Putin's Power Revisited: How Identity Positions and Great Power Interaction Condition Strategic Cooperation on Syria

Abstract

This article investigates how Russian foreign policies are shaped in a two-level interactive social game. Russian foreign policies take their cue from ingrained identity positions articulated by the state leadership and negotiated in domestic debates, but they are also informed by interaction with other states. The article explains the shift in Russian policies away from pragmatic cooperation with the West in Syria from autumn 2015 onwards. While the Russian leadership initially sought such cooperation, the prominence of anti-Western discourse in Russia following the crisis in Ukraine as well as the West's rejection of Russia in this period spurred Russia to act independently in Syria.     

A Social Discount Rate for Appraisal of Regional Investments: Evidence from Russia

This article provides estimates of a social discount rate (SDR) to inform government policy in Russia. We find that a SDR should be determined for the whole country as well as for particular regions. We apply the social rate of time preferences approach and estimate values for public sector projects at national and regional levels. All calculations are based on data from the Federal State Statistics Service of Russia. Findings help the decision-making process in the public sector of economics. Suggestions are useful for Russia as well as for post-Soviet countries and other developing economies with regional diversity.     

Uzbekistan among the great powers

Under the authoritarian regime of Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan has achieved independence and stability by exploiting its natural resources through a strategy of “staple globalism” and by balancing the great powers against each other. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, the new regime first distanced itself from Russia and tried regional alliances, then accepted help from NATO, and most recently turned cautiously to Russia (and China). Throughout, Uzbekistan has managed to receive considerable assistance from international agencies and military aid from several outside powers, albeit relatively little private foreign investment, owing to its poor business climate. The country has also handled potential conflicts with neighbors without significant violence.     

Russian Non-Profit Organisations in Service Delivery: Neoliberal and Statist Social Policy Principles Intertwined

Abstract

The essay examines the social policy principles underlying state funding schemes that shape the functioning of non-profit organisations in service delivery in Russia. Scrutinising federal and regional financial tools, the analysis reveals that some non-profit organisations are engaged with a neoliberal logic promoting state funding based on competitive grant processes and a means-tested approach to clients, while others seek privileged access to state resources to secure a statist and stratified service provision for their members. The essay argues that neoliberal principles are extended through contracting-out and are undermining statist practices; however, a situation is emerging within competitive outsourcing procedures in which selected organisations are still receiving privileged treatment from the state.     

Improving Competency-Based Education through Empirical Evaluation: A Mixed Methods Study of A Masters of Public Administration Program

ABSTRACT

This study is focused on the problem of the mismatch of competencies of Masters of Public Administration (MPA) graduates in Russia and current Russian public servants. A mixed methods approach was used to analyze quantitative (n = 734) and qualitative data about the real-world competencies of local, regional, and federal government officials in comparison to what MPA graduates get from their education. The comparison of competency models of MPA graduates and government officials indicated that the most of the competencies are useful in public administration practice, but there is still lot to change in the approach of compiling the content of MPA educational standards and educational programs.     

Power and Public Chambers in the development of civil society in Russia

Embodying a state vision of how civil society ought to function and be designed by the authorities, Public Chambers in Russia have been criticized as means of state control. This state dominance is the starting point in this article, which asks what room to manoeuvre a regional Public Chamber has. Drawing upon fieldwork this article examines how members and local observers of the Public Chamber give meaning to this activity. The analysis assesses the role of state dominance, discussion of routines and responses to local demands, and concludes that these incremental developments form civil society in Russia.     

The new great game in Central Asia post 2014: The US “New Silk Road” strategy and Sino-Russian rivalry

With the planned US and NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2014 looming ever closer, and Central Asia's own future increasingly in doubt, major powers are all competing to enhance their influence in Central Asia. 2014 may mark a regional tipping point, but none can accurately predict how the regional balance might shift after the NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan. During 2009–2010, the signs of growing Russian dependence on China in terms of economy and energy were palpable, as were the signs of China successfully subordinating Russia to its Central Asian economic agenda. In 2011–2012, it was difficult to see Russia simply acquiescing in its subordination to China without reacting to that situation negatively. Since 2011, to avoid this dependence on China, Russia has vigorously pushed for its regional integration schemes. 2011 marked the launch of the US “New Silk Road” initiative. Great power regional integration schemes, however, undermine both regional and national development.     

