russia’s dual state janet elise johnson brooklyn college, cuny [email protected] presented...
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Russia’s dual stateJanet Elise JohnsonBrooklyn College, [email protected]
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 [email protected]
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 [email protected] *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 [email protected]
• 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 [email protected]
Neither or both?Failure of constitutional liberalism or lack of a spirit of constitutionalism?
Janet Elise [email protected]
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 [email protected] *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 [email protected]
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 [email protected]*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 [email protected]
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 [email protected]
*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 [email protected]
• 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 [email protected]
Regime type: democratic, hybrid, or authoritarianism?
“Authoritarian democracy”*
Janet Elise [email protected]
*several AP Comp GoPo students, Q8, 2011, who aren’t getting credit for assessing the regime type of Russia
Intersectional consequencesJanet Elise [email protected]
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 [email protected]
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 [email protected]
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 [email protected]
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.luxist.com/media/2007/01/abramovichyacht.jpg
Responsible man campaignJanet Elise [email protected]
Health like a habit, 2008 Day of Family, Love, and Fidelity, 2008 (Moscow Times)
Janet Elise [email protected]
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 [email protected]
ImplicationsJanet Elise [email protected]
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 [email protected]*http://www.thenation.com/signup/158279?destination=article/158279/most-feminist-place-world
Women’s Strike 2010
Can we really think about politics anywhere without the parallel universe?
Janet Elise [email protected]