Russian Democracy: Is There a Future?

McFaul Summary.PDF"Russian Democracy: Is there a future?"
Michael McFaul, Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Assistant Professor at Stanford University.

Strengthening Democratic Institutions Project, Harvard University
January 18, 2001

Summary by David Rekhviashvili

Melissa Carr, Project Coordinator of the Strengthening Democratic Institutions Project and Program Director of the Caspian Studies Program, opened the meeting by introducing Dr. McFaul to the audience and telling briefly about his professional background. Michael McFaul is a Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and an Assistant Professor at Stanford University. He is one of the most well known commentators on Russian political events. He also works as a consultant for many agencies including USAID, the National Democratic Institute and CBS News. His work focuses on Russian politics and electoral behavior, political and economic reform in post-communist countries and US-Russian relations. McFaul is the author of numerous books and articles. His new book called "Russia''s Unfinished Revolution: Political Change Under Gorbachev and Yeltsin" is expected to be published in summer 2001.

Michael McFaul began by discussing the recent political developments in Russia, the ongoing changes in the disposition of power between various political elite groups, and by giving an outlook on both the state of democracy and of the future development of democratic institutions in Russia.

According to McFaul, the economic policy of the Russian President has been very active in the last year, however, the list of real achievements in the economic area is rather modest. A lot of innovations have been proposed but it seems that lately the reformist policy has run out of steam. Putin''s foreign policy has also been very active and diverse, involving building relations with both Western democracies, CIS countries and rogue states. But, even if compared to the lengthy list of the president''s activities on the foreign policy side, what is most striking to McFaul is how much attention Putin has given to the political side and to really trying to change the way that Russia is governed in rather fundamental ways. Regarding Putin''s policy on Chechnya, the most important thing in terms of affecting the political situation in Russia is that Putin managed to destroy the myth that Chechnya is invincible, that the Chechens are some sort of supra-natural historical fighters. With regards to the role that parliament plays in Russian politics, a drastic change has happened after the 1999 Duma elections, fundamentally changing the balance of power between the president and the parliament in the president''s favor. Radical changes have taken place in the status of the Federation Council and in the area of distribution of power between the center and the regions. McFaul said that it is still unclear what these changes mean for Russia''s future. The destruction of NTV, the new information doctrine, the self-censorship that is taking place and Putin''s confrontational attitude toward opposition are the most disturbing tendencies that emerged under Putin and are likely to continue in the future. Michael McFaul thinks that one of the events least expected by Western analysts was that in twelve months Putin managed to put oligarchs on the defensive, thus challenging the assumption that they are the most powerful players on the Russian political scene. With respect to political parties Dr. McFaul said that parties are not growing in influence, on the contrary, their role is declining. He predicted that the Yabloko party most likely will not survive until the next election cycle. The Communist Party is living on old capital, its role is diminishing and its influence will probably be marginalized by the next electoral cycle. The only good sign on the political front is the Union of Right Forces, which finally managed to organize as a group. Yet, the member organizations of the Union of Right Forces movement are very divided in terms of how they feel about Mr. Putin. Time will tell whether it survives to the next elections.

Assessing the ten years of Russia''s post-communist history and the meaning of recent political developments for the future of the Russian political system, Michael McFaul said that he thinks the initial trajectory of the democratic and market reforms was right and that the politicians who took responsibility for conducting the policy of Russia''s transformation in the beginning of the 1990s could push the reforms in the right direction. The big question that remains unclear is what stance Putin will ultimately take and what will be the results of his policies for the future of Russia''s democracy.

McFaul said that the events of the last year showed that there were many misinterpretations on the part of Western commentators, including him, on what the Russian political system is about. Analysts mistook weak leaders in the Kremlin for a weak state and a weak system as a whole. They also overestimated the power of some new actors on the scene and the whole oligarchic model of governance— that the oligarchs controlled the state, and that was the way the system worked. In reality the state as an actor was much more powerful when it wanted to be, especially in the spheres of exerting control over elections and controlling secession. On the other hand, the oligarchs were much more temporary figures. They were mere parasites on the state and it turned out that a new CEO of the state could easily get rid of them. The second mistake in the analysis of the political situation in Russia was the assumption that the revolutionary stage of Russian politics had come to an end and that the situation in the country reached a new equilibrium. McFaul thinks that the process turned out to be a lot more dynamic and that the revolution, or the Thermidor, is a more apt metaphor for describing it. Mr. McFaul made a very interesting point saying that by the time Russia reached the Thermidorean stage of its development, a number of formerly acute social conflicts had lost their prominence. The communist-anticommunist divide lost its importance in Russian society. The debate about market vs. the command economy is also over. Likewise, the communist-national ideological framework has lost its high profile. During the Yeltsin times ideas mattered a lot, and the most important one was anticommunism. In the new a-ideological time principles don''t matter anymore. In this Thermidorian period the policies will be more based on the cost-benefit analysis than on ideological détente.