Why ‘Uganda’s anti-homosexuality bill’? Rethinking the ‘coherent’ state

How we understand the state is important when addressing issues of human rights. During the debate on the Anti-Homosexuality Bill in Uganda, the country was, at times, presented as nearly uniformly homophobic, exemplified by references to ‘Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill’. The state, which does discriminate against gender and sexual minorities, is comprised of different institutions and people, holding, at times, conflicting positions. This paper documents these differing positions that parts of the state adopted, along with how those positions changed over time in response to political changes and lobbying from civil society. Uncovering gaps in the coherence of the state by identifying these opposing views is useful both for how we understand and study the state, and for activism against political homophobias. Strategies against legislation similar to the Anti-Homosexuality Bill can target those within most likely to oppose such laws.     

Budgetary politics in the Russian federation:(1) the case: of sakha (yakutia)

This article traces the evolution of center-periphery relations between the Russian federal government and the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) using an institutional framework. During each of three stages the author identifies a distinct set of institutional parameters that, to varying degrees, determined the powers of federal and regional institutions. Each stage is also identified with a unique central institutional conflict that helped shape the rules of the political games played during that period. From this perspective, institutional change is seen as a major determinant of Russian center-periphery relations. The article concludes that Sakha has had remarkable success in extracting budgetary concessions from the federal government. However, Sakha has been unable to force the federal government to implement all the promises it has made.

Nonetheless, the concessions that Sakha and others have received are significant, and prompt the conclusion that Russia has become a federal state. However, Russia is far from an equal federation.     

The Political Resurrection of Russian Governors

Elections for all 83 Russian governors were reinstated in Russia in 2012, seven years after they had been suspended. The democratic reform coincided with renewed political activism in Russia since December 2011, but the reform was as much a belated recognition of the shortcomings and failures from appointing Russian governors. Pragmatic necessity and not democratic conversion was the determining factor. Based on the first elections in October 2012, the reform will have only a limited effect over the next few years on democratic change in Russia, at most placating liberal and regional demands while consolidating personal rule under Putin.     

Building a ‘culture of dialogue’ among stakeholders in North-West Russian oil extraction

This article analyses the development of relations between indigenous communities, oil companies and the state in Russia's Nenets Autonomous Okrug (NAO). Using first hand information from anthropological fieldwork and one co-author's own involvement in regional politics, we analyse efforts to establish stakeholder dialogue. We show that ‘collective agency’ is crucial to prepare the ground for trustful relations, whereas high personnel turnover within interest groups jeopardises initially promising initiatives. Lessons from this experience have relevance for similar analyses throughout Russia in those cases where consistent federal and regional legislation is not likely to be in place in the near future.     

Intergovernmental Agreements in Contemporary Russia

ABSTRACT

The paper discusses the evolution and current forms of agreements between federal, regional and municipal governments, as well as between the constituent units of the Russian Federation and municipalities. It analyses the problems and prospects of using these regulatory instruments. The purposes of this paper are to examine the current context of making intergovernmental agreements in Russia, to provide a comprehensive vision of contemporary state of this instrument of shaping intergovernmental relations, and to assess the prospects for their further practical use in the Russian Federation.     

The myth of equilibrium: winner power, fiscal crisis and Russian economic reform

It has become common to describe Russia as a state that has only achieved partial reform due to the influence of powerful economic forces, the ‘winners’ of economic reform, and to assume that the Russian state lacks autonomy. This paper questions how far reform in Russia has been compromised by the power of winners. The failure of economic reform between 1992 and 1998 is explained as a policy response by state officials unable to manage tendencies towards fiscal crisis because of the state's general helplessness in managing the Russian economy, rather than as a surrender of sovereignty to economic interests.     

Russia as a great power: Status inconsistency and the two Chechen wars

The article examines Russia as a great power from the point of view of status inconsistency theory. Applications of the theory to Russia have focused on the status accorded to Russia in diplomatic representation and membership of key international organizations, which suggests that Russia is a ‘status overachiever’ in that it has an international status that is greater than its actual capabilities would warrant. However, this article focuses on Russian perceptions of the country's status internationally, especially as reflected in the actual experience of membership in international organizations (OSCE, Council of Europe) and relations with the EU in the context of the two Chechen wars. The article demonstrates that, at least according to Russian assessments, Russia is accorded lower status in these organizations than the great power status which most Russians believe should be theirs. While concluding that status inconsistency is a useful tool for explaining Russian foreign policy behavior, the article notes that differing assessments of what Russia's level of status recognition is pose challenges for status inconsistency theory.     

Reframing the rising powers debate: state transformation and foreign policy

Abstract

The volume that we introduce breaks with the prevalent tendency in International Relations (IR) scholarship to treat rising powers (such as China, Russia, India and Brazil) as unitary actors in international politics. Although a neat demarcation of the domestic and international domains, on which the notion of unitary agency is premised, has always been a myth, these states’ uneven integration into the global political economy has eroded this perspective’s empirical purchase considerably. Instead, this collection advances the concept of ‘state transformation’ as a useful lens through which to examine rising power states’ foreign policymaking and implementation. State transformation refers to the pluralisation of cross-border state agency via contested and uneven processes of fragmentation, decentralisation and internationalisation of state apparatuses. The volume demonstrates the significance of state transformation processes for explaining some of these states’ most important foreign policy agendas, and outlines the implications for the wider field in IR.     

