Sem: Post-Soviet Russ Politics

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Welcome to Government 648. This is a graduate research seminar on Russian politics. The focus of this seminar will be on the continuing politics of the presidential succession. For the past four years, this issue has been at the center of Russian politics, providing a rich source of insights into the workings of power in the Russian political system. Now the succession is a fact—or is it?. Dmitri Medvedev’s election as president and his appointment of Vladimir Putin as prime minister have been widely dismissed, both in Russia and in the West, as a change without a difference. Vladimir Putin is expected to remain the most powerful figure in the Kremlin, the president in all but name, while Medvedev is viewed essentially as a loyal figurehead. This is indeed how things may be for the first year of the new administration. Putin and Medvedev enjoy an unusually close relationship, based on long-established trust and common views. Both men are determined to preserve the political stability of the last eight years. Indeed, it cannot be ruled out that Dmitri Medvedev will remain smoothly obedient to Putin throughout his four-year term, following which Putin may run again, as the Russian constitution allows him to do. Yet there are three reasons to suspect that this simple picture will not prevail much beyond the first year: •The institutional power of the Russian presidency: The position of the Russian president is far more powerful than that of prime minister. The president commands a vast apparatus of power and patronage. The so-called “power ministries” all report to him, as does the diplomatic machinery. The prime minister, in contrast, is mainly responsible for social and economic policy, yet even in these domains the key ministries look to the Presidential Administration. To be sure, the position of prime minister can be strengthened and that of the president weakened. Reporting lines can be changed, budgets can be shifted, and staffs can be moved. But short of removing the entire presidential apparatus from the Kremlin to the White House and rewriting the Constitution, the presidency is likely to remain the seat of power. Over time, the person who holds it will become stronger. •A destabilizing economic and social environment: The domestic economic and social environment is likely to be less benign than it has been in the last eight years. The government is likely to have fewer resources at its disposal to support its rapidly growing welfare and investment programs. This will force painful reappraisals and catalyze political conflict. Even now, the “reform” wing of the government is issuing public warnings of what could lie ahead, and is calling on the president and his prime minister to re-think some of the more conspicuous prestige programs, such as the vast spending planned for the Winter Olympics in Sochi and the Vladivostok ASEAN conference. The reform wing is tending to line up behind Medvedev, in the belief (which may turn out to be mistaken) that he is more attuned to economic realities than Putin may be. •The battle of clans will sharpen, but Putin’s power to moderate it may decline: Vladimir Putin is widely viewed as the only man who can hold the middle against the competing clans in the Russian political and business elite. Yet it is noteworthy that even at the height of his power he was barely able to keep the peace among them—witness the failure of his attempt to merge Rosneft and Gazprom, his mixed success in moderating jousting among competing FSB factions, and his reluctance to intervene to defend finance minister Kudrin’s team against attacks by prosecutors. The successful management of the succession issue, which had divided the Russian elites for much of Putin’s second term, has not resolved the increasingly bitter rivalries among them. Yet if Putin is perceived as having to spend his political capital maintaining order, that will weaken both him and the president. The “battle of the clans,” if not successfully contained, periodically breaks out in the form of raids, media attacks, exchanges of kompromat (“compromising material”), arrests, indictments, and a general politicization of the prosecutorial and judicial system. The misuse of state coercion as an instrument of clan warfare weakens property rights and saps investor confidence, at a time when Russian needs more investment than ever. In particular, the clans will continue to do battle for ownership and control of oil and gas properties and other commodities. Indeed, such battles never stopped during Putin’s eight-year term, and there is little reason to believe that they will lessen in the period ahead. These will be the central research questions in Government 848. The aim is to examine the interplay of power, personalities, and policies shaping the new government under the “Odd Couple” in the Kremlin, and thereby to understand better the dynamic of power in Russian politics. The seminar’s in English, but the research materials must all be in Russian. That is because one of the main aims of the seminar is to encourage students to use their Russian skills for active research, mainly using the Internet to explore the many kinds of resources available there. Together we will explore useful websites, share lore and data, and expand our knowledge of the range of sources available for covering opinion poll data, legislative politics, policy initiation and debate, the law and the courts, economic policy, and the rough-and-tumble of today’s Russian politics. To be in the course, you must have a minimum of three years of Russian. Advanced Internet skills are not necessary. The instructor’s permission is required. The course requirements are straightforward: 1) three short reports (4 pages each) on weekly class topics; 2) a 30-page seminar paper based exclusively on Russian-language sources; and 3) active participation in class discussion.