![Sample our Area Studies journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5922/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Area-Studies.jpg"})
Abstract
This article explores contrasting conceptions of the essentially contested concept obshchestvennyi kontrol’, as understood by the anti-systemic opposition and the Kremlin. It shows that the period of contention accompanying the 2011–2012 elections allowed competing narratives of this concept to emerge. First, the opposition presented it as a means for citizens to hold corrupt authorities accountable to the law; second, the Kremlin promoted it as a means to enhance government efficiency. The article shows that the Kremlin has co-opted the counter-hegemonic discourse into a new law which delimits the possibilities for enacting this concept in a fashion that recalls Soviet governance practices.
Notes
1 Obshchestvennyi kontrol’ is frequently translated into English as ‘public control’, but this translation omits an important aspect of the word in Russian. ‘Control’ in English means to manage, that is, to make decisions in full possession of relevant facts and to steer the course of events. Kontrol’ in Russian means to monitor or check the decisions made by others. Given the imprecision surrounding the English translation of this concept, I leave it untranslated in the remainder of this article.
2 Recent legislation stipulates that the other two thirds are to be chosen through internet voting by the public. Previously, remaining members were chosen by the first third. See ‘Obshchestvennye sovety pri ministerstvakh i vedomstvakh budut rabotat’ po edinym standartam’, Garant, 13 September 2013, available at: http://www.garant.ru/news/493965/, accessed 9 February 2017.
3 The legislation governing these bodies expressly refers to such a relationship. See ‘Federal’nyi Zakon Rossiiskoi Federatsii ot 4 aprelya g. N 32 F3 Ob Obshchestvennoi Palate Rossiiskoi Federatsii’, Rossiiskaya Gazeta, 7 April 2005, available at: http://www.rg.ru/2005/04/07/obshestv-palata-dok.html, accessed 1 February 2015; ‘Federal’nyi Zakon Rossiiskoi Federatsii ot 7 fevralya 2011 g. N3-F3’, Rossiiskaya Gazeta, 8 February 2011, available at: http://www.rg.ru/2011/02/07/police-dok.html, accessed 1 February 2015.
4 Throughout this article, I follow Norman Fairclough’s definition of discourse as representational meaning in texts. For a disambiguation of ‘discourse’, see Fairclough (Citation2010, p. 4).
5 It is important to be clear that these are, of course, not the only two discourses of civic participation and state–society relations in Russia. Furthermore, neither are discourses stable over time: their advocates may adopt different visions at different junctures, depending on their audience, their short- and medium-term political goals, and personal situations. I chose the two discourses discussed in this article because, as we will see, they became particularly salient during and after the 2011–2012 elections, as citizens’ groups mobilised to monitor polling stations and as the state responded to this surge in civic activism. They thus fed off each other, the one reinforcing the other over time. They were thus central to the struggle over the fixing of practices to which obshchestvennyi kontrol’ should refer.
6 ‘Ob organizatsii’, Grazhdanskii Kontrol’, 2011, available at: http://www.citwatch.org/aboutus/, accessed 9 February 2017.
7 Interview with regional public chamber activist, Samara, 11 August 2012.
8 ‘Putin Tightens Grip on Security’, BBC News, 13 September 2004, available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3650966.stm, accessed 9 February 2017. For excellent interrogations of the Public Chamber’s initial activities, see Evans (Citation2008, 2010) and Richter (Citation2009a, 2009b).
9 For a detailed discussion of this process, see Owen (Citation2016).
10 The most prominent groups are the independent election monitoring organisation Golos, founded in 2000 and discussed in more detail below, and Fond ‘Obshchestvennyi Verdikt’, founded in 2004, which monitors police activity and in 2012 published a handbook dedicated to the discussion of obshchestvennyi kontrol’ as a means for civic participation.
11 ‘Vybory-2012: Smozhet li kolichestvo nablyudatelei obespechit’ ikh kachestvo?’, RIA Novosti, 2 March 2012, available at: http://ria.ru/vybor2012_hod_vyborov/20120302/584086910.html, accessed 9 February 2017.
12 The project’s website is available at: http://www.nabludatel.org/about, accessed 9 February 2017.
13 ‘Saiti izdanii Slon.ru, “Bol’shoi Gorod”, i “The New Times” podverglis DDoS-Atakam, oni nedostupnyye’, Gazeta.ru, 4 December 2011, available at: http://www.gazeta.ru/news/lenta/2011/12/04/n_2121694.shtml, accessed 9 February 2017; see also, ‘Vybory 4 Dekabrya 2011 Goda. Khronika Narushenii’, Novaya Gazeta, 4 December 2011, available at: http://www.novayagazeta.ru/politics/49811.html, accessed 9 February 2017; ‘Khronika Golosovaniya’, Lenta.ru, 5 December 2011, available at: http://lenta.ru/articles/2011/12/04/chrono/, accessed 9 February 2017.