Commemorating 1917 in Russia: Ambivalent State History Policy and the Church’s Conquest of the History Market

Abstract

Russia’s historical policy towards the centenary of 1917 was composed of several parallel strategies: diminishing the meaning of the event to avoid the head of state and other government figures having to take a stance; outsourcing commemorative events, with no pre-planned grand design; developing a reconciliatory narrative of the ‘Whites’ and the ‘Reds’; and allowing other actors to promote a plurality of contradictory readings of the events. Yet the space left by the state’s refusal to commemorate 1917 has been taken over by the Church, which, as today’s most active engineer of Russia’s historical policy, promoted a very clear pro-Tsarist narrative best embodied by the multimedia historical park ‘Russia—my history’ (Rossiya—moya istoriya).     

Levels of Centralisation and Autonomy in Russia’s ‘Party of Power’: Cross-Regional Variations

The institutionalisation and nationalisation of Russia’s party system, which is dominated by United Russia (Edinaya Rossiya—UR), has played a major role in the building of Putin’s ‘power vertical’. Nevertheless, despite the fact that formal relations within UR are highly centralised, informal practices allow for far greater degrees of regional autonomy. Focusing on UR’s candidate selection for the 2011 Duma election this article provides an examination of cross-regional variations in the relations between UR’s Party Centre and its regional branches. As electoral legislation requires the segmentation of party lists into ‘regional groups’, the composition of the regional lists, specifically the share of ‘native candidates’, is considered as an indicator of the level of autonomy of regional branches. Ordinal regression analysis confirms our main theoretical hypotheses. In the more financially autonomous regions, UR’s regional branches will have more leverage and bargaining power in their relations with the Party Centre. A second important factor is heterogeneity: the more a region’s socio-economic indices deviate from the national average (either up or down), the less its UR branch is subordinate to the Party Centre.     

Watchdogs or attack dogs? The role of the Russian courts and the central election commission in the resolution of electoral disputes

Do Russian courts constrain the state? Or do they facilitate arbitrary state action by favouring state agents over other litigants where such bias is not built into the written laws? Are Russian elections fair? The answers to these questions would help us assess Russia's progress towards establishing the rule of law and a democratic regime. The evidence presented in this article suggests that in electoral registration cases where incumbent politicians have a stake, the Russian courts and the Central Election Commission (CEC) are responsive to pressure from them. More specifically, the systematic analysis of all denials of registration by a District Election Commission (DEC) associated with the 1999 parliamentary election suggests that the Russian judiciary was subject to pressure from the regional authorities. Regional oppositionists tended to seek redress at the CEC, rather than at the local courts. Protégés of the regional administration, on the other hand, preferred to take their appeal to the local courts. A further indicator of the weakness of rule of law in Russia is that previous experience with the legal system made a candidate less rather than more likely to pursue an appeal. At the same time, however, scathing journalistic accounts of judicial corruption, inefficiency, and total subservience to politicians seem to be exaggerated. In 1999, both the courts and the CEC were acceptable appeal venues, since opposition candidates used them to defend their electoral rights more often than all other groups of candidates.     

A Power Horizontal. The Public–Private Enforcement of Judicial Decisions in Russia

Based on fieldwork done in Ekaterinburg, this article deals with the enforcement of legal decisions about economic disputes in the late 2000s in Russia. As state employees, bailiffs are responsible for the implementation of court decisions but their efficiency depends on the cases they deal with. In the most successful cases, they are backed by private enforcers, hired by the claimant and often coming from the law enforcement agencies. This common work reflects an informal public–private partnership from below in which bailiffs and private enforcers co-execute judicial decisions. Such autonomous public–private power configurations at local level challenge the governmental claim to build a ‘power vertical’ in Russia from the top.     

United Russia’s Primaries and the Strength of Political Machines in the Regions of Russia: Evidence from the 2016 Duma Elections

Abstract

The primary elections of the United Russia party serve as a tool for party organisation and voter mobilisation. In this study, we employ United Russia’s capacity to mobilise voter turnout in the 2016 primary elections as an indirect indicator of the strength of party-controlled regional political machines. Our analysis of the results of the 2016 Duma elections in 83 regions of Russia demonstrates that voter turnout in the spring 2016 party primaries of United Russia to a significant extent explains cross-regional variation in party success.