This issue includes a series of articles that are part of a long-term project devoted to examining the trajectory of Russian politics in order to develop alternative scenarios of the Russian future and model which of the scenarios is most likely to come to pass over time. The articles in this issue analyze the political situation in Russia at the end of 2014 and consider how the system may develop in 2015 and thereafter. In “Down the Funnel: Russia's Trajectory After 2014,” Nikolay Petrov argues that the new legitimacy of the Russian regime has a military-mobilization character. In order to maintain legitimacy, the regime needs to engage in a deeper confrontation with the West and to dismantle the residual elements of the electoral legitimacy on which it previously depended. This shift also requires stronger reliance on the use of force.
Petrov also focuses on decision-making. He argues that the risk of errors or delayed decisions is growing because the current pattern of governance does not have an efficient mechanism of coordinating the interests of elite groups, resources are shrinking, and time pressure is increasing. The practice of hands-on administration is failing to cope with the accumulating problems, economic and otherwise, and has led to the system of governance to become primitive and its personnel less competent.
The article concludes with a discussion of likely future scenarios, focusing on the increased likelihood that a sequence of individual crises will weaken the system and will be followed by a large crisis that wipes out the entire system, leading to its change. As the situation has begun to deteriorate, tensions among the elite groups have already begun to increase.
Lev Gudkov's article on “Russian Public Opinion in the Aftermath of the Ukraine Crisis,” discusses changes in public opinion in Russia in the third Putin presidency. The anti-Putin minority which consisted of those who sympathized with the slogans of the mass protests of late 2011-12, even if they did not take to the streets, made up about 20 percent of the population. Since then, this segment of the population has largely merged with the conservative pro-Putin majority and opted for loyalty to the Kremlin leadership. The main reason for this shift is the rising uncertainty and insecurity, as well as the fear of lose the relative prosperity gained in previous years. By 2014 conservative, traditionalist views have become almost universally shared among the population. Yet, as Gudkov points out, this perception is in fact a quasi-traditionalism inculcated in the population by the Russian leadership in order to ensure support of the government by suppressing the desire for change.
“Crisis in the Regions: The Time Has Come to Pay for “Crimea Is Ours!” by Natalia Zubarevich, discusses the nature of the economic crisis facing Russia. and the way that it affects the Russian regions. The crisis preceded the imposition of western sanctions and the decline in the price of oil and was primarily caused by internal factors. By 2014 the model of economic development of the 2000s based on growing resource rent s had exhausted itself, causing the Russian economy to stop growing. The external shocks of mid-2014 merely accelerated the decline.
The economic crisis is affecting all Russian regions, but large urban centers are affected deeper than others. Declining incomes are leading to a loss of modern standards of consumption that educated groups have come to expect. As the crisis persists, a large number of households may be forced to abandon strategies of personal development such as investments in education, health and recreation and switch to strategies of survival.
Ekaterina Schulmann's “Duma-2014 Report: Outcomes and Tendencies” examines developments in Russia's legislature in 2014. It argues that the State Duma is not purely a rubber stamp body, as shown by a recent increase in deputy initiatives and a rise in the intensity of floor debates that have regularly resulted in government-proposed legislation being rewritten. The conclusion is that the likelihood of a rift between the legislature and the government is increasing.
Yelena Luk'ianova's article “Law Sidelined” discusses how the rule of law is understood in present-day Russia, highlighting the distinction between rule of law and rule by law. She argues that Russian legal theory has not followed the general trend away from positive law toward natural law. Whereas in the West the rule of law has come to signify above all the establishment of just legal norms that apply equally to all, in Russia it is viewed as rule by the letter of the law. In other words, the concept of rule of law has been interpreted as requiring obedience to formal laws regardless of the justice of the laws in question.
In the second part of the article, Luk'ianova highlights how this interpretation of the concept of rule of law allowed both international and Russian legal norms to be subverted in the Russian Constitutional Court's ruling on the legitimacy of the treaty that authorized Russia's annexation of Crimea. She finds that “all that has happened fits perfectly into the context of the general Russian legal paradigm. The unification of Crimea with Russia is a classic example of violation of the principle of the rule of law by means of the interpretation of meanings and the manipulation of procedures.”
In “Russia Outside the Security System: What Prospects for Confrontation with the West?”, Pavel Baev considers the reasons for and likely trajectory of the confrontation with the West that the Russian government began abruptly in 2014. He argues that while Russia's leadership quickly recognized that its confrontational strategy in Ukraine was a strategic mistake, it could not reverse course. As it has continued to escalate the confrontation, it has become hostage to an aggressive policy that cannot end successfully for Russia.
“The Last Year of Soviet Inertia,” by Fyodor Lukyanov, addresses the radical changes in Russian foreign policy that took place in 2014. Lukyanov argues that 2013 was the apogee of the normal development of Russia in the international system, with the restoration of its foreign policy capacities after the collapse at the beginning of the 1990s. By the end of that year, Moscow had exhausted the potential for progressively raising its international status by evolutionary means. Other countries of the former Soviet Union began to undertake serious efforts to separate themselves from Russian domination and define their own vision of the future. As 2014 approached, Russia sensed that it was reaching the limits of its status within the Western-dominated international system and started to define its own habitat. The trigger was a clash between comprehensive and mutually exclusive integration projects led by Russia and the EU. Lukyanov argues that Russia's goal is not revisionist in a grand sense, but simply seeking to define its own space on its own terms.
These articles highlight the difficult political and economic situation in which Russia found itself at the end of 2014. Despite the superficial appearance of Russian resurgence on the world stage, the authors note that Russia is increasingly isolated, in great economic difficult, and burdened with a political system that is unsuitable for the task of adapting to changing circumstances. Their overall conclusion is that Russia is on the brink of a series of political crises that will most likely result in a systemic change.