Russian Politics and Presidential Power Transformational Leadership from Gorbachev to Putin

313 Pages·2016·1.86 MB·English

Russian Politics and
Presidential Power
For Knox Eric Ogden
SAGE was founded in 1965 by Sara Miller McCune to support
the dissemination of usable knowledge by publishing innovative
and high-quality research and teaching content. Today, we
publish over 900 journals, including those of more than 400
learned societies, more than 800 new books per year, and a
growing range of library products including archives, data, case
studies, reports, and video. SAGE remains majority-owned by
our founder, and after Sara’s lifetime will become owned by
a charitable trust that secures our continued independence.
Los Angeles | London | New Delhi | Singapore | Washington DC | Melbourne
Russian Politics and
Presidential Power
Transformational Leadership
from Gorbachev to Putin
Donald R. Kelley
FOR INFORMATION: Copyright  2017 by CQ Press, an Imprint of SAGE Publications,
Inc. CQ Press is a registered trademark of Congressional
Quarterly Inc.
CQ Press
An Imprint of SAGE Publications, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or
2455 Teller Road
utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
Thousand Oaks, California 91320
including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage
E-mail:
Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xi
About the Author xiii
Chapter 1: Executive Power in Russian Politics 1
What Does Executive Leadership Mean in the
Russian Context? 3
Authoritarian Modernizers: The Prototype 3
Characteristics of Authoritarian Modernizers 7
What Can We Learn from Past “Executives”? 12
Earlier Authoritarian Modernizers 12
The Brezhnev Era: The Long Calm before the Storm 19
The Uncertain Interregnum: Andropov and Chernenko 21
Chapter 2: The Gorbachev Presidency 25
The Starting Point: What Gorbachev Intended 26
Gorbachev’s Rise to Power 28
From General Secretary to President 31
The Reform Agenda: Politics and Policy 32
Glasnost 3
The Economy: Perestroika 33
Judicial Reform 35
Foreign Policy 36
Political Reform: Democratization 40
Democratization of the Communist Party 41
The Gorbachev Presidency 43
The Presidency of the Russian Federation 45
The Battle of the Presidents 46
Gorbachev as an Authoritarian Modernizer 51
Chapter 3: The Yeltsin Presidency, 1991–1993 55
Yeltsin’s Path to Moscow 55
From Outcast to President 59
The President Becomes a President 61
A Real President Gets a Real Nation 64
Personal Rivalries 65
Economic Reforms as a Political Issue 66
Yeltsin’s Economic Reforms: Phase I (1991–1993) 68
The Reform of the Party-State 69
National Identity and the Union Treaty 70
Judicial Reform 73
The President and the Legislature 74
Foreign Policy 81
Yeltsin as an Authoritarian Modernizer:
A Preliminary Assessment 83
Chapter 4: Yeltsin and Russia Reborn 87
The Presidency and the Legislature 91
Judicial Reform 95
The 1993 Duma Elections 96
The 1995 Duma Elections 99
The 1996 Presidential Election 102
The Second Term: From Victory to Resignation 105
Yeltsin’s Economic Reforms: Phase II (1994-1999) 109
Foreign Policy 111
The First Chechen War 113
The December 1999 Duma Elections 114
Yeltsin’s Surprise Resignation 117
Yeltsin as an Authoritarian Modernizer:
A Final Assessment 118
Chapter 5: Putin I, 2000–2008 121
The 2000 Presidential Election 122
Vladimir Putin: From Spy Novels to the Kremlin 123
The Putin Formula 125
The Putin Presidency Emerges from Yeltsin’s Shadow 134
Outside the Garden Ring: “Managing” the New Democracy 140
The Presidency and the Legislature: The 2003 Duma Elections 141
Judicial Reform 142
The 2004 Presidential Election 143
The Rules and the Game Change 145
The Run-Up to the 2008 Presidential Election 146
The 2007 Duma Elections 148
Putin’s Economic Reforms 150
Foreign Policy 152
The Second Chechen War 154
The 2008 Presidential Election 155
Putin as an Authoritarian Modernizer 157
Chapter 6: The “Tandem” 163
Dmitry Medvedev: Putin’s Friend from Leningrad 166
Governing the Nation in Tandem 168
Medvedev and Putin in Tandem 172
Factional Realities 173
Medvedev and Economic Reform 174
Medvedev and Political Modernization 177
Judicial Reform 180
Foreign Policy 181
The Russian-Georgian War 184
Medvedev and the Legislature: The 2011 Duma Elections 186
The Duma Election and Voting Fraud 188
The 2012 Presidential Election 190
Election Results 197
Medvedev as an Authoritarian Modernizer 198
Chapter 7: Putin II, 2012– 203
The “New” Cabinet 204
Putin II: Old and New Realities 205
Maintaining the Balance within the Garden Ring 206
Controlling the Opposition 208
The Economy: Prosperity and Modernity 209
Foreign Policy 212
Crimea and Ukraine 214
Russian Foreign Policy and the World 220
The Three Arenas of Russian Politics 222
Inside the Garden Ring: Factional Politics in Putin II 222
A Note on the Siloviki 228
Outside the Garden Ring: Politics in the Rest of
the Russian Federation 230
The Authoritarian Modernizer Revisited 231
The Legal System and the Courts 233
Connecting Those Inside and Outside the Garden Ring 235
Political Parties 236
Civil Society 239
Control of the Media 240
The Leadership Cult as a Connection 241
Putin as an Authoritarian Modernizer 242
Chapter 8: The Future(s) of Russian Politics 251
The Future of the Russian Presidency(ies) 252
What Will Drive Change? 256
Changes in the Nature of Factional Politics 257
Changes in the Nature of Electoral Politics at the
National, Regional, and Local Levels 263
Politics Moves to the Street: A Color Revolution
or Moscow Spring 276
What Is a Color Revolution? 277
A Russian Color Revolution? 279
Index 285
Preface
hen Mikhail Gorbachev became general secretary of the Com-
Wmunist Party, all of us who studied the Soviet Union knew that
change was coming. The Brezhnev + 2 era was over; it had lasted for
twenty-o ne years, and it had its good points and bad. But now change
would come, because that’s what new leaders do. But our conventional
wisdom told us that it would be gradual and probably not fundamentally
change the course of the nation. We were wrong. Change came, slowly at
first and then with increasing speed. Reforms become revolutions, and
eventually revolutions play out and somebody picks up the pieces.
Trying to understand that trajectory in the broader context of Russian
history is the point of this book. Revolutions and reconstructions do not
occur in isolation. Both play out in the context of a nation’s history. You
cannot escape that past; it shapes revolutions and the new order that
emerges. But you also cannot escape your notion of the future, especially if
much of your history has been about willing a new and better future into
existence.
That’s where authoritarian modernizers come in. They are transforma-
tional leaders who set out to build that future, always rejecting at least some
portion of the past and sometimes reinterpreting the works of past mod-
ernizers whose ideas had misdirected the nation. The premise of this book
is that this perspective is helpful in understanding both the disintegration
of the Soviet Union and the nature and modus operandi of the Russian
Federation that rose in its place. It doesn’t explain everything, of course;
culture, formal institutions, and the serendipitous interplay of a hundred
other variables of time and place and circumstance all play a role. But it is
a place to begin, one that provides a link between the past and the future
and that helps in understanding the present.
There is remarkably little theoretical literature about the phenomenon
of authoritarian modernizers in the conventional literature in history,
ix