The Russian Political Regime: A Flexibility Test

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This article is the republished version of:

The Russian Political Regime: A Flexibility Test

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Notes

1. Knowledge and use of rules to rule by allow politicians in both the authoritarian and democratic contexts to remain in power “eternally,” since the mechanisms for holding on to power are almost never visible from a distance because they are changeable, not obvious, and sometimes even paradoxical. A modern interpretation of this Machiavellian topic is one of the main topics in the works of Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and his coauthors: B. De Bueno de Mesquita and A. Smith, Dictator’s Handbook: Why Bad Behavior Is Almost Always Good Politics (New York: Public Affairs, 2011); B. De Bueno de Mesquita, A. Smith, R. Siverson, and J. Morrow, The Logic of Political Survival (Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2003).

2. A. Przeworski, M. Alvarez., J. Cheibub, F. Limongi, Democracy and Development: Political Institutions and Well-Being in the World, 1959–1990 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 15–17.

3. See S. Ryzhenkov, “Rossiiskaia transformatsiia: politicheskaia konkurentsiia i demokraticheskie instituty,” in Puti Rossii: dvadtsat’ let peremen, ed. T. Vorozheikina (Moscow: MVShSEN, 2005), 200–208; S. Ryzhenkov, “Dinamika transformatsii i perspektivy rossiiskogo politicheskogo rezhima,” Neprikosnovennyi zapas, no. 6 (2006), 46–59; S. Ryzhenkov, “Rossiiskii politicheskii rezhim: modeli i realnost’” (Publichnaya lektsiia 1 noiabria 2007), https://bit.ly/39hirHY.

4. A description of all the possible manipulations connected with the electoral process can be found in A. Schedler, The Politics of Uncertainty: Sustaining and Subverting Electoral Authoritarianism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 259–294.

5. For more on the theoretical and comparative aspects of the co-optation of the opposition in electoral authoritarian regimes, see J. Gandhi, Political Institutions under Dictatorship (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008); J. Gandhi and A. Przeworski, “Authoritarian Institutions and the Survival of Autocrats,” Comparative Political Studies, vol. 40, no. 11 (2007), 1279–1301. For more on the politics of separating the opposition, see E. Lust-Okar, Structuring Conflict in the Arab World: Incumbents, Opponents, and Institutions (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005).

6. The theory on capturing a supermajority in electoral authoritarian regimes is developed in the following works: B. Magaloni, Voting for Autocracy: Hegemonic Party Survival and Its Demise in Mexico (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006); B. Geddes, “Why Parties and Elections in Authoritarian Regimes?,” Lecture, Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, DC, 2005.

7. For more on this, see S. Ryzhenkov, “Ulitsa, vlast’ i oppozitsiia: ot protestnoi ‘dvizhukhi’ k rezhimnoi transformatsii?,” Neprikosnovennyi zapas, no. 4 (2012), 44–59.

8. An analysis of this process can be found in S. Ryzhenkov, “Rossiia, nashi dni: ultima ratio diktatora v logike obratnogo otscheta,” Neprikosnovennyi zapas, no. 4 (2016), 91–104.

9. A. Navalny, “Kak my budem pobezhdat’ ‘Yedinuiu Rossiiu’ na vyborakh. Umnoe golosovanie,” Naval’nyi, (November 28, 2018), https://bit.ly/2UxgamH.

10. One of the most obvious problems with smart voting is that candidates from A Just Russia could potentially (and, at the Moscow City Council elections in September 2019, actually did) receive Navalny’s support under smart voting, even though it is obviously a satellite party and voting for its candidates would be the equivalent of supporting the government.

11. Pavel Grudinin, “Vlast’ RF perekhvatyvaet idei, zalozhennye v programme ‘20 shagov,’” https://bit.ly/2Jfl6Hy.

12. M. Khodorkovskii, “Levyi povorot,” Vedemosti, (August 1, 2005), https://bit.ly/39ecuvx.

13. “Yavlinksy predlozhil masshtabnuiu reformu Yabloka,” https://bit.ly/2Je1J1U.

14. See https://bit.ly/2xkm9Uc.

15. See https://bit.ly/3ajiCnu.

16. “Desiat’ shagov k dostoinoi zhizni. Predvybornaia programma KPRF,” https://bit.ly/3afkH45.

17. For more on this, see S. Ryzhenkov. “Elektoral’nyi avtoritarizm: prevratnosti metoda,” Neprikosnovennyi zapas, no. 5 (2018), 48–61.

18. For more on a critical take of modernization constructs, see A. Przeworski, M. Alvarez., J. Cheibub, F. Limongi, op. cit., 88–89.

19. S. Ryzhenkov. “Elektoral’nyi avtoritarizm: prevratnosti metoda.”

20. D. Rustow, “Transitions to Democracy: Toward a Dynamic Model,” Comparative Politics, no. 3 (1970), 337–363.

21. G. O’Donnell, “Reflections on the Patterns of Change in the Bureaucratic-Authoritarian State,” Latin American Review, vol. 13, no. 1 (1978), 3–38. For further development of this concept, see G. O’Donnell and P. Schmitter, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), 15–36.

22. A. Przeworski, op. cit., 51–95.

23. The concept of the stability and fall of regimes of competitive authoritarianism depending on their organizational qualities and abilities is developed in S. Levitsky and L. Way, Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes After the Cold War (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010).

24. Political transformations start from above or below. A military coup is often the prologue to transformational changes, but no one is likely to dispute the fact that such a scenario is not possible in Russia.

25. B. Geddes, “What Do We Know about Democratization after Twenty Years?,” Annual Review of Political Science, no. 2 (1999), 130, 132–134.

26. For more on the prospects of a schism among the elite in Russia, see S. Ryzhenkov, “Ne dozhdites’! Stoit li rasschityvat’ na raskol elit v Rossii?,” Republic (December 14, 2018), https://bit.ly/3bnBLEY.