Alexei Zudin
Political development in times of crisis
The outgoing year 2008 has been exceptionally important, complicated and dramatic. Summing up its political results is not an easy task. The main reason is that the context of political development has changed. The change of context divides the past year into two parts: the events roughly in the first half of the year differ dramatically from those that followed.
A muted promise of change
What were the key trends in the first half of the year? First of all, it saw the end of the electoral cycle. On the one hand, it was a regular cycle, but on the other it was special. Its key feature was that a controlled transition of power had taken place.
Russia has a new President. New development-oriented economic instruments are beginning to take shape. The key new feature is the so-called development institutions, the best known of which are state corporations, but the list does not end there.
A new course in domestic policy is taking shape. The role of the courts and the judiciary system is growing, a systematic and concerted fight against corruption has been launched and the rule of law has been strengthened for citizens and for the state. This set of reforms was proclaimed by President Putin in his time, but it was only part of a larger programme which was fleshed out later. Medvedev assumed his post of President with a more compact agenda because part of the work had been carried out by his predecessor. Today the above areas of effort are Medvedev's responsibility, Medvedev speaks out more frequently on these issues and recruits his own people to implement these projects.
A new foreign policy is taking shape which seeks to bring Russia back into the world arena as a global player.
Finally - and this point partially overlaps with the above - a new stage has begun in transforming the Russian political regime: a movement from monocentrism to deconcentration at the top. The tandem of President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin is the embodiment of that process. The political clout has shifted from the President to the Premier, yet the President has not lost any of his constitutional powers. The emergence of a second figure also means the beginnings of depersonalisation of power. Simultaneously the role of the parties, mainly of United Russia, has increased: the Prime Minister has become its leader even though - also very important - he is not himself a member of the Party. It has become clear that the regime will change and will do so by itself. The overall direction is greater "openness". The changes will be cautious, conservative, but consistent.
A year split in two
Since the second half of the year the context of Russia's political development has begun to change. There were two main circumstances. First, the war with Georgia and a fresh aggravation of relations with the West. The conflict in the Caucasus has confirmed that it is not about communism, but about Russia, that the main thing is geopolitical rivalry and not the social system. Second, and most important, the world economic crisis has been critical in changing the development context.
The crisis hit Russia "during takeoff", at a time when the new economic policy was getting off the ground, the political regime was being transformed and Russia was returning to world politics as a global player. The crisis ran counter to the popular expectations formed during the long period of economic growth and political stability. A mood of optimism had prevailed in society, which may make the perception of the crisis particularly painful.
No pat scenarios
The big question mark is whether the change of context will affect the main directions and character of the political development. In such cases one usually thinks in terms of scenarios.
The first scenario suggests itself: the crisis will push the Russian political regime to tighten the screws. The authoritarian scenario is much spoken about abroad while inside the country it is voiced mainly by the opposition that is not represented in parliament. For the West that scenario provides grounds for constantly counteracting Russia in the world arena and for the opposition the hope to come back into politics from which it has been relentlessly squeezed out as the regime was transforming itself.
However, on closer inspection it turns out that the authoritarian scenario is hollow, there is no content to invest it with, except the "administrative zeal" of the bureaucrats (such as stamping out smoking to emulate "European standards"). The prospect of toughening the political regime so far looks more like wishful thinking on the part of its opponents who are looking towards "self-fulfilling prophecies": the first step in implementing these plans is to create an image of a "desired future" ("authoritarian Russia").
We have no evidence to show that the crisis has caused a rejection of the earlier projects of institution building, large and small (to recap, the main direction is a gradual movement towards greater openness). Indeed, the projects are unfolding in spite of the crisis. The first development is the amendments to the Constitution, chief of which increases the terms of the President and the State Duma. The implications of these amendments are only beginning to sink in and psychologically the process has been disrupted by the crisis. The advocates of amendments see them as merely a "quantitative" strengthening of the political institutions (if they last longer they are bound to be stronger) while the opponents attribute it solely to lust for power.
The decoupled cycle effect
Yet the main thing about the amendments is that they disconnect the electoral cycle. From the early 1990s the gap between the parliamentary and the presidential elections has been so small as to make it a single election campaign. Because officially these were separate elections, the Duma campaign inevitably turned into a run-up to the presidential elections thus losing its inherent value. The increase of the presidential term by two years and of the Duma's term by one year creates a one-year lag which makes the parliamentary elections less of a sideshow compared with the presidential election. There is a new opportunity for the key institutions of the Russian state, the presidency and the parliament, to become autonomous. The Duma elections will become much more independent. That substantially strengthens parliament as a political institution although that realisation has yet to sink in.
In addition, it will make the Russian political class healthier. Double elections tended to invest the presidential power with features of autocracy. The double elections created a "winner takes all" situation. And when the presidential term drew to a close that situation created an enormous tension in the political class: it was necessary to divine who would win the election but even in that case much of the ruling team found itself thrown overboard.
Thus, the weakening of the link between the two main national elections generates powerful effects that contribute towards greater political openness. These effects are not yet visible, but they are exceptionally important. That is the first of the projects which has been launched in spite of the crisis.
A party turns from a base into a dominant party
Second, the transformation of the party system, of which the early signs were seen in the first half of the year, has been put into higher relief. The most visible part of the change is that United Russia has increasingly been emerging as the dominant party.
