Professor says Russia is at ‘crossroads’

When political scientists talk about Russia, they usually aren’t mentioning it in the same breath as democracy.\nInstead, they talk about its slow slide into authoritarianism, said Henry Hale, an assistant professor at George Washington University and a former professor at IU.\nHale said he disagrees with this view of Russia when he shared his views with a packed room Tuesday at Sycamore Hall.\nHis lecture, “The Russian Presidency: The Influence of the Balance of Power on Politics in Russia,” laid down the dynamics of executive power in Russia. Hale said political cultures are often too narrowly defined by one criterion – whether or not they are moving toward or away from democracy. He said it’s more likely this political movement comes in cycles, and there are institutions in Russia that could create real change.\nHale said these institutions are part of what he calls “patronal presidentialism.” To be considered a patronal presidency, a country must have three attributes: direct elections, a president who has strong constitutional powers, and a president who has strong informal powers in the form of a “patron-client relationship, at the intersection of the state and the economy.” \nThese patronal presidential systems are based on interactions between elites and the president, inside or outside the law. Russia has three sets of elites competing for power: regional authorities who control resources, business leaders who control large corporations and bureaucrats such as military and judicial officials.\n“The president and the five elites are mutually dependent (on one another) in order to get things done. Someone has to carry out the president’s will,” Hale said.\nTheoretically, if all the elites in Russia ganged up, they could exercise authority over even the powerful Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president. But it’s risky for the myriad competing interests to coordinate their actions, because of the president’s grand powers – governors and bureaucrats can be fired and businesses can be hit with incessant inspections – and because not all groups have the same goals. \nThe competing factions are also burdened, “not by an absence of law, but by an overabundance of it,” Hale said, observing that Russia’s lengthy legal code makes it almost impossible to enforce laws uniformly, so it’s used primarily when someone steps out of line. With so many laws “You can always find someone guilty of something,” Hale said. He noted that this legal system is often referred to as “rule by law” instead of “rule of law.”\nThough the patronal presidency is strong in times of stability, times of uncertainty, such as the transfer of presidential power in 2008, “create incentives for elites to jockey for position in the post-Putin future,” Hale said. Since the presidency is so powerful and the sitting president becomes a lame duck, competition among factions increases.\nHale said public opinion is important in this struggle, because whoever wins still has to formally ratify that result through an election. Just having elections on the books matters, he said. That doesn’t mean elections are going to be completely democratic, but it does mean competitors are going to have to put effort into winning – mobilizing their supporters and encouraging public demonstrations.\nThough Putin has started to consolidate his power, it’s times like these, Hale said, that could create some serious commotion in the Russian electoral process. \nFrontrunners for Russia’s 2008 presidential election are Dmitry Medvedev and Sergei Ivanov , characterized by Hale, respectively, as “Putin light” and “Putin hard” – one for his pro-market stance and the other for his distrust of the West. With these two choices, Russia seems to be at a crossroads. Hale said Putin is so popular that he will likely be able to usher in whoever he wants in the next elections, so the system will remain relatively closed until the next transition in 2016. \nBut Hale doesn’t think this signifies an irreversible slide from democracy.\n“There’s no guarantee,” Hale said, “that the next leader will have the gravitas or be able to sustain the popularity Putin has ... you get this element of uncertainty.”\nJunior Laura Tattersall attended the lecture for her Russian politics class. She said she’s always had a fascination for Russia. She was most interested in Putin’s rise to power, how “he used tragedy to obtain popularity and how he has retained it,” she said, alluding to a series of apartment bombings in Moscow that Hale said cemented Putin’s popularity early in his presidency.\nRegina Smyth, a professor of Russian politics, attended the speech and was impressed with Hale’s characterization of Medvedev and Ivanov as “Putin light” and “Putin hard.”\n“I hadn’t heard the rumors about having the two of them run against each other,” she said, referring to Hale’s hypothesis that Putin might reserve his endorsement and let the two chosen duke it out democratically. Smyth thinks that scenario is too uncertain for Putin’s liking, though, and that he will choose one to endorse.