Russia's Uncertainty Principle, Henry Hale

Henry Hale — Fri, 09 May 2008 12:25:15 +0000

Kuda Rossiia? Whither Russia? Putin has both simplified and complicated the answer to this question. Simplified, because the answer during his presidential tenure increasingly came to depend on the decisions of only one man. Complicated, because even the most thorough research will not reveal the inner thoughts and plans of that one man.

Perhaps the most important conclusion we can confidently draw is that Putin is not seeking to maximize his immediate personal power. The presidency is and has been Russia's most powerful political post, and there is no way Putin would have given it up if his own raw power were all that mattered to him. Both elites and masses overwhelmingly wanted him to remain president, and he could easily have arranged for the Constitution to be changed to suit this demand.

To be sure, he will remain quite influential. The prime minister has significant constitutional powers, and Putin has solidified his position by ushering into office huge majorities in both chambers of parliament and by taking the helm of United Russia, which he can use to bind legislators tightly to his will. While in theory a President Medvedev could fire Prime Minister Putin, the Putinite parliamentary supermajority could impeach a president suspected of harboring such intent, with the courts and Federation Council supplying only a small amount of uncertainty as to whether that president would consequently be removed from office.

Nevertheless, Putin's departure from the presidency represents a net sacrifice of personal power. Just imagine how much more power Putin would be wielding if his control of the parliament and the dominant party were combined with the presidency instead of with the prime ministership. That would have eliminated almost all uncertainty in the political system. Instead, after May 7, at least part of Russia's future will depend not only on Putin, but on Medvedev.

Putin, therefore, must have motives other than a pure lust for immediate, personal power. Beyond this conclusion, however, it is very hard to say what these motives might be. Putin has created a situation in which we cannot rule out two diametrically opposed interpretations, not to mention the thousands of others in between.

Two opposing interpretations

1. Putin the Pro-Western Democrat. Putin could be genuinely trying to push Russia toward democracy and friendly relations with the West. He could see himself as the tough leader who had to crack some eggs to make the omelette, someone who forcibly overcame the worst disorders of the Yeltsin era, got the economy going, and restored Russian optimism. Now that the dirty work has been done, it is time to hand power over to a minimally tarnished associate who will fill the newly restored state and society with real democratic content and who will realign Russia with its fellow European powers. By these lights, Putin agreed to serve as PM only as a way of keeping in check Medvedev's opponents during the transition process, especially certain siloviki who have a different vision of Russia's future and are now more of a liability than an asset. If this interpretation is correct, we would expect Putin gradually to turn over the real reins of power to his associate as Medvedev's rivals are sidelined, probably completing this task by the start of new president's second term.

2. Medvedev as "Frontman" for a Harsher Dictatorship. Putin could be setting up a dictatorship that is even harsher and more intrusive than the regime is today, something that he may see as necessary to defeat Western "jackals" and restore Russian greatness. In this case, stepping away from the presidency is only a diversionary tactic. Accepting some risk and some loss of his personal power as the necessary price, Putin aims to distract both Westerners and Russian democrats at the moment when their interests are once and for all crushed. And who better to do this distracting than a young, highly educated, Western-looking St. Petersburger who can speak convincingly in both English and Russian about how "freedom is better than nonfreedom"? Putin himself has remarked that Medvedev's lack of KGB ties will help him win the trust of Western leaders more effectively than Putin himself ever could. According to this interpretation, the unprecedented events that took place after Putin endorsed Medvedev, such as the arrest of regional Yabloko leader Maksim Reznik (www.rferl.org/newsline/2008/03/1-rus/rus-060308.asp) and the temporary shutdown of the European University of St. Petersburg, (www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/11/russia.highereducation) are in fact reflections of what Putin hopes will become commonplace after May 7.

Since both of these extreme interpretations involve at least some transfer of power from Putin to Medvedev, whether Putin actually realizes either of these goals (or the possibilities in between) will depend not only upon Putin but upon Medvedev.

If the "Democratic Putin" interpretation is correct, then the interests of the two figures are in alignment and there will be little conflict between them except on tactical matters.

The further one moves away from the Democratic Putin interpretation toward the "Medvedev as Frontman" interpretation, though, the chances for conflict become greater and greater. The source of the conflictual tendencies is that Medvedev is unlikely to remain satisfied in the role of frontman. If he really is a democrat, he will want to break Russia free of Putin's autocratic chains. But if Medvedev is really just another cynical autocrat who happens to have a nice face, he will have even more reason to want to call the shots himself. Plus, there are sure to be powerful groups in both the business and political spheres who, fearing that Putin might not approve a given request, turn to Medvedev first. While such groups are unlikely even to try to convince Medvedev to launch an all-out assault on Putin's power, they may succeed at the margins, on smaller issues that over time can have a significant impact on the balance of power. Certainly this is at least plausible: Russian and world history is full of political allies--even friends and relatives--who eventually came into conflict when their institutional and political interests started to differ.

Uncertainty as a defining factor

Who would ultimately win a power struggle between President Medvedev and Prime-Minister-United-Russia-Leader (PMERL) Putin? Assuming Medvedev is a clever politician and would only gradually prepare for such a move, the answer can only be unclear. Supporting this conclusion is the fact that the leading minds of Russian politology are themselves in great disagreement on the outcome of any such struggle.

To be sure, what Putin is doing is highly unusual: He is effectively separating the informal power of the presidency from the formal power of the presidency. Medvedev has little personal informal power, but will wield the strongest collection of formal powers attached to any single state post. Putin has accumulated his vast informal authority through the presidency and has now invested this authority in the institutions of the government and United Russia.

The result of all this is highly uncertain--while informal powers matter, so do formal ones. This is one reason why politicians frequently struggle mightily over formal institutions, as with the 1993 constitutional battle: Formal institutions have a tendency to attract or reinforce informal power. Yet leaders with great informal power can also change formal institutions, as Putin could yet do with effective control over the legislative branch.

The uncertainty all this creates is itself likely to be the factor that will have the single greatest influence on Russia's near-term political development. Any leader depends on various elites (ministers, police, courts, regional officials, businesspeople, etc.) to implement their decisions and thus make the leader's power real. Elites are likely to obey when they are confident that the leader (or that leader's allies) will be able in the future to punish disobedient elites. But when they are uncertain who will have the most power to punish in the future, the potential for divides in the elite becomes great. And when there are two people seen as plausible centers of future power, separate groups of elites are likely to coalesce around each of these two people.

Russia today is thus a country pregnant with possibilities. Putin will have tremendous influence, but his actions to date could be interpreted as anything from a Machiavellian attempt to build a Western-oriented democracy to a stealthy promotion of brutal dictatorship. Plus, Russians themselves do not know the degree to which Putin will actually be able to realize what he wants, because the real motives and power of Medvedev are similarly unknown. This double uncertainty opens the door for political struggle with the outcome itself being uncertain.

Interestingly, this may not be all bad for democracy's chances in Russia. Elites who are uncertain about the future often become the most powerful advocates of an institutionalised political safety net, a political system where those who lose one political battle are not destroyed but have the hope of returning to power later. And where power is divided, as it may well become between the presidency and the PMERL, there can arise the temptation to mobilise public opinion as a political resource when policy differences emerge. Such a situation is more likely to resemble or generate democracy than a system in which power is unambiguously and enduringly united in the hands of a single man.

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Russia's Uncertainty Principle, Henry Hale