Reports & Papers
BCSIA: 1999-2000 ANNUAL REPORT
6. Strengthening Democratic Institutions Project (SDI)
Members
Graham T. Allison, Jr., Director
Peter Rutland, Executive Director, Caspian Studies Program
Brenda Shaffer, Research Director, Caspian Studies Program
Melissa Carr, SDI Project Coordinator and Program Director, Caspian Studies Program
Stefan Zhurek, Executive Director, Moscow Initiatives
Henry Hale, Research Associate and Russian Democratization Strand Coordinator
Ben Dunlap, Research Assistant
Emily Van Buskirk, Research Assistant
Emily Goodhue, Staff Assistant
Vladimir Boxer, Fellow
Maury Devine, Fellow, Caspian Studies Program
Background
The Strengthening Democratic Institutions Project (SDI) was created at the John F. Kennedy School of Government in 1990 by Graham Allison and David Hamburg, President of Carnegie Corporation of New York, to catalyze Western support for the political and economic transformation of the Soviet Union. The project became part of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs in 1995 when Dr. Allison was appointed Director of the Center.
SDI was the first independent Western research and technical assistance project to establish itself on the ground in Moscow. It continues to actively engage Russian counterparts and encourage other Western independent and governmental actors to become involved in the post-Soviet transition. The project undertook the following initiatives from 1990 to 1998:
· Developing the basic framework for Western economic assistance to the Soviet Union and then to Russia as its largest successor state. This framework was later adapted and implemented in the successive International Monetary Fund programs for Russia.
· Drawing attention to the Russo-Japanese dispute over the Northern Territories and urging a resolution that would facilitate substantial Japanese financial support for Russia''s economic reform.
· Promoting Western support for the drafting of a new Russian constitution and for the development of a professional and independent press.
· Analyzing the phenomenon of ethno-political conflict in the former Soviet Union.
· Proposing a strategy for eliminating nuclear arsenals in Ukraine, Kazakstan, and Belarus.
· Encouraging a reevaluation of the relationship between Russia and the former Soviet republics and promoting active Western engagement of Ukraine and other key states.
· Monitoring and analyzing conflicts in Chechnya and the Russian North Caucasus.
· Providing technical support for the development of Russian political parties and in-depth commentary on the 1995-96 series of Russian parliamentary and presidential elections.
· Creating a special executive program for high-level officials from the government of Kazakstan on national performance, strategy, and organization.
· Offering high-level fora for discussions of crucial issues related to the transformation of the Russian agribusiness sector, and the promotion of Western investment in Russia.
· Assisting in the creation of a functioning mortgage market for Moscow and other regions of the Russian Federation.
· Highlighting the prospects for and complications associated with the development of petroleum resources in the Caspian Sea.Research Agenda And Policy Outreach
Activity for 1999-2000 focused on six major research and technical assistance projects:
I. Sustaining Russian Democratization, which stresses research and analysis on Russian politics, party-building, parliamentary behavior and party organization, the emergence of new political elites, the development of inter-elite relationships in Russia, and the 1999-2000 parliamentary and presidential elections.II. The Caspian Studies Program, which seeks to understand and advance U.S. political, economic, and security interests in the Caspian Basin by avoiding confrontation with Russia and promoting the interests of the regional states.III. The Russian Middle-Class Mortgage Initiative, which addresses a cluster of issues at the top of the agenda of Russia''s economic marketization and also its political pluralization and stabilization - including a persistent housing crisis and the creation of a middle class of small property owners.IV. The U.S.-Russian Investment Symposium, which focuses on the single largest challenge for the Russian economy in the decade ahead - attracting private-sector international direct and equity investment - and reviews the Russian economic and business climate, and opportunities and obstacles for Western investment in the Russian Federation.
V. The Russian Information Revolution Project, which helps identify policies and catalyze actions that will help Russia become a world leader in the field of software and technology development in order both to increase economic development and to sustain an open society.VI. The Moscow Telecommunications Program, which provides videoconferencing capability to senior officials in Moscow so that they may consult on issues pertaining to politics, business, and economics with experts at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and others in the Harvard and Boston communities.
I. Sustaining Russian Democratization
Russia has made tremendous strides in its difficult transition from Communist rule, and the years 1999-2000 will undoubtedly be considered historic. With the election of new President Vladimir Putin in March 2000, Russia successfully completed the first democratic transition of power in its thousand-year history. In addition, the December 1999 Duma elections marked the third consecutive multi-party parliamentary elections in the 1990s. These achievements are particularly impressive given that many asserted throughout the 1990s that they would never happen due to Russia''s long and sad authoritarian tradition. Nevertheless, it is important to recognize that Russia still has a long way to go in developing sturdy democratic institutions. As outside observers have concluded over the last several years, the Russian State Duma has yet to exercise its legislative functions fully, and Russian political parties still lack much authority outside Moscow. Under the auspices of a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York, SDI tracked these events carefully, engaging in a wide variety of research projects and intellectual activity designed to improve our understanding of Russia''s landmark elections and to disseminate our insights to those in the U.S. and beyond (including Russia itself) who are or should be interested in Russia.
