stations, blogs, etc.

No freedom of the press*

• def: ability to holdthe govt accountable

• govt take over of national TV stations

• no live political talk shows or political satire

• biased coverage of terrorism and Chechnya

• mysterious contract killings of journalists

Janet Elise Johnson@brooklyn.cuny.edu *Masha Lipman & Michael McFaul in After Putin’s Russia (2010)

3. Dual system of law

Rule by law

• Putin strengthened• qualifications

• accountability

• accessibility

• police now must get search warrants

• more jury trials & jurors becoming activists

Not rule of law• “telephone justice”

• FSB getting acquittals reversed, not allowing jury trials, going after defense attorneys

• 1/5 ECHR cases are from Russia (pays fines, but no policy change)• Khodorkovksy

just won $35,000for rights abuse

Janet Elise Johnson@brooklyn.cuny.edu

4. “Parallel parliaments”*

• Duma• primary legislature

• elected through PR w/ 7% threshold

• Federation Council• represents regions

• Public Chamber (2005)• forum for policy

discussion

• members chosen by Putin

• State Council (2000)• 7 governors chosen by

Kremlin

Janet Elise Johnson@brooklyn.cuny.edu*Thomas Remington in After Putin’s Russia (2010)

5. Parties and elections

• Elections where multiple parties win• President

• Duma

• mayors

• But, dominant party system secured through• loyal majority since 2000s,

supramajority since 2003• Party of power (United Russia)

throughout country

• change electoral rules to eliminate regional powers

• direct control of Fed Council

• justified through war on terrorism

Janet Elise Johnson@brooklyn.cuny.edu

Duality: Creation of “loyal opposition”

6. “Imitation civil society”*

• many NGOs remain untouched

• protests have increased, especially regarding social issues• some have even

succeeded

• Public Chamber channels and funds favored NGOs

• Kremlin-supported groups such as Nashi etc.

Janet Elise Johnson@brooklyn.cuny.edu

*Masha Lipman

7. Fake federalism

Asymmetric ethnofederalism

• but chaotic decentralization under Yeltsin • bilateral treaties

• ad hoc

• “brown areas”

Power vertical by siloviki

• 7 federal districts/supergovernors

• appted FC with a lot of Kremlin input

• appted governors with a lot of Kremlin input

• United Russia as a superparty and banning regional political parties

• changing to PR (over FPTP) nationally and regionally

Janet Elise Johnson@brooklyn.cuny.edu

• constitution

8. Dual economy

• all companies have two sets of books • appearance of transparency for FDI

• but then use shell companies, off-shore banking, etc.

• two ways of doing things: legally and through bribes

Janet Elise Johnson@brooklyn.cuny.edu

Regime type: democratic, hybrid, or authoritarianism?

“Authoritarian democracy”*

Janet Elise Johnson@brooklyn.cuny.edu

*several AP Comp GoPo students, Q8, 2011, who aren’t getting credit for assessing the regime type of Russia

Intersectional consequencesJanet Elise Johnson@brooklyn.cuny.edu

http://www.sadanduseless.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/104.jpg

Women in formal politics

Interparliamentary Union, http://www.ipu.org/wmn-e/world.htm

Janet Elise Johnson@brooklyn.cuny.edu

Figure 2 Women in the lower house of parliament

0.00%

5.00%

10.00%

15.00%

20.00%

1999-2000

2002 2003-2004

2006-2007

Russia

USA

WORLDAVERAGE

a. Gender

• more women in formal politics

• women dominate NGO sector

• facilitated by transnational women’s movement pressures and European supranational institutions

• but in the parallel universe• siloviki dominate

• KGB-like strategies: compromat

• national identity fostered through homophobic masculinity (muzhik)

Janet Elise Johnson@brooklyn.cuny.edu

b. +Social class

•huge rich/poor gap

•disastrous working age male mortality

•but women entrepreneurship and increased state paternalism: • crisis centers + maternity capital

• “Accessible Surroundings” for the disabled

Parallel universe

•control by all male oligarchs

•just as corrupt as before, if not more so

Janet Elise Johnson@brooklyn.cuny.edu

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.luxist.com/media/2007/01/abramovichyacht.jpg

Responsible man campaignJanet Elise Johnson@brooklyn.cuny.edu

Health like a habit, 2008 Day of Family, Love, and Fidelity, 2008 (Moscow Times)

Janet Elise Johnson@brooklyn.cuny.edu

Grozny 2007-9

c. +Race: Chechnya

http://cdni.condenast.co.uk/646x430/a_c/chechnya_news_cnt_20nov09_pa_646.jpg

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/09/30/world/30grozny.600.jpg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xPv9KK5RAsw/TXk8evyzTdI/AAAAAAAAJJM/B5e5M7ir6-w/s1600/Chechen%2Bwomen.jpg

Pres. Khadyrov

parallel universe

http://www.wunrn.com/news/2008/04_08/04_07_08/040708_russia_files/image001.jpg

veiling by paintball, 2011

Corrupting the accountability mechanisms of

democracy, but not unconstitutional

Undermining institutions by making personalistic

despite the temporary stability/growth

Janet Elise Johnson@brooklyn.cuny.edu

ImplicationsJanet Elise Johnson@brooklyn.cuny.edu

move beyond transition theory: • use “hybrid” countries as at the model

not the Westisn’t dual system also at work in Western countries?• 2008-9 financial crisis created by unelected

officials• the virtual finance economy dwarfs the real

economy• not bribe-paying, not clientalism, mostly

perfectly legal

http://media.entertainment.sky.com/image/unscaled/2010/11/19/Inside-Job-6.jpg

gendered consequences: Iceland

male architects of financial crisis undermined the most powerful women’s policy agency in the world

but then: government collapse, replaced with a gender balanced government, 40% quota for corp boards by 2012*

Janet Elise Johnson@brooklyn.cuny.edu*http://www.thenation.com/signup/158279?destination=article/158279/most-feminist-place-world

Women’s Strike 2010

Janet Elise Johnson@brooklyn.cuny.edu

State

Political Society

Civil Society

Parallel universe

Politics

Can we really think about politics anywhere without the parallel universe?

Janet Elise Johnson@brooklyn.cuny.edu