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Remarks by Nikolai Petrov
Russia’s “overmanaged” democracy is not ignored or under analyzed in Washington, but most analyzes use normative concepts to judge Russia’s current regime. Little attention is paid to the efficiency or lack thereof of Russia’s current system, a subject which I will cover today in my presentation.
There is an old joke about Soviet leaders on a train. When the train stops suddenly, each leader reacts in a different way. Stalin shoots the engineer and the train continues on without one; Brezhnev orders his men to shut the windows and shake the train to imitate motion. To update the joke a little, Putin doesn’t even try to get the train started or pretend that it is moving; he simply pays the passengers enough to make them happy.
And therein lies the essence and logic of his second presidential term: it is not about getting anything done; rather it is about preparing the ground work for a transfer of power, and keeping the people happy without any real modernization, political, economic or otherwise. So, can Putin’s regime (Putinism) survive a transfer of power? In every scenario the answer is no. In order to survive the transfer of power, the regime would have to modernize. If it modernizes it is fundamentally a different regime. If it does not modernize, it will die.
Indeed, the most important issue is not the transfer of power itself. It is whether or not the new leader will be willing and able to restart the train once he takes office. The most important task that the new president will face is jump starting the long-stalled reform process. Whether or not the new leader will succeed in this task will not become apparent for a couple years after he has taken office.
But that is not to say that the current regime is without continuity. It does have its own logic, which arose out of the circumstances of it birth and the nature of its leader. First of all, the current regime is the product of the Yelstin regime before it. It is overcompensating for the ills of the previous regime, turning the overly decentralized system that prevailed in Yelstin’s years into an over centralized system. Secondly, it is the result of an excess of financial resources that has made it possible for the current regime to implement many of the reforms planned under the Yeltstin administration, and continue the illusion of progress. Lastly, the logic of the regime reflects Putin’s background in the secret services. It is constantly looking for simple solutions to complex problems, and operates in a rigid hierarchical structure where the top holds all of the power. There is a lack of public discussion and business is conducted in secrecy.
The result of this logic is an inefficient system of authority. Dutch disease is normally thought of in economic terms, but in Russia it has also caused a false line of political evolution, allowing the authorities themselves to overlook the lack of efficiency.
This inefficiency is seen quite clearly in the large number of and unclear relationship between the governments or power centers that Russia has today. There are the two mandated in the constitution, one led by Fradkov and the other one led by Putin. But then there are other ones that have emerge as a result of Putin’s plans, such as the one constructed to implement national project. The Putin regime wanted to show society their eagerness to solve problems by spending money, but needed to construct a whole new system on management to implement these projects and show results. They created new commissions and committees, but they proved as corrupt as previous forms of management.
Another center of power is the presidential administration, which has it hands in just about everything, and a last very important power center is the “corporate governments” such as Gazprom that make many decisions without the input of elected official. It is unclear whether many of those decisions are really in the best interest of the country. This multiplicity of power centers leads to a lack of responsibility and uncertainty about the future.
The system is organized in a very complex and muddled way. The president sits at the top, with different kinds of presidential councils. The different kinds of management are then divided both horizontally and vertically, although it must be said that both horizontal and vertical divisions are decreasing. It is unclear where the executive branch ends and the other branches begin. The basics of federalism are also decreasing. There is an unclear division of power between the regions and then center. The complex nature of the internal structure of these organization adds yet another layer of confusion to the system.
What is clear is that the system is top heavy, with communication only flowing from the top to the bottom.
Nonetheless, hope remains that modernization can occur. As I said earlier, the regime will need to modernize or it will eventually perish. In order to modernize, it will have to shed its current logic or centralization and secrecy, and adopt a new one that relies on decentralization and federalism. In order to restore democracy to Russia, the public must be given control, political and economic competition need to increase, and so does participation.
Remarks by Masha Lipman
Media is different than any other institution in that it is not only an institution but also an industry. These two elements of media have developed in drastically different ways over the last couple of years. When free media was first introduced with the media law in 1991, the first generation of journalist and editors tried to follow a western model of journalism. They wanted to be the first to know and find the best sources, but most of importantly, they wanted to remain independent.
Now media outlets try to emulate the western business model more than a western model of journalism. Editorial independence is a rarity and of no concern to the most relevant players in the media market.
Redistribution of media assets began in 2000, when the government started to take over assets previously owned by media oligarchs. In 2000, over two billion dollars were spent acquiring media infrastructure. This process was driven by two factors: the increase in power of the government in media, and the consolidation and enlargement of media outlets.
These two logics converge in the two largest media outlets, the state channels, which surpass all other outlets in their capacity to reach the public. These outlets receive half of all revenue received for advertising. It is thus not surprising that Channel 1, the government’s largest media holding, was included in a list of strategic assets.
The government owns a 51% stake in Channel 1. Who own the other 49% is unclear as the media industry remains opaque. The government’s other large media outlet, Channel Rossiya, is 100% owned by the state. One quarter of all Russian receive these two channels. In print media, the state owns 20 percent of all national outlets and 80 percent of regional outlets. 4,000 newspapers receive support from local administrations. Locally government media is becoming more viable because of increase advertising revenue, but even despite that, these government support outlets have a distinct advantage over private outlets with access to all of the state’s resources.
After the state, the second largest player in the media market is Gazprom. It media subsidiary Gasprom Media controls the nations third largest TV channel. In general, the old media oligarchs are being replaced by a new breed of media oligarch. Whereas the old oligarch took on political media to increase their influence, the new media oligarch only take on such media as a favor to the Kremlin. In general, politics are not profitable any longer.
The Kremlin does put up with some freedom, but overall the operation of this semi-free media cannot be referred to as freedom of the press; media does not constitute an element in a chain of independent institutions that rely on the public. It has been separated from decision making, and is admittedly irrelevant.
But control through ownership is not the only weapon that the Kremlin has at its disposal. It has also passed legislation, restricting the operations of media outlets, and used administrative pressure to curb the freedom of the press.
How does the government use these levers and control of the media? The federal television stations have been fine-tuned to achieve any political goal the Kremlin wants. It has used its stations to promote the two most likely presidential successors Dmitri Medvedev and Sergei Ivanov. It has also used the media to boost its loyal political parties.
Meanwhile, the Russian people aren’t blind to this manipulation, but choose to live with it. Television is used to shape political reality. It serves as a one way political communication tube, educating the public on the Kremlin’s desires. In the absence of any real political links, television serves as a poor surrogate.
The primary target audience of the federal station is older, provincial, and less educated—that is, the unquestioning Soviet-style constituency that votes for the boss. The middle class, meanwhile, is more likely to see election as worthless and not show up at the polls. They are satisfied with the increased living standards.
In short, the current regime use television as a tool to self-perpetuate the current elite and navigate the rough terrain of a popular election, ensuring a preordained result. Beyond that, the media is impotent, and the public alienated from it.
But the reality beyond what the TV channels paint is much more complex. There is no one ideology running Russia. Rather, behind the Kremlin lie many different political and commercial interests.
Nonetheless, the regime will find it difficult to maintain one center of power for too long. The emergence of two pro-Kremlin parties shows an increasing need to channel inter-Kremlin rivalries into a new forum, and factions within the Kremlin are trying to gain control of media. This competition is not exactly democratically driven, but competition might seep further into society. We cannot rule out a winner take all outcome note ruled out, but there is still hope that there could be some positive changes in the plight of media in Russia today.