Russian Election Watch Bulletin
The flagship product of the Democratization Strand''s effort to improve our understanding of the Russian elections was the publication Russian Election Watch (REW). Edited and written by Research Associate Henry Hale, REW provided concise, incisive analysis of Russian campaign developments in a highly readable format between July 1999 and April 2000, the month after the presidential election. Each issue contained an engaging executive summary of the most important events of the previous month, the latest poll results, important quotes and facts, all in a very accessible format. Moreover, REW blazed ground by tapping Russia''s own outstanding community of political analysts, rather than relying on Westerners observing Russia from afar. Each month, REW published the perspectives of the major Russian parties as well as opinion pieces from up to seven leading Russian experts from across the political spectrum. REW almost immediately captured a large and high-powered audience in the policymaking, business, journalistic and think-tank communities, as well as others. Indeed, SDI received written letters from senior officials of the EBRD, U.S.-Russia Business Council, and the International Foundation for Election Systems, among others, describing how our bulletin played an important role in informing their activities in Russia.
After the March presidential elections, SDI responded to demand for the continued supply of information on Russia generated by REW by launching a successor publication, Russia Watch, focused on Russian politics more generally now that Putin has taken charge and is beginning to put his own stamp on Russian politics. In addition to some of the recognizable features of REW (concise, readable summaries of important events; key facts and figures; quotes from key figures on major happenings; and commentary from leading Russian analysts), each issue of Russia Watch is given a special focus on a particular issue critical to Russian democratization and leading experts are invited to contribute guest articles on this issue. For example, the June edition featured a focus on Russia''s free press and the August issue is examining the impact of economic pluralism and the "oligarchs" on democracy. Hale co-edited the first issue with SDI Research Assistant Ben Dunlap, but handed off the editorship to Dunlap as of the second issue.
"Russia Votes" Press Conferences
SDI capitalized on the momentum generated by Russian Election Watch by holding a series of major press conferences and media events in both Russia and the U.S. On November 27, 1999, SDI teamed up with Harvard''s Davis Center for Russian Studies to organize a briefing session, entitled "Russia Votes 1999," on the upcoming parliamentary elections, for mass media and American specialists in the Boston area. The two centers gathered leading specialists from both Russia and the U.S. to preview nearly 100 participants on the problems and prospects facing each major Russian party, developments in campaign law and practices, and the role of the media in the election. Building on this success, the two Harvard institutions joined forces again to bring their services to Washington. For this event, entitled "Russia Votes 2000: Sources on Putin, U.S.-Russian Relations," SDI and its partner sought out both Russians and Americans who knew Russia''s leading presidential contender, Vladimir Putin, closely and personally - a very important contribution to our understanding given that only Russian specialists had even heard of the man before he became Yeltsin''s surprise pick for Prime Minister in August 1999. We succeeded not only in bringing in top American and Russian experts, but also secured the participation of Sergei Stepashin, Putin''s predecessor as Prime Minister who retains a friendship and strong working relationship with Putin and who was at the time head of the Duma''s Anti-Corruption Commission (he is now head of the Duma''s Audit Chamber, the Russian analogue to our GAO). The event attracted an impressive audience of leading media figures, including ABC''s Ted Koppel and the Washington Post''s David Hoffmann, and was broadcast live on C-SPAN.
Seizing the opportunity presented by Stepashin''s participation in the conference, SDI organized a meeting for him with Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott and then flew him to Cambridge for a series of meetings and appearances with the Harvard community. In his main lecture in Weiner Auditorium, Stepashin announced plans for a major anti-corruption drive. While at Harvard, Stepashin also gave an interview to the Boston Globe, met with the SDI research team about our plans to buttress Russian democracy and hosted a "tea" for about thirty Russian students studying at Harvard. During two of the evenings Stepashin was here, SDI organized dinners for him with leading U.S. businesspeople and practitioners, with whom the former Prime Minister discussed his ideas about reforming the Russian economy, ending corruption in Russia, and ways in which the Western business community might help.
After prominent Russian political analysts convinced us that Russian Election Watch would fill an important informational niche in Russia itself, SDI organized two press conferences in Moscow on the eve of the presidential elections to present REW and to share REW and Harvard perspectives on the Russian elections. In the first event, SDI teamed up with Sergei Markov''s Moscow-based Institute of Political Studies and the Carnegie Moscow Center to reach out to Western media, think-tank and government representations located in Russia. Speakers included Allison, Hale, Boxer, Markov, Carnegie Moscow Center scholar Nikolai Petrov and Communist analyst Viktor Peshkov. The second press conference aimed primarily at the Russian media. Hosted by the chief political editor of Russia''s largest-circulation newspaper, Argumenty i Fakty''s Andrei Uglanov, this session included presentations by Allison, Hale, Boxer and the director of Harvard''s Davis Center for Russian Studies, Timothy Colton.
