Russia is Facing Ten Rough Years
Radu-Alexandru CUCUTA
October 13, 2009
Radu-Alexandru CUCUTA
October 13, 2009
The most recent report from Chatham House paints a grim picture of the next ten years Russia will have to face. Expert Andrew Wood tries to synthesize the challenges the country will have to face over the coming decade, both foreign and domestic. The conclusions reached in his analysis paint a stark picture of Russia’s future – the present regime’s characteristics are, in spite of the mounting popular support for both president Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, a drawback from the “wild” years of post-communist transition. The institutional potential for independent authorities has been severely undermined. The Russian political and economic elite, the “siloviki” are not held accountable by any public authority, the lack of a checks and balances system being a subtle way of denouncing Russia’s organization as a non-democratic regime (the rule of law is absent).
Furthermore, the country’s political regime and foreign policy is not held together by a unifying ideology – besides some historically-embedded national grievances, the document doesn’t seem to find any sort of cohesion of any type. The divide between the elite and the society tends only to reinforce the latter’s distrust and falling back on self-fulfilling prophecies and antiquated definitions. This latter part of the document is somewhat questionable, as the reinforcing dialectic of the elite’s definitions seems very similar to the way ideology really works. At the same time, the divide between the ruling technocratic elite and the society is not that deep - in spite of allegations of electoral fraud, the legitimacy of both Putin and Medvedev, as shown by recent electoral results, is undeniable. Redressing external problems in the “near abroad” that the population perceives as genuine and the emphasis the regime puts upon imperial myths (be they Soviet or Czarist) seem to point towards an understandable tendency towards nationalist foreign and domestic policy. The ideology of the regime may not be clearly formulated, but then, many ideological systems are unclear in many ways. The fact that the scope of the regime’s ideological objectives is not as encompassing as the Imperial or Communist ethos doesn’t point towards a post-ideological country.
Another finding of the report is the debatable success of Russia’s approach to the economic crisis. The document discards the anti-crisis measures as merely “palliatives” whose success is only short-termed. Keeping inflation and unemployment down, at the cost of spending most of the Reserve and Welfare Found may keep social pressure and discontent down for the moment. The medium and long term effects of this strategy are extremely high – the benefits of the years when natural resources prices were at their highest will largely be wasted on this inefficient form of social welfare, Wood argues. Russia may find itself borrowing heavily (by 2011, the abundant funds will have been spent and the country will have to sustain an external debt of almost 60 billion dollars). The welfare strategy seems more like a gamble – its success depends on the world economy bouncing back to pre-crisis level of natural resources prices.
The most important aspect the report analyzes is the impasse Russia’s elite will face over the next decade (the next years, according to Wood will be most important because they will either be marked by a break in the Russian elite – most probably, the long awaited and heralded clash between Putin and Medvedev, or by a period of political stagnation, expressed by Putin’s return to the Kremlin as president or by the continuation of the present political organization). The political trap – the inner conflict at the top level of Russian political establishment – will be determined by a political actor’s resolve to push forward serious economic and political reforms. According to Wood, the solutions are at hand and the official Russian documents recognize the need of modernizing the economy (by creating a competitive economic market, by moving away from natural resources exports, by investing in technology and education, by creating an independent judiciary and political pluralism). The costs of these measures no one seems willing to undertake are represented by the politic monopoly of the present elite. The failure of the “tactical” economic moves in the present, the failing technological standards will probably spark internal political competition – the report doesn’t tackle the problem of social support for these neoliberal economic politics. Although Russia may face some hard times, the present regime is gaining support precisely because it has moved away from the Yeltsin years (and West-inspired policies are at the moment more resented than populist rhetoric seems to be). The political and electoral costs an actor may face may be discouraging, and as the clock is ticking for the political struggle (the next elections are in 2012), the present regime may prove more resilient and solid than estimated.
Furthermore, the country’s political regime and foreign policy is not held together by a unifying ideology – besides some historically-embedded national grievances, the document doesn’t seem to find any sort of cohesion of any type. The divide between the elite and the society tends only to reinforce the latter’s distrust and falling back on self-fulfilling prophecies and antiquated definitions. This latter part of the document is somewhat questionable, as the reinforcing dialectic of the elite’s definitions seems very similar to the way ideology really works. At the same time, the divide between the ruling technocratic elite and the society is not that deep - in spite of allegations of electoral fraud, the legitimacy of both Putin and Medvedev, as shown by recent electoral results, is undeniable. Redressing external problems in the “near abroad” that the population perceives as genuine and the emphasis the regime puts upon imperial myths (be they Soviet or Czarist) seem to point towards an understandable tendency towards nationalist foreign and domestic policy. The ideology of the regime may not be clearly formulated, but then, many ideological systems are unclear in many ways. The fact that the scope of the regime’s ideological objectives is not as encompassing as the Imperial or Communist ethos doesn’t point towards a post-ideological country.
Another finding of the report is the debatable success of Russia’s approach to the economic crisis. The document discards the anti-crisis measures as merely “palliatives” whose success is only short-termed. Keeping inflation and unemployment down, at the cost of spending most of the Reserve and Welfare Found may keep social pressure and discontent down for the moment. The medium and long term effects of this strategy are extremely high – the benefits of the years when natural resources prices were at their highest will largely be wasted on this inefficient form of social welfare, Wood argues. Russia may find itself borrowing heavily (by 2011, the abundant funds will have been spent and the country will have to sustain an external debt of almost 60 billion dollars). The welfare strategy seems more like a gamble – its success depends on the world economy bouncing back to pre-crisis level of natural resources prices.
The most important aspect the report analyzes is the impasse Russia’s elite will face over the next decade (the next years, according to Wood will be most important because they will either be marked by a break in the Russian elite – most probably, the long awaited and heralded clash between Putin and Medvedev, or by a period of political stagnation, expressed by Putin’s return to the Kremlin as president or by the continuation of the present political organization). The political trap – the inner conflict at the top level of Russian political establishment – will be determined by a political actor’s resolve to push forward serious economic and political reforms. According to Wood, the solutions are at hand and the official Russian documents recognize the need of modernizing the economy (by creating a competitive economic market, by moving away from natural resources exports, by investing in technology and education, by creating an independent judiciary and political pluralism). The costs of these measures no one seems willing to undertake are represented by the politic monopoly of the present elite. The failure of the “tactical” economic moves in the present, the failing technological standards will probably spark internal political competition – the report doesn’t tackle the problem of social support for these neoliberal economic politics. Although Russia may face some hard times, the present regime is gaining support precisely because it has moved away from the Yeltsin years (and West-inspired policies are at the moment more resented than populist rhetoric seems to be). The political and electoral costs an actor may face may be discouraging, and as the clock is ticking for the political struggle (the next elections are in 2012), the present regime may prove more resilient and solid than estimated.