14 Golos set up a crowd-sourcing site, Karta Narushenii na Vyborakh, to which citizens could send details of violations, available at: http://www.kartanarusheniy.org/2011-12-04, accessed 9 February 2017.
15 ‘Federal’nyi Zakon Rossiiskoi Federatsii ot 7 fevralya 2011 g. N3-F3’, Rossiiskaia Gazeta, 8 February 2011, available at: http://www.rg.ru/2011/02/07/police-dok.html, accessed 1 February 2015; ‘Miting na Bolotnoi sobral ot 85 do 150 tysyach chelovek’, Grani.ru, 10 December 2011, available at: http://grani.ru/Politics/Russia/activism/m.193917.html, accessed 9 February 2017.
16 See also Smyth and Oates (Citation2015).
17 ‘Akunin i Parfyonov voshli v sostav uchrezhditelei Ligi Izbiratelei’, RIA Novosti, 16 January 2012, available at: http://ria.ru/politics/20120116/540699336.html, accessed 9 February 2017; ‘Navalnyi predstavil proekt dlya nabliudatelei “RosVybory”’, BBC Russkaya Sluzhba, 24 January 2012, available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/russian/russia/2012/01/120124_navalny_rosvybory_observers.shtml, accessed 9 February 2017.
18 ‘Ideya Putina o “vyborakh onlain” ozadachila i pravitel’stvo i SMI: Internet v Rossii mozhet prosto rukhnut’, News.ru, 20 December 2011, available at: http://www.newsru.com/russia/20dec2011/pollsonline.html, accessed 9 February 2017.
19 ‘Vybory-2012: Smozhet li kolichestvo nablyudatelei obespechit’ ikh kachestvo?’, RIA Novosti, 2 March 2012, available at: http://ria.ru/vybor2012_hod_vyborov/20120302/584086910.html, accessed 9 February 2017.
20 ‘Ideya Putina o “vyborakh onlain” ozadachila i pravitel’stvo i SMI: Internet v Rossii mozhet’ prosto rukhnut’, News.ru, 20 December 2011, available at: http://www.newsru.com/russia/20dec2011/pollsonline.html, accessed 9 February 2017.
21 ‘Assotsiatsiya yuristov RF podgotovit 95 tysyach nablyudatelei na vybory’, RIA Novosti, 22 February 2012, available at: http://ria.ru/vybor2012_hod_vyborov/20120222/572096419.html, accessed 9 February 2017.
22 These figures contrast sharply with the number of international observers, which totalled approximately 600 (Trofimov Citation2012). ‘Vybory-2012: Smozhet li kolichestvo nablyudatelei obespechit’ ikh kachestvo?’, RIA Novosti, 2 March 2012, available at: http://ria.ru/vybor2012_hod_vyborov/20120302/584086910.html, accessed 9 February 2017.
23 ‘V korpus nablyudatelei “Za Chistyye Vybory” postupilo pochti 2 tys. obrashenii’, Rosbalt, 5 March 2012, available at: http://www.rosbalt.ru/moscow/2012/03/05/953575.html, accessed 9 February 2017.
24 ‘A Russian Awakening’, The Economist: Eastern Approaches Blog, 11 December 2011, available at: http://www.economist.com/blogs/easternapproaches/2011/12/protest-russia-0, accessed 9 February 2017.
25 ‘Rossiya: Bolotnoye Delo—Pokazatel’nyi politicheskyi protsess’, Amnesty International Russia, available at: http://amnesty.org.ru/node/2718, accessed 9 February 2017.
26 One of the primary leaders of the opposition, Aleksei Naval’nyi, publicised the initiative on his blog. See ‘Kak Stat’ Nablyudatelem’, Navalnyi: LiveJournal, 8 November 2011, available at: http://navalny.livejournal.com/641950.html, accessed 9 February 2017.
27 One exception here is ‘kontrol’nye sootnosheniya’, a task performed by members of an electoral commission at the end of the election that involves counting the ballots in the ballot box and checking whether this number corresponds to the number of people on the electoral register. ‘Kontrol’nye’ appears six times in this context.
28 ‘“Levada Tsentr” sostavil portret uchastnikov mitinga na Prospekt Sakharova’, Lenta.ru, 27 December 2011, available at: http://lenta.ru/news/2011/12/26/sakharovppl/, accessed 9 February 2017.
29 ‘Federal’nyi zakon Rossiiskoi Federatsii ot 21 Iyulya 2014g. N 212-F3 “Ob Osnovakh obshchestvennogo kontrolya v Rossiiskoi Federatsii”’, Rossiiskaya Gazeta, 23 July 2014, available at: http://www.rg.ru/2014/07/23/zakon-dok.html, accessed 12 August 2014.