Engaging The Public And The Policy Community During The Election Season
During Russia''s political season, SDI''s leading political researchers presented their views to many different and important audiences. Allison gave talks or participated in working meetings at the World Economic Forum in Davos, the International Press Institute World Congress, and the Council on Foreign Relations. Hale delivered a number of talks on Russian elections, nationalism, and foreign policy to important audiences ranging from the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, Harvard University, and major conferences of policymakers organized by the Program on New Approaches to Russian Security (PONARS) in Washington, DC. He also shared his views in several mass media outlets, including two interviews in the major Russian newspaper Segodnya (on Putin''s foreign policy and the future of democracy in Russia), one interview in the worldwide call-in talk show "Talk to America" on Voice of America radio and Internet telecast site and one interview on Christopher Lydon''s radio talk show "The Connection," a Public Radio International program broadcast in New York and New England. Boxer shared his insights on several Moscow radio shows the day of and immediately following the parliamentary elections: "Russkoe Radio" (December 19, 1999), Radio "Mayak" (12/20), "Radio Rossii" (12/21), Radio "Vozrozhdenie" (12/21), and "Govorit Moskva" (12/21). Then in days leading up to the presidential election in the Spring, Boxer was interviewed for on the BBC''s Russian Service and participated in a Round Table Discussion at the Carnegie Center in Moscow entitled, "Presidential Elections in Russia".
Throughout the period 1999-2000, SDI has sustained an active publication program aimed at improving the understanding of policymakers and other influential foreign policy thinkers. BCSIA Director Graham Allison led the way with op-eds on Russia''s parliamentary and presidential elections, Russian nuclear security, and U.S. missile defense policy in the Boston Globe, Washington Post, and Christian Science Monitor. Allison also served as Task Force Chair to a Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) report entitled Managing the Global Nuclear Materials Threat, and co-authored the report on America''s National Interests, produced by the Commission on America''s National Interests. Henry Hale published three policy memos through PONARS, which circulated them to a large list of policymakers at all levels in Washington, DC, and elsewhere. These memos assessed Russia''s progress in political party development and democratization in light of the recent elections and made policy recommendations based on these assessments. Hale contributed a report on the 1999 Duma elections to Ambassador Thomas Graham''s LAWS project designed to promote constitutionality in Russia. Hale also teamed up with Boxer to publish an analysis of Putin''s campaign strategy in the May 2000 issue of AAASS Newsnet, the newsletter received by every member of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, the premier academic association of specialists on the post-Communist world.
Capping these efforts off, SDI is preparing to publish all issues of Russian Election Watch in a single compendium together with a preface by Davis Center Director Tim Colton and an introductory chapter authored by Henry Hale examining what the 1999-2000 elections mean for Russian democracy. This volume, edited by Hale and entitled Russia''s Electoral War of 1999-2000, will therefore not only provide important analysis of the Russian elections but will also become an important reference for those seeking information on these elections in the future.
Russia''s Electoral War of 1999-2000 also represents one of the fruits of SDI''s collaboration with Davis Center Director Timothy Colton, who provided an important preface based on his extensive survey research on the elections. Throughout the past year, the SDI team was in touch with Colton to plan joint events (like the Russia Votes media briefings described above), discuss important issues, develop cooperative research projects and jointly participate in Harvard community talks on the election process. Colton also played an important part in our Russian Political Party-Building Program (described below), drawing on his analysis of his survey work to help leading Russian political party representatives understand their own bases of support and develop future party-building strategies. As this relationship continues to flourish, we anticipate publishing a longer analytical piece by Colton on popular attitudes towards democracy in Russia based on his polling data. SDI has also cooperated actively with other leading scholars at the Davis Center for Russian Studies, for example by setting up a discussion among leading Russian political strategist Leonid Gozman, Davis Center Associate Director Marshall Goldman and former Davis Center Director and current Harvard Baird Professor of History Richard Pipes on the future of Russian reforms.
Political Party Building Program
Underlying SDI''s success in raising the level of American understanding of Russian politics was its continued and longstanding direct engagement with primary Russian political actors themselves. Since 1994, SDI has worked directly with the leadership of the principal democratic reformist parties on party-building at the local level through its Russian Political Party-Building Program, and has sought to maintain active relations with all major political movements in Russia regardless of ideology. To complement other programs that rely primarily on sending Western experts to Russia to address party-building and campaigning issues, SDI''s Party-Building Program has emphasized bringing small groups of top Russian political party leaders to the United States to observe Western experiences firsthand, allowing them to meet American counterparts as equals and to reflect on their own experiences and needs from a distance.
With the assistance of a new grant from the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, SDI was able to continue this venture in 1999, beginning with a program for one of Russia''s leading liberal movements, Grigory Yavlinsky''s Yabloko Party. Based on SDI Director Graham Allison''s bilateral meetings with Yavlinsky, and Henry Hale''s consultations with Yabloko Party officials during his extended trip to Russia in the spring of 1999, SDI tailored a program to address Yabloko''s needs in the field of training campaign pollsters. On August 8-15, 1999, the program brought three of Yabloko''s top pollsters to the United States for a series of meetings with high-level U.S. party pollsters and campaign strategists, including political consultant, former Democratic Party strategist, and former Taubman Center for State and Local Government Executive Director for External Affairs Nick Mitropoulos; Republican pollster and former Kennedy School Institute of Politics Fellow Chris Henick; and Democratic Party campaign strategist John Marttila. In addition to meetings at Harvard and in Washington, D.C., the program included a visit to Iowa to witness American democracy in action during the state''s straw poll for the 2000 U.S. presidential race. Analogous tailor-made programs were crafted for the Fatherland movement and General Alexander Lebed''s party for the fall of 1999.
