Bringing actors back in: political choices and sources of post-Soviet regime dynamics

One might summarize the state of the field of research into contemporary Russian politics as a “dismal consensus”: most observers believe that durable authoritarianism has consolidated itself, and there is very little chance of democratization in the foreseeable future. However, political regime changes are often launched and developed overtime as side effects of moves made by political actors, and their outcomes are not predetermined. This article aims to go beyond this “dismal consensus,” and revisits some of the arguments on the role of structure and agency in post-Soviet regime dynamics. Apart from the changes in structural variables, it reconsiders the role of the incentives and choices of self-interested political actors, who are not always omnipotent and well-informed strategists. The overall dismal tendencies nevertheless leave some “bias for hope” in the analysis of regime dynamics in post-Soviet Eurasia and beyond.     

Internet control through ownership: the case of Russia

The Russian Internet remained relatively unregulated compared to the media sector as a whole until about 2012. One of the levers for increased control over the Internet was ownership, direct or indirect, of the most important infrastructure and websites. Control through ownership over the Russian Internet companies has increased, but in a finely calibrated fashion in order not to spark discontent and risk the formation of a social movement. The Internet’s global nature, however, has made it impossible to use the same methods against international companies. The Russian government has had to exert other forms of pressure, change legislation, or block entire social networks. Furthermore, increasing and more systematic control through ownership carries with it considerable long-term consequences and costs, both when it comes to the modernization of Russia and in terms of possible rising discontent if Internet users no longer accept that the repressive measures taken are in their interest.     

The five shades of grey: party systems and authoritarian institutions in post-Soviet Central Asian states

ABSTRACT

This article overviews and seeks to explain the processes of party system formation in the post-Soviet Central Asian states (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan) by focusing on a crucial party-system property, fragmentation. The analysis reveals that to a much greater extent than in democracies, where party systems are largely shaped by societal factors, the level of party system fragmentation in autocracies is determined by the scope of presidential powers, as entrenched in the formal institutional order and reflected in the national constitution. The level of authoritarianism is largely inconsequential for party system fragmentation, while the role of electoral rules is secondary. Institutionally weak and institutionally strong autocratic presidents have a preference for fragmented party systems, while presidents with an intermediate range of powers seek and obtain low levels of party system fragmentation.     

The idiosyncratic dynamics of party system nationalization in Russia

This article uses data from the 1993–2011 national legislative elections in Russia in order to systematically measure and explain the dynamics of party system nationalization. The analysis registers a salient discrepancy between the extremely low levels of territorial homogeneity of the vote in the single-member plurality section of Russia's electoral system (1993–2003), on the one hand, and very high levels of party nationalization in party-list contests, on the other. This discrepancy, facilitated by such factors as the legacies of regime transition, federalism, and presidentialism, was reinforced by the integration of gubernatorial political machines into the nationwide political order, which ultimately resulted in unprecedentedly high levels of party nationalization in the 2007–2011 elections. The findings challenge a conventional theory that equates the formation of national electorates to the progressive process of party system consolidation, suggesting that under certain conditions, related but not reducible to the authoritarian perversion of the structure of electoral incentives, there is no such linear relationship.     

俄罗斯国家数据安全治理的机制建设

随着信息时代的到来,数据安全成为世界各国共同关注的问题。俄罗斯政府也给予该问题高度重视。普京总统曾多次强调数据保护在推进俄罗斯经济社会数字化进程中的重要性。俄罗斯国家数据安全治理制度体现在四个重要方面:信息安全贯穿俄罗斯国家数据安全治理始终,个人数据安全突出俄罗斯国家数据安全治理特点,网络数据安全凸显网络安全与国家安全的密切关系,人工智能数据安全则是俄罗斯国家数据安全治理发展新方向。俄罗斯数据安全治理机构的权责分为三个层次:俄联邦总统(总统办公厅和国务委员会)、联邦会议、宪法法院为第一层,俄罗斯联邦中央政府及其分支部门为第二层,俄罗斯联邦地方政府及其分支部门为第三层。在相关制度的保障下,俄罗斯为保障数据安全治理从提升数据安全防御策略、打造数据安全人才培养体系、加强该领域国际合作等层面实施了一系列举措。未来一段时间,俄罗斯国家数据安全将重点聚焦于人工智能数据安全的发展。     