Let us think of the other amendments proposed by President Medvedev. Governors are nominated by the party which has won the elections for the local legislatures, the Federation Council is to be formed on a different basis, with all those who have won elections getting in. With the electoral system based on party principles it means that United Russia may in the future gain a foothold in the upper house of Parliament. Finally, the federal Government is to report to the State Duma, which is based on the party principle.
However, legislation, even if it seems to favour just one party today, is not written with a particular party in mind, thus other parties, even though initially on a modest scale, may grow and strengthen.
Opportunities for the little guys: niche parties
Another shift in the development of the party system is the new political right project. It was preceded by repositioning of United Russia from the right-of-centre niche into a centrist party thus vacating a place for a future right-wing political force. It happened during the speech Vladimir Putin delivered to party activists several days before the new project of the political right was unveiled. One of Medvedev's implicit tasks is to ensure reintegration of business and the new middle class into the political regime: their alienation had become evident at the end of Putin's presidential term. The new right-wing project provides a channel for a political comeback of the part of the middle class. It remains unclear, however, how popular the new right-wing party will be among the electorate.
Interestingly, the new party is being created de facto - although it has not been officially declared - as a party of entrepreneurs whereas SPS (the Union of Right Forces) had been largely an ideological party. That suggests another interesting parallel. At its last congress the KPRF (the Communist Party) consolidated itself on the traditional platform, in fact it has been re-Stalinised. Party leader Gennady Zyuganov has defeated the wing which sought to increase the party's appeal to the electorate. That, and the new right-wing project, have one common feature which is very important for understanding the direction in which the party system will evolve. Both parties have clear-cut internal boundaries and are unlikely to increase their electorates. There is a prospect for systemic opposition parties (semi-systemic in the case of KPRF) to turn into so-called niche parties.
Such parties are very important in systems with one dominant party: the latter is able to command the centrist majority (the so-called median voter) to some extent because all the other parties are confined to their electoral niches and are unable to grow because of their ideology, their cadre and their core electorate. Such a transformation of the party system can diminish the importance of the administrative resources available to the party to preserve its dominance: the system begins to support itself. Society is given an impulse different from that of the times of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) - the parties must have their electoral niches and the parties must be represented in government bodies (from the federal to the municipal levels). Otherwise they will disappear or swell the ranks of the anti-establishment opposition.
Shrinking resources is yet another stimulus
So, the crisis has not impeded political development. The system is set to develop according to the schedule made during the pre-crisis period.
There is yet another factor that militates against the toughening of the regime in response to the crisis. When resources become limited (as is the case in crisis conditions) the adequate reaction of the system is to develop towards greater openness. There is no other option to meet the challenge of shrinking resources without incurring exorbitant costs. By contrast, the cost of an authoritarian scenario is extremely high.
Thus, the change of context makes it possible for openness to become an answer to demands from two directions. A demand from the top, which emerged in the first half of 2008 and unfolded in the second half, in spite of the crisis, and a possible demand from the bottom. The prospect of the emergence of the demand for openness from the bottom would greatly depend on the depth and scale of the crisis. And only when and if it happens will there be room for real and not imaginary scenarios. A potential fork in the road still lies ahead.
New demands to the players
But the fork in the road may never come. One fundamental circumstance is already known: opinion polls show that society reacted to the start of the crisis by increasing its confidence in Putin. There is a demand for the main leadership qualities he embodies as a crisis manager and a strategist. The nation has rallied around a leader and the important thing is how durable that mobilisation will be. Much depends on the accuracy in diagnosing popular sentiments. The fact that Putin told the Congress of United Russia and - even more succinctly - during his live question-and-answer session that the state will not leave the people in the lurch as it did in 1998 demonstrates an awareness of the public demand for a Government that is responsible and effective.
The crisis increases the political burden on Vladimir Putin who effectively plays three roles: that of the Prime Minister, the party leader and the national leader. The creation of an economic "crisis management headquarters" headed by Igor Shuvalov, and the recent decision to combine his efforts with those of the Government's social block headed by Alexander Zhukov are designed apparently to enhance the ability of the state to meet its obligations to the citizens without losing sight of the strategic perspective. The same goes for the ability of others to meet their obligations: the employers to the work collectives ("not to be in a hurry to lay off the workforce"), the entrepreneurs to consumers, and the regional and local authorities to the inhabitants of regions, cities and villages. Everyone has yet to get accustomed to economic cycles: an upsurge is no cause for relaxation and starry-eyed dreams, while a crisis is not the end of the world.
The crisis challenges the ability of players to be flexible, to learn, to make imaginative decisions, including by bringing in social forces. The unexpected cooperation agreement between United Russia and the Socialist Trade Unions (and not the Federation of Independent Trade Unions) and the emerging "white collar" trade union (also under the patronage of United Russia) may indicate a movement in that direction. The ability to quickly build up "feedback" will go a long way to determine whether the course for greater openness will be implemented in a controlled mode.
(Alexei Zudin is a department head at the Centre for Political Technologies)
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When resources become limited the adequate way for the system to react is to become more open.
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As the result of the amendments Duma elections become much more important in their own right. The parliamentary campaign will cease to be a mere run-up to the presidential campaign.