Source: Chatham House

This article is a chapter of the Chatham House report "Putin Again: Implications for Russia and the West" by Philip Hanson, James Nixey, Lilia Shevtsova, and Andrew Wood

Introduction

The protests following the Russian parliamentary elections in December 2011, the largest since the collapse of the Soviet Union, shattered a status quo that had taken shape over the last decade and signalled that the country is entering turbulent waters. Russia finds itself caught in a trap: the 2011–12 parliamentary and presidential elections are intended to perpetuate a personalized power system that has become the source of decay. However, the top-down model of rule and its ‘personifier’ – Vladimir Putin – are already rejected by the most dynamic and educated urban sectors of the population.

It is hard to predict what consequences this will have: will it lead to the system’s disintegration and even to the collapse of the state through growing rot and atrophy, or will the last gasp of personalized power end with a transformation that sets Russia on a new foundation? One thing is apparent: transformation will not happen in the shape of reform from above or within the system; if it does occur it will be the result of the deepening crisis and pressure from society.

The Perpetuation of the Russian System

Over the years, Russia’s ruling elite under Boris Yeltsin, Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev has put together what looks superficially like a very effective model for preserving the traditional Russian system resting upon three pillars – personalized power, its merger with property and an imperial outlook. This ‘trinity’ has been adapted to the new global and domestic reality, and to limited state resources. A number of mechanisms are used today to keep the personalized power system in place. Chief among them are:

• Imitation of Western institutions (parliament, elections, political pluralism) in order to give Russia’s autocracy a civilized veneer;
   
• A circumstance-based ‘pragmatism’ concealing incompatible ideas and principles that has replaced coherent ideology and principles;
   
• Comparisons with the ‘bad’ Yeltsin period in order to present Putin as the leader who guarantees stability and growth;
   
• A combination of carrot-and-stick tactics such as co-opting members of various social groups, paternalistic policies to buy people’s loyalty, and selective use of force or ‘scare tactics’ to prevent the consolidation of public opinion against the authorities;
   
• Comparatively broader space for personal freedoms (e.g. the continuation of free internet usage and the right to emigrate) to prevent people from demanding political freedoms;
   
• A foreign policy based on the principle of being simultaneously with, within and against the West, which makes it easier for the political elite to integrate personally into Western society while keeping Russian society closed off from the West by presenting it as an opponent and even an enemy.