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Abstract
The centralization of power and the decline of regionalism were two of Vladimir Putin's principal achievements during his presidency. These achievements are now threatened by the global financial crisis, which weakens the Russian central state and widens existing divisions between the centre and the regions. While the crisis does not portend a revival of a 1990s-style regionalism, it exposes the Kremlin's over-centralization of power in the form of stress within the ruling party, United Russia, and rising internal defections among regional elites. As a result, the regime is increasingly vulnerable to social protest and its potential transformation into anti-regime nationalism.
Notes
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Richard Sakwa, Putin: Russia's Choice (London and New York: Routledge, 2004), p.132.
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Gorenburg observes that the ethnic nationalist movements that emerged in Russia's republics during the period of the ‘parade of sovereignties’ faded from view by 1993 as regional elites staked out more moderate positions while consolidating their control; however, he does not exclude the possibility of their revival after the present generation of leaders in the republics is replaced: Dmitry P. Gorenburg, Minority Ethnic Mobilization in the Russian Federation (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp.232–3.
Bo Petersson, National Self-Images and Regional Identities in Russia (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001); Alla Chirikova and Natalya Lapina, ‘Political Power and Political Stability in the Russian Regions’, in Archie Brown (ed.), Contemporary Russian Politics: A Reader (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp.384–97.
N. Gevorkian, N. Timakova and A. Kolesnikov, Ot pervovo litsa: Razgovory s Vladimirom Putinym [First person: Conversations with Vladimir Putin] (Moscow: Vagrius, 2000).
Dmitrii Vladimirovich Badovskii, ‘Sistema federal'nykh okrugov i institut polnomochnykh predstavitelei Prezidenta RF: Sovremennoe sostoyania i problemy razvitiya’ [The system of federal districts and the institution of plenipotentiary representatives of the President of the RF: The present position and problems of development], in Polpredy Prezidenta: Problemy stanovleniya novogo instituta, nauchnye doklady [Representatives of the President: Problems of establishing a new institution: scholarly papers] (Moscow: Nauchno-issledovatel'skii institut sotsial'nykh sistem, 2001), pp.3–7; Robert Orttung and Peter Reddaway, ‘What Do the Okrug Reforms Add up To? Some Conclusions’, in Robert Orttung and Peter Reddaway (eds.), The Dynamics of Russian Politics: Putin's Reform of Federal–Regional Relations, Volume I (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004), pp.277–301.
Natal'ya Zubarevich, Nikolai Petrov and Aleksei Titkov, ‘Federal'nye okruga – 2000’ [Federal districts – 2000], in N. Petrov (ed.), Regiony Rossii v 1999 g.: Yezhegodnoe prilozhenie k ‘Politicheskomu al'manakhu Rossii’ [Regions of Russia in 1999: Annual supplement to ‘Political Almanack of Russia’] (Moscow: Moskovskii Tsentr Karnegi, 2001), pp.173–96.
Lynn D. Nelson and Irina Y. Kuzes, ‘Political and Economic Coordination in Russia's Federal District Reform: A Study of Four Regions’, Europe–Asia Studies, Vol.55, No.4 (2003), pp.507–20; Reddaway and Orttung (eds.), The Dynamics of Russian Politics.
The Federal Inspectors continued to feature in the list of recommendations for gubernatorial appointments that the polpredy presented to Putin (and now to Medvedev) after the elimination of direct elections.
Thomas F. Remington, ‘Majorities without Mandates: The Russian Federation Council since 2000’, Europe–Asia Studies, Vol.55, No.5 (2003), pp.667–91.
Matthew Hyde, ‘Putin's Federal Reforms and Their Implications for Presidential Power in Russia’, Europe–Asia Studies, Vol.53, No.5 (2001), pp.719–43.
Putin did manage to secure the removal of the troublesome governor of Primorskii krai, Yevgenii Nazdratenko, but he did so through the power of persuasion and the offer of a position within the federal government in charge of fisheries rather than by exercising his new legal powers.
The requirement was initially imposed by federal law in 1999 although few expected at the time that it would ever be implemented in any meaningful way.
Elena A. Chebankova, ‘The Limitations of Central Authority in the Regions and the Implications for the Evolution of Russia's Federal System’, Europe–Asia Studies, Vol.57, No.7 (2005), pp.933–49.
Another significant consequence of the Kozak Commission reforms was to subordinate the autonomous okrugs to their ‘parent’ oblast’ or krai; a full discussion of the so-called ‘complexly constructed’ (slozhno-postroennye) regions is beyond the scope of the present article.
Ildar Gabdafrikov and Henry E. Hale, ‘Bashkortostan's Democratic Moment? Patronal Presidentialism, Regional Regime Change, and Identity in Russia’, in Osamu Ieda and Tomohiko Uyama (eds.), Reconstruction and Interaction of Slavic Eurasia and Its Neighboring Worlds (Sapporo: Slavic Research Center, Hokkaido University, 2006), pp.75–102.
On this regional merger, see J. Paul Goode, ‘The Push for Regional Enlargement in Putin's Russia’, Post-Soviet Affairs, Vol.20, No.3 (2004), pp.219–57; Oksana Oracheva, ‘Unification as a Political Project: The Case of Permskii Krai’, in Cameron Ross and Adrian Campbell (eds.), Federalism and Local Politics in Russia (New York: Routledge, 2009), pp.82–105.
Elena Chebankova, ‘The Unintended Consequences of Gubernatorial Appointments in Russia, 2005–6’, Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, Vol.22, No.4 (2006), pp.457–84; J. Paul Goode, ‘The Puzzle of Putin's Gubernatorial Appointments’, Europe–Asia Studies, Vol.59, No.3 (2007), pp.365–99.