Assessing President Putin''s policies McFaul said that, although there are not many positive things about them, one of the few reassuring things about Putin is that he is not seeking to restore the ancient regime. He is a pragmatic politician fusing policies and symbols from the old and the new regimes. Therefore, if the cost of moving against democracy rises, he may reconsider the initial moves that he has done against it. Also, contrary to many initial predictions, Putin turned out to be less bold in his actions against the regional leaders, oligarchs and even against the media. Actually, in some cases Putin is surprisingly indecisive. One of the reasons of this indecisiveness might be that Putin''s power, although significant, is not infinite and certain checks on his power will remain in place. Oligarchs are going to be one, or perhaps the only such check, since at present there are no other independent sources of power left in Russia. According to McFaul, Putin''s policies suggest that for him the main goal is preserving political power. The means of achieving this goal might be introducing market reforms, but if market reforms do not advance this goal, then he can move to some other means. So, Putin''s indecision may also stem from the absence of clear understanding of what has to be done or from the absence of goals other than remaining in power and therefore a lot of indecision can be expected in his future actions - it is possible that once he has accumulated the power, he still will not know toward which end this power should be directed. After the first part of the discussion, Mr. McFaul drew on data from a recent public opinion survey about mass attitudes toward democracy and democratic institutions in Russia, which is part of a project that he has co-directed with Timothy Colton, Director of the Davis Center for Russian Studies.Discussion

Mr. McFaul answered questions on the results of the public opinion survey about mass attitudes toward democracy and elaborated on additional points during the discussion. Below are some of the highlights.

Q: During the presentation I almost had a feeling I am at two different talks. On the one hand, I heard you saying that Putin was strong. In the second part I heard you say that he is indecisive, that the oligarchs will still have to deal with him because they are the one source of opposition. To some extent, I am not sure how the two mesh. Also, I would not accept the notion that oligarchs seem weak and Putin is all-comprehensive. In other words, they were all weakened by the 1998 economic crisis, to the extent that the economy and the financial crisis undercut them, and I think that makes a difference in discerning the reasons why their political influence diminished.

A: I agree with you that the parts that you mentioned do not mesh, and that is precisely what I want to decipher. Regarding the second part of your question. What I meant about the strength of the oligarchs was on the political side, not them as companies. I see it as a positive side that most oligarchs today see themselves first and foremost as CEOs and secondly - and I would say third, fourth and fifth in terms of their priorities - as political backers. I was critiquing in terms of reasserting and challenging our old assumptions that seven rich guys sat at a table and said, "This is what we are going to tell the Kremlin to do." What I am struck by in the Putin period is how that model does not seem to have a lot of play. By the way, it is interesting to note that Putin in his efforts to put oligarchs in order attacked only the ones that were financially weak and who played politics more than others - Berezovsky, Gusinsky. Similarly, in dealing with the governors Putin picked on Rutskoi, who was the weakest of all the governors. He did not go after Mr. Shaimiev. That is why, I think we should not overestimate the power that Putin has to do those things.
Q: In relation to the slides that you have shown on Russian mass perceptions of democracy and their attitudes to the transition that is underway, could you elaborate more on why you think the transition in Russia has been so painful and protracted.
A: The reason the transition has been so protracted and incomplete in Russia, is that the balance of power throughout this struggle has been relatively equal. Transitologists say that is the perfect "ripe for resolution" when you get negotiations. Stalemate and then negotiations. I have the exactly opposite conclusion; when the balance of power between two radically different ideas is there, that is when you get conflict. Let me just illustrate it for a minute. When the balance is in favor of one side or the other, there is no fight. In Poland there was not really any big fight. Nor in Uzbekistan. Everybody understood what the distribution of power was at the time of transition. I think there is a big mythology about the Polish transition - that is was the transition to democracy based on some social consensus. It was not that way, simply Polish post-communist elite got the power, realized that the distribution of power was in its favor, and then dictated the rules. Others had a choice either to play by the rules or not play at all. It just so happened that the dictators in that instance were democrats who adhered to democratic principles. But had they been something else, you would have had a different kind of transition. Uzbekistan is the exact same case in the opposite direction. There was no fight. No battle. No armed struggle. Everyone understood what the balance of power was and they weren''t fools to fight. Russia to me is where the distribution of power was relatively equal. Each side thought they had a probability of victory because of that equal distribution. The balance of power was uncertain. What makes me nervous about the Putin regime is that he has radically upset the balance of power in the second Russian republic. Putin has, I think, the ability to undermine the present rules of political life and it is far from clear what kind of rule he will install instead.