The 1999-2000 elections have already proven to have provided parties with a major impetus to strengthen their organizations and to avoid fractionalization, two issues that have long proved troublesome for the development of Russia''s political party system. Almost all of Russia''s major leaders now understand that organization is important and that they need to unite with others of similar views if they are going to survive in Russian politics long into the future. SDI, by virtue of its past successes and close tracking of key people and events in Russia, capitalized on these trends first by bringing a small party-building delegation to the U.S. from the Union of Right Forces (SPS) movement, which emerged from the 1999 parliamentary elections as the leading pro-market, pro-democracy movement in Russia. SPS sent the chairman of its executive committee, Boris Mints, to the U.S. at the head of a delegation that also included his financial and international relations advisors. Mints had just taken charge of SPS''s new party-building effort as head of the newly created SPS Organizational Committee tasked with developing party infrastructure and turning SPS from a "movement" into a full-fledged "party" in the next year''s time. At SPS''s own request, SDI set up meetings in Washington, Massachusetts and Maryland for the SPS delegation with party and related political officials at virtually all levels, including state representatives, members of the U.S. congress, presidential campaign fundraisers, state party leaders and the executive directors of both the national Republican and Democratic Parties. This direct interaction with the SPS leaders not only benefited SPS (as they enthusiastically testified), but also helped to give SDI very deep and penetrating insight into SPS as a developing party.
SDI has long sought to complement the efforts of other Western organizations trying to promote the development of strong political parties and stable democracy in Russia. To this end, SDI compiled and published the Inventory of Western Programs Promoting Russian Democracy. Edited by Henry Hale, the Inventory provides summary information, both in a table and a series of one-page descriptions, of virtually all major Western organizations we found that run programs working directly with Russian politicians, political parties and/or government officials with the explicit aim of promoting democracy in Russia. This publication was circulated to all of the included organizations as well as major foundations supporting related activity in Russia in order to promote communication and synergy among these institutions working for the same basic goal.
Programs For Duma Members
SDI also continued its longstanding and fruitful cooperation with the Harvard Executive Program for Members of the Russian State Duma run by the Harvard U.S.-Russian National Security Program, headed by Professor Robert Blackwill. This program brings a delegation of roughly 30 Duma members from virtually all political factions to Harvard each year for a series of lectures and discussions on the role of legislators in a democratic society, with a particular focus on the U.S. experience. During this year''s program, Democratization Strand coordinator Henry Hale delivered a lecture on party-building, examining the U.S. experience to see how it compares with Russia''s experience and what it might say about which Russian party-building strategies are likely to be successful. Hale also met on an individual or small-group basis with nearly every Russian delegate to discuss their own views on party-building and the development of Russia''s democratic system as well as a range of other topics (such as U.S.-Russian relations) initiated by the deputies themselves. BCSIA Director Allison also spoke to the Duma members on "The Use of Military Force in the International System."
In conjunction with these efforts, SDI continued its long-term assistance to the Moscow School of Political Studies, headed by Elena Nemirovskaya. The Moscow School was established in 1992 to train young Russian politicians in democracy and international relations and to give them an opportunity to meet with international experts from the United States and Western Europe in these areas. The Moscow School has become the leading political training school in Russia. Each year it exposes a diverse group of young, talented leaders from the State Duma, Russia''s regional legislatures, the media, and business to concepts of democracy, civil society, and citizenship. This year, SDI met with Harvard Academy Senior Fellow Lawrence Harrison and helped prepare him for his travel and lecture to the Moscow School.
Research Trips To Russia
Frequent research trips by Allison, Hale and Boxer during the Russian campaign period also played critical roles in keeping SDI''s collective finger firmly on the pulse of Russian events. Allison traveled to Russia during both the Duma and Presidential campaign and election seasons and conducted meetings with high-level political contenders, including Yabloko Party leader Grigory Yavlinsky and Moscow Mayor and Fatherland Movement leader Yuri Luzhkov. Allison also presented his views at press conferences and met with other important SDI partners from Moscow''s think-tank and policy communities. Hale traveled to Russia three times over the past year, twice before the 1999 Duma elections and once for the period immediately preceding and following the presidential voting. During these travels, Hale met with Russian party and campaign leaders (as well as leading national and local level analysts and officials) in Moscow and three other regions carefully chosen to provide some perspective on what is happening in Russia''s motley mix of provinces: democratic Perm, authoritarian Bashkortostan and Communist Bryansk. While these trips were largely research oriented, Hale also used this time to further relationships with key SDI partners, with whom the project collaborates on its initiatives in Russia, including Moscow representatives from Western organizations such as the International Republican Institute, the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; and Russian institutes such as the Moscow School of Political Studies, the Russian Institute for Political Studies, the Center for Election Technologies and the Politika Foundation. Boxer was based primarily in Russia for most of the autumn parliamentary election campaign and also spent about two weeks there before the presidential voting. During this time, Boxer met and talked regularly with senior party leaders from most democratically oriented political parties (including the Union of Right Forces, Yabloko, Unity and Fatherland), carefully tracked the campaign coverage of television and other mass media and provided SDI with valuable inside information on the strategies of most major parties and the Kremlin. Boxer shared his insights with a broader audience in several interviews on Moscow radio stations, described in the above section "Media Appearances."Occasional Seminars