Vladimir Gel'man, ‘Leviathan's Return: The Policy of Recentralization in Contemporary Russia’, in Ross and Campbell (eds.), Federalism and Local Politics in Russia, pp.1–24 (p.18).
Nezavisimaya gazeta, 21 Jan. 2005
Yana Yurova, ‘Why Is Benefit Reform Unpopular?’, RIA Novosti, 19 Jan. 2005 (JRL #9021).
Nezavisimaya gazeta, 7 April 2005.
RIA Novosti, 12 Jan. 2005 (JRL #9013).
Gazeta.ru, 6 Sept. 2006.
Izvestiya, 20 Sept. 2006; Novoe vremya, 8 Sept. 2006.
RIA Novosti, 7 Sept. 2006.
Rossiiskaya gazeta, 13 Sept. 2006.
Michael Mann, States, War and Capitalism: Studies in Political Sociology (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988), pp.3–10.
Neil Robinson, Russia: A State of Uncertainty (London: Routledge, 2002); William Tompson, ‘Putting Yukos in Perspective’, Post-Soviet Affairs, Vol.21, No.2 (2005), pp.159–81.
Kommersant, 3 Feb. 2009.
<http://kremlin.ru/transcripts/5979>, accessed 7 Dec. 2009.
The name of the Just Russia party, Spravedlivaya Rossiya, can also be translated as ‘Fair Russia’, which avoids ambiguity in the English version.
In accordance with the range of proposals made by Medvedev in his annual address to parliament in November 2008, the majority party in regional legislative elections now nominates gubernatorial candidates. The first governor to be appointed by this method was Aleksandr Misharin in Sverdlovsk oblast’: Kommersant, 17 Nov. 2009.
Ekspert, 9 Dec. 2008.
SMI.ru, 28 May 2009.
Kommersant, 28 Nov. 2009.
Ibid., 30 Nov. 2009.
Ibid., 9 Nov. 2009.
Gazeta.ru, 5 March 2009.
Kommersant, 3 March 2009.
Ibid., 6 March 2009.
Vremya novosti, 13 Oct. 2009; Nezavisimaya gazeta, 14 Oct. 2009; Kommersant, 4 Dec. 2009.
Kommersant, 3 March 2009.
Ibid., 4 June 2009.
Nezavisimaya gazeta, 20 Jan. 2009.
‘Dissident respubliki Bashkortostan’ [Bashkotorstan republic dissident], Moskovskii Komsomolets, 5 June 2009.
<http://www.edinros.ru/text.shtml?10/9316,110746>, accessed 6 Dec. 2009.
Kommersant, 29 Jan. 2009.
Nezavisimaya gazeta, 6 March 2009. At issue appears to be that Subbotin worked with the National Democratic Institute, which is funded by the US Congress, and recruited consultants from the Foundation for the Development of Information Policy, which is funded by USAID. None of this appeared to be a problem until Yevdokimov supported the ‘wrong’ candidate in the election of the mayor.
Ekspert Severo-Zapad, 9 March 2009, 30 March 2009.
Kommersant, 3 March 2009; Gazeta.ru, 5 March 2009.
Rossiiskaya gazeta, 17 Feb. 2009.
Kommersant, 3 Feb. 2009.
Gazeta.ru, 29 May 2009.
Nezavisimaya gazeta, 21 Oct. 2009, 28 Oct. 2009.
A number of the ‘other’ positions were outside politics but still close to the regime. For instance, Vladimir Loginov became president of the Federal Ski Racing circuit after losing his post as governor of Koryak AO in 2005; his position suddenly became politically relevant when Sochi was awarded the Winter Olympics in 2014.
Kommersant, 3 June 2009.
Kommersant-Vlast’, 8 June 2009.
Ibid., 15 June 2009.
Ibid., 22 June 2009, 29 June 2009; Kommersant (Novosibirsk), 15 July 2009.
Nezavisimaya gazeta, 25 March 2009.
Alfred B. Evans, Jr., ‘Vladimir Putin's Design for Civil Society’, in Alfred B. Evans, Jr., Laura A. Henry and Lisa Sundstrom (eds.), Russian Civil Society: A Critical Assessment (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2006), pp.147–58; Graeme B. Robertson, ‘Managing Society: Protest, Civil Society, and Regime in Putin's Russia’, Slavic Review, Vol.68, No.3 (2009), pp.528–47.
Tomila Lankina and Alexey Savrasov, ‘Growing Social Protest in Russia’, Russian Analytical Digest, 2009, No.60, pp.6–12.
Debra Javeline, ‘The Role of Blame in Collective Action: Evidence from Russia’, American Political Science Review, Vol.97, No.1 (2003), pp.107–21.
Vedomosti, 15 April 2009.
Henry E. Hale, ‘The Makeup and Breakup of Ethnofederal States: Why Russia Survives Where the USSR Fell’, Perspectives on Politics, Vol.3, No.1 (2005), pp.55–70.
Kommersant, 11 Oct. 2005.
Vedomosti, 6 Oct. 2006; Vremya Novostei, 6 Oct. 2006.
Moscow News, 27 Oct. 2006.
Novye izvestiya, 28 Aug. 2006.
Kommersant-Vlast′, 22 Jan. 2007 (JRL #21).
Izvestiya, 6 Feb. 2007 (JRL #29).
G. Kovalev, ‘Sovmen vse-taki ukhodit?’ [Is Sovmen leaving in any case?], Politcom.ru, 12 April 2006; Kommersant, 14 April 2006.
Darrell Slider, ‘Putin's “Southern Strategy”: Dmitriy Kozak and the Dilemmas of Recentralization’, Post-Soviet Affairs, Vol.24, No.2 (2008), pp.177–97.
Vedomosti, 24 March 2009.