Three dilemmas of hybrid regime governance: Russia from Putin to Putin

This article investigates how hybrid regimes supply governance by examining a series of dilemmas (involving elections, the mass media, and state institutions) that their rulers face. The authors demonstrate how regime responses to these dilemmas – typically efforts to maintain control while avoiding outright repression and societal backlash – have negative outcomes, including a weakening of formal institutions, proliferation of “substitutions” (e.g., substitutes for institutions), and increasing centralization and personalization of control. Efforts by Russian leaders to disengage society from the sphere of decision-making entail a significant risk of systemic breakdown in unexpected ways. More specifically, given significantly weakened institutions for interest representation and negotiated compromise, policy-making in the Russian system often amounts to the leadership's best guess (ad hoc manual policy adjustments) as to precisely what society will accept and what it will not, with a significant possibility of miscalculation. Three case studies of the policy-making process are presented: the 2005 cash-for-benefits reform, plans for the development of the Khimki Forest, and changes leading up to and following major public protests in 2011–2012.     

The devil in the details: constitutional regime types in post-Soviet Eurasia

The constitutions of Eurasia’s more authoritarian countries categorically differ from those of the region’s more democratic countries, in that they codify a doctrine of presidential supremacy as well as several constitutional tools allowing for its implementation. Therefore, the classic typology of forms of government is inadequate for understanding the architecture of power in these countries. Rather, their routine categorization as presidential or semi-presidential formats of executive–legislative relations causes flawed case selection in extant comparative research about the impact of forms of government, particularly president-parliamentarism, on regime performance and stability. This article shows that almost a third of all constitutions in the region reflect a regional variety of genuinely authoritarian presidentialism. It systematizes the properties of this constitutional pattern of “Eurasian-type presidentialism” or, for that matter, “superpresidentialism.” Methodologically, the article encourages contextual analyses to understand non-Western, non-liberal constitutions “from within.”     

Paradoxes of electoral authoritarianism: the 2015 Ethiopian elections as hegemonic performance

The 2015 elections in Ethiopia had a predictable outcome, showing an entrenched system of one-party dominance that self-referentially enacts the political order created by the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) since 1991. EPRDF spokespersons continued to defend the party’s hegemony as inevitable, grounded in a logic of technocratic authority and with reference to ‘stability’ and ‘development’. This paper describes the electoral process not in the light of democracy theory but of hegemonic governance theory. Elections seem to have lost relevance in Ethiopia as a means of political expression and are only important as a performance of hegemonic governance and as ‘global impression management’ – showing state skills in securing a smooth electoral process as a major organisational feat in itself. Contradictions that the political process creates between the Ethiopian party-state and domestic constituencies, and between the attitudes/policies of certain donor countries, are downplayed or avoided, but problematic in the long run.     

Accountability and Authoritarianism: Human Rights in Malaysia and Singapore

The concept of accountability enjoys wide and growing appeal, its advocates submitting both normative and functional arguments for institutions limiting discretionary powers of political and economic elites. This development is seen as facilitative of democratisation, especially in post-authoritarian societies. Yet it has gone almost unnoticed that not all authoritarian regimes have dismissed accountability reform and some are adopting reforms in its name. This article contrasts the patterns in Malaysia and Singapore on a specific accountability institution – human rights commissions – offering explanations for why the former has established one and the latter not. It is argued that intra-state conflicts associated with Malaysian capitalism have created pressures and opportunities for accountability reform not matched in Singapore where there is a more cohesive ruling elite. Moreover, the PAP's acute ideological emphasis on meritocracy concedes no space for horizontal political accountability.     