Over the course of the year, SDI also sponsored a number of occasional seminars on key Russian political issues at the Kennedy School, including presentations by Boris Mints, Chairman of the Union of Right Forces Executive Committee, on "Can the Alliance of Russia''s Democrats Last?"; Andrei Uglanov, reporter for Argumenty i Fakty, on "Russia''s Free Press: The Case of Argumenty i Fakty"; Peter Rutland, SDI Affiliate, Executive Director of the Caspian Studies Program, and Professor of Government at Wesleyan University, on "Putin''s Path"; Leonid Gozman, Chief Advisor to Anatoly Chubais, Chairman of Unified Electrical Systems, on "The Second Coming of Russia''s Reformists? What Russia''s New Government Means for Markets and Democracy"; Sergei Stepashin, Former Prime Minister and then-Chairman of the Duma''s Anti-Corruption Commission, on "Russia''s Presidential Elections and the Battle Against Corruption"; a Roundtable discussion with Duma Deputy Konstantin Borovoy and eight Russian regional leaders; and Sergei Rogov, Director of the U.S.A-Canada Institute at the Russian Academy of Sciences, on "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: U.S.-Russian Relations." In addition, in the Fall and Winter, SDI held several screenings of the ORT news program "The Sergei Dorenko Show," taped from satellite television. In July 2000, in partnership with the Davis Center for Russian Studies, SDI initiated weekly screenings of the NTV satirical show, "Kukly," and the news program "Itogi," taped at the Davis Center using a Direct TV feed.
Boris Mints, who gave a presentation at the Harvard Faculty Club on June 20, 2000, was accompanied by Irina Lisitsina, Fundraising and Financial Specialist on the Union of Right Forces Executive Committee, and Victor Sapozhnikov, International Affairs Specialist on the same Executive Committee. Mints described a number of the issue positions of the Union of Right Forces (SPS)-specifically, SPS seeks to guard human rights, develop democratic institutions, increase the accountability of power structures, and develop a market economy. Then, in speaking of the party''s development, he declared it necessary for SPS to continue to expand its presence in the regions, particularly beyond the large cities where the party is already strong. Mints'' presentation came in the midst of an agreement that his party was working out to form a joint political organization with Yabloko, a political movement that most people associate with its leader, Grigory Yavlinsky. He spoke of the merger as a natural move, arguing that the positions taken by both parties on almost all issues were nearly identical.
Leonid Gozman spoke on May 24, 2000 at Coolidge Hall, in an event co-sponsored by SDI and the Davis Center for Russian Studies. Marshall Goldman and Richard Pipes participated in the event as commentators on Gozman''s presentation. Gozman gave a basically positive assessment of the chances for economic reform under Putin, based on four realities: Putin''s popularity with the majority of Russians, his power (to influence Duma decisions, for example), his belief in the urgency of turning Russia into a market economy, and his economic appointments (especially Aleksei Kudrin, German Gref, and Andrei Illarionov). To balance the good news about Putin, Gozman mentioned a few aspects of his presidency so far that should give optimists pause: the prevalence of the KGB crowd around Putin, the Media-Most raid, and other actions that have caused legitimate anxiety about the future of free press in Russia. While Putin''s choice of individuals military and security services officers to head the 7 new administrative districts is worrisome, the administrative reforms themselves are a step in the right direction. In response to Gozman''s presentation, Marshall Goldman stressed the more negative implications of Putin''s appointments and actions so far, concluding that Russia under Putin resembled North Korea more than South Korea. Richard Pipes concluded that for Putin, the law is an administrative instrument. Russia, for Putin, is a state that is not restrained by law. Thus when Putin calls for a dictatorship of the law, rule of law advocates should not necessarily be cheering.
Andrei Uglanov, Jr., a young reporter with Argumenty i Fakty, Russia''s largest independent newspaper, gave a presentation on freedom of press in Russia on July 20 at the Belfer Center. Uglanov argued that true media independence requires more than just private ownership. Many commentators suggest that any media outlet owned privately is independent, while media outlets with some government ownership are not considered independent, Uglanov said. In fact, he asserted, wholly state-owned media are sometimes highly critical of government policy, and privately owned media sometimes provide extremely favorable coverage of the government. The reason, Uglanov explained, is that Russia''s most influential bankers and businessmen can afford to "privatize" the management of major media outlets - even state-owned media companies, while the government usually cannot afford to "buy favorable coverage." Russia''s oligarchs, he argued, play an influential role in shaping the content of major newspaper reports and television broadcasts. Thus, Russian media need to seek independence not only from the state, but also from big business. Argumenty i Fakty, owned by the journalists who work there, has managed to walk this fine line thanks to its reputation as a respectable new source and reliance on advertising revenues to fill its budget.