30 ‘Chtoby ne korrumpirovalas’ bor’ba s korruptsiyei’, Press Sluzhba Obshchestvennoi Palaty RF, 28 March 2012, available at: http://oprf.ru/press/news/2012/newsitem/17174, accessed 27 May 2014.
31 ‘Federal’nyi zakon Rossiiskoi Federatsii ot 21 Iyulya 2014g. N 212-F3 “Ob osnovakh obshchestvennogo kontrolya v Rossiiskoi Federatsii”’, Rossiiskaya Gazeta, 23 July 2014, available at: http://www.rg.ru/2014/07/23/zakon-dok.html, accessed 12 August 2014.
32 ‘Kontseptsiya Proekta Federal’nogo Zakona “Ob Obshchestvennom (Grazhdanskom) Kontrole v Rossiiskoi Federatsii”’, Sovet Pri Prezidente RF, available at: http://www.president-sovet.ru/chairman/materials/draft_federal_law/the_concept_of_the_draft_federal_law.php, accessed 17 September 2013.
33 See Adams (Citation1977) for an excellent discussion of these bodies.
34 At the time of conducting research for this article in winter 2014, it was too soon to assess effects of the law on practices of civic participation in Russia. Further research is required to assess the extent to which the new legislation has been successful in channelling civic participation into these corporatist bodies and closing down competing discourses of obshchestvennyi kontrol’.
35 ‘Kontseptsiya administrativnoi reformy v Rossiiskoi Federatsii v 2006–2010 godakh’, 25 October 2005, available at: http://www.fas.gov.ru/legislative-acts/legislative-acts_50334.html, accessed 31 March 2014.
36 ‘Strategiya Sotisal’no-ekonomicheskogo Razvitiya Strany do 2020 Goda’, available at: http://2020strategy.ru/g16/about_gr, accessed 26 May 2014.
37 ‘Ukaz Prezidenta Rossiiskoi Federatsii ot 9 Fevralya 2011 g. N 167’, Rossiiskaya Gazeta, 11 February 2011, available at: http://www.rg.ru/2011/02/11/obsuzhdenie-dok.html, accessed 1 February 2015.
38 ‘Doklad ob effektivnosti provodimykh v Rossiiskoi Federatsii antikorruptsionnykh meropriyatii i uchastii institutov grazhdanskogo obshchestva v realizatsii antikorruptsionnoi politiki’, Obshchestvennaya Palata RF, Moscow, 2011, available at: http://oprf.ru/files/dokument2011/dokladantikorrupciya.pdf, accessed 27 May 2014.
39 ‘Korruptsiya pod pritselom’, Press Sluzhba Obshchestvennoi Palaty RF, 3 November 2011, available at: http://oprf.ru/1449/1471/newsitem/15857, accessed 27 May 2014.
40 ‘Osnova Osnov’, Press Sluzhba Obshchestvennoi Palaty RF, 25 March 2014, available at: http://oprf.ru/press/news/2014/newsitem/24272, accessed 27 May 2014.
41 ‘V Sovet Federatsii podderzhivayut skoreishee prinyatie zakona ob obshchestvennom kontrole’, Press Tsentr Soveta Federatsii, 24 March 2014, available at: http://council.gov.ru/press-center/news/40656/, accessed 27 May 2014.
42 ‘“Obshchestvennyi Kontrol”: Nepoliticheskaya Uchastie Grazhdan v Publichnoe Politike’, Informatsionno-Analiticheskii Byulleten’, Fond ‘Obshchestvennyi Verdikt’, 2012, No. 1, available at: http://publicverdict.ru/topics/publications/10719.html, accessed 9 February 2017.
43 Sovet Pri Prezidente RF, ‘Administratsiya Prezidenta dorabotala Proyekt Zakona ob Obshchestvennom Kontrole. “Novaya Politika”’, Sovet Pri Prezidente RF, 6 March 2014, available at: http://www.president-sovet.ru/events/5668/, accessed 27 May 2014.
44 See ‘Strategiya 2020: Strategiya sotsiya’no-ekonomicheskogo razvitiya strany do 2020 goda’, available at: http://2020strategy.ru/, accessed 9 February 2017.
45 ‘Federal’nyi zakon Rossiiskoi Federatsii ot 21 Iyulya 2014g. N 212-F3 “Ob Osnovakh obshchestvennogo kontrolya v Rossiiskoi Federatsii”’, Rossiiskaya Gazeta, 23 July 2014, available at: http://www.rg.ru/2014/07/23/zakon-dok.html, accessed 12 August 2014.