在俄华人灰色经营问题解析

灰色经营是指非正规但又被默许存在的经营活动。华人在俄进行灰色经营的领域主要有包棚种菜、在批发市场做买卖和带团旅游。华人在俄灰色经营活动之所以能够长期存在,在某种意义上是俄方有意为之的结果。俄罗斯社会缺乏安全感,对外资和外来移民充满戒心;在制定移民政策和引资政策时,总是更多地考量安全。这样就形成了如下矛盾心理:一方面对于外来移民的经营活动存在客观需求;另一方面又担心对外来移民的经营活动难以把控。对待在俄谋生的外来移民,俄方事实上的行为模式如下:先通过收严合法化空间使包括华人在内的外来劳务移民处于非法境地,然后,一方面默许其灰色经营方式的存在,另一方面在必要时进行检查和惩处。在这一背景下,如何化解灰色经营带来的危害,如何使经营方式由“灰”转“白”,就成为亟待探讨和解决的问题。     

俄罗斯电子司法研究

俄罗斯电子司法的理论基础已经成熟。电子司法不同于法院信息化,法院信息化是电子司法的前置阶段,电子司法有其独特的内涵。电子司法是电子国家的组成部分,是民主的实现方式之一,在透明度、便捷性、公开性等方面有独特的功能。俄罗斯电子司法的法律渊源分为3种:国家战略规划、法律、司法解释等。其中,国家战略规划是核心,对电子司法的发展起到了统筹和引领作用,法律和司法解释等则为电子司法实践提供具体的规则支撑。仲裁法院的电子司法一直走在前列,其以“我的仲裁”系统为中心的制度建设已经相对完善,普通法院也已取得了不菲的成就,目前俄罗斯的电子司法整体上已经达到了比较高的水平。但是,俄罗斯发展电子司法存在着不平等加剧、立法不足、技术带来新问题、物质保障缺乏等问题。俄罗斯各界就电子司法的问题提出了不同的解决方案,新冠肺炎疫情加深了俄罗斯民众对电子司法的认同,俄罗斯电子司法的前景可期。     

A provocative event,media, and religious choice in post-Soviet Russia

This paper uses the famous events related to Pussy Riot as a natural experiment to examine the effect of alternative media on church membership. A difference-in-differences strategy is used to explore the effect in question. The hypothesis is that, given a lack of religious background in the majority of the population and strong temporary interest in religious issues promoted by a particular provocative event, mass media substantially affect religious choice. To check if this is the case, I compare the dynamics of religious choice of those exposed to alternative media reports on church topics and the rest of the population. As a proxy of familiarity with an alternative view, I use a dummy variable for using the Internet to obtain news. The main finding is that, during the experiment run over the year 2012, the growth of self-reported Orthodox believers was significantly lower in the treatment group than in the control group. Exposure to alternative media coverage turned out to heavily affect religious choice.     

俄罗斯的韩国学研究

俄罗斯的韩国学研究经历帝俄、苏联和冷战后时期的发展演变,形成了当前较为完备的科研体系。当前俄罗斯的韩国学研究机构主要有：俄罗斯科学院东方学研究所、远东研究所、莫斯科大学亚非学院、莫斯科国际关系学院国际关系系和圣彼得堡大学东方系等。俄罗斯韩国学研究与外交政策的关系有如下特点：学术科研与外交战略趋向密切相关;苏联时期的韩国学研究受到意识形态和政治体制的影响较强;俄罗斯独立后,学术界观点对政府外交决策的影响力增强;俄罗斯现有的韩国学科研机构得到韩国的大力支持,这有可能影响俄罗斯对朝鲜半岛的政策。     

The rise of illiberal politics in Southeast Europe

ABSTRACT

Democracy is backsliding throughout Southeast Europe but there are no signs of full democratic breakdown. Instead, political parties and their leaders incrementally undermine challenges to governmental authority while keeping electoral contest largely intact. This article introduces a special issue that aims to examine and explain democratic decline by looking at the prevalence of illiberal politics across countries and issues. In order to overcome the limitations of fixed regime classification we adopt a procedural lens and look into governing practices that gradually tilt the electoral playing field. Utilizing the concept of Illiberal politics allows us to examine sets of policies enacted by political parties in government with the aim to remain in power indefinitely. By tracing democratic decline in Serbia, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Albania, and Croatia we observe different patterns of weakness, but also common causes arising from weak institutions and inherited governance practices that preserve executive dominance, patronage, and informality.     