Peter Rutland presented impressions and conclusions after a semester of teaching in St. Petersburg at a seminar in the Kennedy School''s Taubman Building on May 31, 2000. Rutland''s main assessment was that "Russia is still Russia," which means that theories of market reform and democracy going hand in hand are not true for Russia. Many in the seminar saw this as a pessimistic analysis; however, Rutland argued that the fact that assumptions of convergence do not hold true is not necessarily bad. In Putin''s actions, Rutland identified what he called "non-politics politics", or in other words, "gosudarstvennost" (statism, focus on state building). In connection with this, Rutland observed a revival of political ritual in Russia, similar to the "restoration politics" of 19th century France. He noticed self-absorption or "autism" in Russian society, in which there is significantly little coverage of international news. Finally, he noted that there is still an absence of both a civil society and a middle class apart from a partly criminalized "business elite." The seminar audience appreciated both the freshness and depth of Rutland''s remarks and observations.
Sergei Stepashin spoke to a packed Weiner Auditorium on March 14 about a program to tackle the problem of corruption in Russia and its chances for implementation. For the first time before a public audience in the U.S., Stepashin outlined in detail the steps in a reform proposal that he had recently submitted to acting President Putin, whose response was positive. This program included reform of government finances, implementation of a full treasury system, improving tax legislation and administration, conducting administrative reform, removing many of the bureaucratic barriers that regulate the market, and increasing the role of ethics in business. After a very realistic assessment of the problems facing Russia in its battle against corruption, and the ways to conduct this battle, Stepashin went on to argue that Vladimir Putin, the obvious frontrunner to win election on March 26th, would be in a good position to implement change and real reform. Putin''s strength, Stepashin explained, was in his being less beholden to the financial groupings of influence, or oligarchs, than his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin. Tim Colton thanked Stepashin for his willingness to go beyond general comments, speaking in detail about specific programs. He also expressed his doubts about the chances for a successful anti-corruption campaign- even granting that President Putin really was in fact committed to it- based on the lack of accountability and transparency in parliament, political parties, and the press.
Sergei Rogov addressed the future of U.S.-Russian relations in his presentation entitled "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly," on October 13th at the Belfer Center. Drawing on examples such as disagreements between the U.S. and Russia over the NATO air campaign in Kosovo and the U.S. Senate''s refusal to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, Rogov spoke of three main failures that jeopardize relations between the United States and Russia: the failure of free market and democratic reforms in Russia; the failure of U.S. policy to Russia; and the failure to create mechanisms and institutions to address new international security challenges. Comparing Russia''s current debt obligations to the war reparations paid by Weimar Germany after the first World War, Rogov called on Western lenders to write off Russia''s debt. He also emphasized the need for a new arms control regime to address what he identified as the current disbalance of military power in the world.
Konstantin Borovoy led a roundtable discussion on September 23rd at the Kennedy School with eight other distinguished Russian visitors, traveling in the United States under the auspices of the "Open World" project of the Library of Congress, and hosted in Boston by the office of Congressman Michael Capuano. The discussion of recent political and economic developments in Russia covered such widely-ranging topics as the growth of anti-Americanism in Russia and the challenges facing small and medium businesses. Borovoy argued that there was a propaganda campaign organized by groups around former Prime Minister Primakov, which was responsible for generating pro-Milosevic and anti-NATO sentiments. Vladimir Rud, the vice-governor of Primorski Krai in the Russian Far East, argued that the most important factor in political development was a working economy. Mr. Rud then identified what he saw as the main problem: Russia has left behind state ownership of property, but has not yet reached private ownership. Vladimir Gayev, a local administrator from the Samara region, named the tax system as the root of Russia''s economic problems. Other issues discussed were the targeting of aid to Russia''s regions, the instability of the Russian banking system, the financial gap between Moscow and the regions, and the benefits of direct investment to certain regions.
SDI also took advantage of a variety of leading practitioners and specialists on Russia who happened to be passing through the Boston area, organizing small meetings with them for our core research team. In particular, SDI was interested in brainstorming with them strategies of reducing the likelihood that Russia will revert back to authoritarian rule. While Ambassador James Collins sounded an optimistic note in his conversation with SDI researchers, minimizing the threats to Russian democracy, E. Wayne Merry in his meeting with the SDI team noted the difficulties of promoting democracy in Russia and discussed possible threats to Russians'' hard won freedoms. SDI also consulted about Russian democracy and the Chechen War of 1999-2000 in a meeting on February 2nd with David Filipov, the Boston Globe''s Moscow Bureau Chief who won the Overseas Press Club''s Hal Boyle award for his coverage of the Chechen conflict. He nevertheless got into trouble with Russian authorities for venturing beyond the Russian military''s "guided tours" for war correspondents there. Filipov discussed the surprising lack of organization of Russian forces (describing sizable holes in Russian troop lines, for example) and highlighted as the basic humanity of the residents there, some of who would voluntarily give bread to Russian soldiers.
II. The Caspian Studies Program
With the signing of the first major international contract for the production of Caspian oil in September 1994, the Caspian Sea has become the most sensitive region for geopolitical competition between Russia and the United States. Since 1993, SDI has produced research reports and briefing materials on issues in the region for the scholarly community, governments, and business; provided continuous analysis of the conflicts in the Caucasus; helped to shape the agenda for talks among the parties to the war in Chechnya; established close connections with the relevant policy communities in the United States, Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Kazakstan; created a seminar series with high-level speakers from both the United States government and the region; assisted in bringing fellows and students from the region to programs at the Kennedy School of Government and the University; and run executive programs for regional leaders.Building on these past initiatives, SDI launched a major multi-year Caspian Studies Program and Azerbaijan Initiative at the Kennedy School this year with funding from a generous grant from the U.S.-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce and a consortium of companies including ExxonMobil, Chevron, and Aker-Maritime (in conjunction with ETPM and CCC). Through the Program''s research, outreach, and teaching, it seeks to raise the profile of the region''s opportunities and problems, and utilize Harvard resources to train new leaders who will help shape the future of the region. By establishing a dialogue among policymakers, scholars, and practitioners, the Program hopes to focus the debate in ways that produce effective policy toward and for the region.
The Program''s main objective is to locate the Caspian region on the maps of the American policy-making community as an area in which the U.S. has important national interests and where U.S. policy can make major differences. That community now recognizes the Persian Gulf as a region of strategic interest for the United States. Accordingly the Caspian region should be recognized first as a location that includes a number of significant countries in which the U.S. has serious strategic interests and second as an arena in which policies of the U.S. government, actions of the business community, and research, outreach, and training by universities can make a significant difference. The U.S. policy community includes: the Executive and Legislative branches of government; the analytic community that surrounds these institutions (including think-tanks, universities, NGOs); and the press. In a noisy environment, the goal of the program is to identify the Caspian for the policymaking community as a location of importance; to explore and explain the special opportunities and risks in this region; and to identify actions that the U.S. government, other governments, NGOs, universities, and others can take in order to make a difference in the region. Similarly, the Program seeks to increase the understanding of U.S. policy among the Caspian region''s leaders and populations.
Caspian Studies Program Launch
The Program launch, in October 1999, began with a special panel discussion, "U.S. and the Caspian: Crossroads or Barricade?" in the Kennedy School''s Arco Forum and an inaugural dinner. Panel participants included Graham Allison, Director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; Araz Azimov, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs for Azerbaijan; Ashton Carter, Kennedy School professor and Co-director of the Harvard-Stanford Preventive Defense Project; Tim Cejka, Vice-President of exploration at ExxonVentures; and John Deutch, MIT professor and former Director of the CIA.
The inaugural events were followed by a two-day Experts'' Conference convened by Caspian Studies Program Executive Director Peter Rutland and entitled "Succession and Long-term Stability in the Caspian Region." The conference brought together thirty leading specialists on the region from across an unusually wide spectrum for two days of vigorous and candid conversation about the political and economic prospects of the countries located in the Caspian basin and the impact of U.S. policy on that region. The conference was conceived by former SDI Associate Director and current SDI Associate (and Director of Strategic Planning at the Eurasia Foundation) Fiona Hill. In timing it coincided with dramatic developments in the region, including the assassination of the Armenian Prime Minister Vazgen Sargsian, the resignation of Azerbaijan''s Foreign Minister Tofik Zulfugarov, and the escalation of Russian military operations in Chechnya. These events underlined the central premise of the conference: namely that political succession and development remain unpredictable and critical factors affecting the future of the region. Although the participants approached the conference themes from different perspectives - as human rights activists, business consultants, journalists and academics - there was a significant degree of consensus about the major features of the Caspian region, eight years after the break-up of the Soviet Union. These points, the implications drawn from them for U.S. policy, and questions for further discussion, were summarized in an Executive Memorandum from the conference that was distributed, along with the conference report which included eighteen papers and panel summaries, was distributed to over 700 representatives of the policy, academic, and press communities and posted on the Program''s web page.
Caspian Studies Program Seminar Series
One of the main components of the Caspian Studies Program is its Seminar Series which builds on the 1996-1998 Caucasus and Caspian Seminar Series by featuring leading academics and key policymakers from the U.S. thus addressing critical issues in the region. One of the themes of the seminar series during 1999-2000 was the security of states in the region, as the renewal of Russia''s war against Chechnya raised concerns about instability throughout the region and posed specific threats for Azerbaijan and Georgia. Each of the seminars was well-attended and attracted a diverse audience who engaged in lively discussion. Summaries of each of these seminars are posted on the Program''s web page, seminars are often covered by Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, and the Program is currently publishing a compilation of the transcripts and summaries from the 1999-2000 Seminar series.