Russia’s ministry of ambivalence: the failure of civic nation-building in post-Soviet Russia

This article argues that the sources of official and societal ambivalence towards civic nationhood in today’s Russia are found in the institutional instability and personalist dynamics of hybrid regime politics in the 1990s. Successful civic nation-building should institutionalize inclusive criteria for citizenship as a basis for policymaking, which in turn should create incentives for dominant ethnicities to embrace civic nationhood. While the shifting views of Boris Yel’tsin on nationalities policy and the constant turmoil in the government’s nationalities ministry have received little scholarly attention, they illuminate the endogenous sources of regime instability in relation to civic nation-building. Russia’s experience thus challenges the traditional view of ethnic nationalism as fostering authoritarianism and civic nationalism as fostering democracy: rather, competitive authoritarianism in the 1990s confounded the regime’s own efforts toward civic nation-building and laid the groundwork for the “ethnic turn” in Russian politics under Vladimir Putin.     

The political implications of popular support for presidential term limits in Russia

With Vladimir Putin having commenced his second term, the issue of the constitutional limit of two successive terms for the president has again become politically salient in Russia. In this article, two specialists of Russian politics investigate public support in 2018 for term limits. They address three questions. Why does the issue of term limits matter? To whom in Russia does it matter? Is opposition to abolishing terms limits likely to be politically divisive? Their findings point in general to a shift in the level and character of support for term limits since 2012. Opposition to term limits has grown over time, and while in 2012 support for term limits was drawn from supporters of more authoritarian leadership, today it includes engaged democrats with negative views of the economic situation. They also find that supporters of term limits remain more likely to support political protest.     

政治亚文化在村庄治理中的积极功能

村庄是我国最基本的自治单元之一,村庄的政治文化包含社会主义政治文化、农村传统文化及西方外来资本主义文化的某些内容,后面两种构成村庄政治亚文化主要组成部分。从功能主义视角看,政治亚文化在村庄治理中的积极功能集中体现在表达机制、激发机制与协商机制上。因此,要充分发挥政治亚文化的积极功能作用,使之成为推进村庄治理现代化的重要组成部分。     

俄罗斯虚拟现实产业发展状况探究

自2016年“虚拟现实产业元年”以来,俄罗斯虚拟现实市场快速发展,形成了以国家与大型企业投资为主,政府部门牵头、高校与科研院所提供智力支持、国企与私营企业平行发展的格局,设备制造、软件研发、内容制作、行业服务等产业链主要环节都涌现了一些优秀企业。国家是虚拟现实产业发展的主要推手,国企和创业企业是实现技术突破的关键力量,企业客户是市场需求主力,消费端客户正逐步扩展。总体来看,与发达国家相比,俄罗斯虚拟现实产业呈现出一种起步较晚,但增速较猛的“后发状态”,发展形势较好。不过,当前还存在研发资金缺乏、产业链完整性欠缺、国家与市场间信息不对称等问题,并受到5G网络建设缓慢、军工技术转民用速度迟滞等多个因素制约。随着世界虚拟现实产业需求的高涨,俄罗斯虚拟现实产业也将快速增长。     

Potholes,pensions, and public opinion: the politics of blame in Putin's power vertical

What are the risks and rewards of power centralization in competitive authoritarian regimes, and who in the regime bears those risks and enjoys the rewards? The elimination of gubernatorial elections in Russia in late 2004 provides a unique opportunity to study public reaction to policies that replaced democratically elected regional leaders with Kremlin appointees, thereby further concentrating power in the hands of the central state while simultaneously reducing the level of democratic accountability in Russian politics. Using a 2007 survey of 1500 Russians, it is possible to observe how key measures of public opinion and regime support were influenced by the elimination of gubernatorial elections. Because the timeline of gubernatorial appointments was determined exogenously based on the expiration of elected incumbent governors' terms, by 2007 some regions had governors who still held electoral mandates, while others had Kremlin appointees with no electoral mandate. This quasi experiment allows us to draw surprising conclusions about whom Russians blame – and do not blame – when power becomes increasingly centralized in the hands of the president.     

The Russian Dance with Democracy

An American political scientist investigates whether, and how, the political and economic values of ordinary Russians have changed. The study is based on a three-wave panel survey of a representative national sample of Russians, conducted between 1996 and 2000. The article considers the degree to which democratic commitments have solidified over the last half of the decade. The article also tests the conventional wisdom that democratic values are dependent upon perceptions of a successful economy.