Over the course of the year, the Caspian Studies Program sponsored nine seminars, sometimes jointly with the Harvard Forum for Central Asian Studies, including presentations by Anne Nivat, French journalist for Liberation, on "The War as I Witnessed it: Prospects for the Future"; Ronald Suny, Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, on "The Karabagh Conflict: Approaches to its Resolution"; Magomadkhan Magomedkhanov, Senior Researcher at the Institute of History, Archeology and Ethnography, Dagestan branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Advisor to the Dagestan Government on ethnic issues and Dr. Musa Yusupov, Head of the Sociology Department at Grozny State University, on "Ethnic Conflicts in Chechnya and Dagestan"; Vitaly Naumkin, President of the International Center for Strategic and Political Studies in Moscow, on "The Current Situation in the Northern Caucasus and the Caspian"; Olivier Roy, Senior researcher at CNRS (French National Center for Scientific Research) and part-time consultant for the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on "The Islamic Movement in Central Asia: Between Nationalism and Internationalism"; Vafa Mirzaga Ogly Quluzade, President of the Caspian Policy Studies Foundation and chief Azerbaijani negotiator on the Nagorno-Karabagh conflict, and Eldar Sagif Ogly Namazov, Member of Parliament, Azerbaijan, on "Security in the Caucasus"; Nasib L. Nassibli, Professor and Chair, Department of International Relations and Political Sciences at Khazar University, on "Azerbaijan-Iran Relations: Challenges and Prospects"; Igor Rotar, journalist Nezavisimaya Gazeta John Reppert, Executive Director of the Belfer Center and Michal Libal, German Ambassador to Kazakhstan, on "Chechnya: What Next?"; and finally Gerard Libaridian, Senior Fellow at the EastWest Institute and previously Advisor to former President Levon Ter-Petrossian, on "Armenia: Crisis or Opportunity?". In addition, the Caspian Studies Program, together with the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, held a film screening of "Prisoner of the Mountains" followed by a discussion led by Brenda Shaffer, then an International Security Program Fellow and now Research Director for the Caspian Studies Program and Sergei Grigroriev, Senior Advisor to the Chair of the All-Russian Television and Radio Company. In cooperation with the Conflict Management Group, the Program also led a conflict resolution scenario-planning workshop with a delegation from the Republic of Georgia.
Anne Nivat recounted her experiences covering the war in Chechnya at a seminar in the Belfer Center library on June 28. Nivat interviewed rebel commander Shamil Basayev and Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov, survived a Russian aerial bombardment of a Chechen village, and endured interrogation by the Russian secret services, all in the course of covering the war as a freelancer from September 1999 to February 2000. Nivat described both the Russian and Chechen propaganda efforts that complicate the jobs of journalists. She countered the official Russian "anti-terrorist operation" line by calling the conflict a full-scale war involving 90,000 Russian soldiers, and some 3,000 to 8,000 Chechen fighters. In her coverage of the war Nivat sought answers to the questions, "How do the Chechens cope? How do they survive? How do enemies fight one another?" The conflict''s strange nature, Nivat commented, is that the enemies live together, face to face, on the small territory of the breakaway republic.
On Tuesday June 20, in conjunction with the Conflict Management Group (CMG), the Caspian Studies Program hosted a delegation from the Republic of Georgia and the neighboring republic in Russia, North Ossetia, for a training session. The delegation included senior civil servants from the Republic of Georgia, among them the Special Advisor to the President of Georgia for Conflict Resolution and Chief Negotiator for the South Ossetia conflict, as well as members of the de facto foreign ministries of the breakaway republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. North Ossetia-Alania (RF) was represented by the First Deputy Minister for Nationalities Affairs. The arrival of this group was unique since this was the first time that officials from Georgia and these three secessionist republics had all agreed to participate in a joint delegation. The session occurred in the context of a week long Negotiation Workshop at CMG, and the Tuesday session, conducted by the Caspian Studies Program, concentrated on scenario planning training. Melissa Carr introduced the delegates to scenario planning theory and to the background of this tool that was born in the oil industry and developed in business circles. Arthur Martirosyan, Program Director at CMG, then led the delegation in an exercise that applied the technique to the Chechnya conflict. This was followed by a presentation by General (Ret.) John Reppert, Executive Director for Research at the Belfer Center, on the use of this technique in the U.S. military.
Professor Ronald Suny led a meeting of experts on conflict resolution, Russian-U.S. relations, and area specialists on the Caucasus on May 13, the sixth anniversary of the cease-fire between Azerbaijan and Armenia. The goal of the session was to capitalize on the combined knowledge of practitioners and academics who concentrate on the Caucasus, together with the expertise of those who study other conflicts, in the context of a discussion about resolving the Karabagh conflict. Brenda Shaffer chaired the event. Professor Suny pointed out that recognizing collective identities as constructs assists in bringing about the perception that conflicts are defusable. For if identities flow and change, there is room for learning and reconciliation, and the enmity erodes and dissipates. He stated that the Kocharian government''s approach to the Karabagh conflict is a "complete dead-end," and recommended that the Armenian government change its course of action.
Dr. Magomadkhan Magomedkhanov and Dr. Musa Yusupov spoke at a seminar in the Belfer Center library on April 17th. Dr. Yusupov outlined those aspects of the Chechen conflict that he believes have gone unnoticed by the public so far, and to name possible scenarios for the future. He identified three underlying factors leading to the current conflict: 1) Russia''s systemic crisis, and the predominance of a militarized way of thinking among the influential power ministries and political elite; 2) The Chechen factor: Under conditions of instability, the Chechen people tend to use force to resolve conflict; 3) The external struggle for influence. Dr. Magomedkhanov in his presentation stressed the demographic impact of the Ottoman, Russian, and Soviet empires on the peoples of the Caucasus. While Dagestanis have historically suffered less than other peoples in the region, their population experienced no growth for one hundred years starting from the second half of the 19th century. As for the Chechen population, currently much of it has been dispersed, he stated. Genocide, in this context, is not just a theoretical abstraction, he warned. He characterized current relations between Chechnya and Dagestan as having gone from bad to worse. John Reppert chaired the event.
Vitaly Naumkin spoke in the Taubman building on April 7th in an event that was jointly sponsored by the Harvard Forum f
