Expediency always wins over ideology: Putin’s attitudes toward the Russian Communist Party

Vladimir Putin provides us with an excellent example of a politician whose attitude toward ideology is instrumental to his political longevity. He has shown that in the fight between ideology and political expedience, to maintain authority and control within the country, or to achieve geopolitical ambitions in the international arena, ideology will almost always lose the battle. It is well known that the major threat to political power stems often not from the adversary who holds diametrically opposite views, but from the rivals who share almost the same ideological position. The closer the ideological position is of a rival, the more intense the competition. For just this reason Putin is implacable toward Communists who share many of his views. He tries as much as possible to reduce the political role of the Communist party - the most serious opposition to the regime - by using the same underhanded tactics which are used against the liberals.     

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.     

When civil engagement is part of the problem: Flawed anti-corruptionism in Russia and Ukraine

In developing countries, the fight against corruption entails purges of political and business elites and the restructuring of electoral, financial, and social provision systems, all of which are costly for the incumbents and, therefore, unlikely without sustained pressure from civil society. In the absence of empirical analyses, scholars and practitioners have, therefore, assumes that civil society plays an unequivocally positive role in anti-corruptionism. In this article, we challenge this dominant assumption. Instead, we show that, under certain conditions, an engaged non-governmental community may, in fact, undermine the fight against corruption. Using the data from forty interviews with anti-corruption practitioners in Ukraine and Russia, as well as primary documentary sources, we present two models of anti-corruptionism whereby active civil engagement produces suboptimal outcomes. One is faux collaboration, defined as a façade of cooperation between the state and civil society, which hides the reality of one-sided reforms. The other model is that of non-collaborative co-presence, whereby the governance role is shared by the government and non-governmental activists without compromise-based solutions. In both cases, civil engagement helps perpetuate abuses of power and subvert such long-term goals of anti-corruption reforms as democratization and effective governance.     

Authoritarian constitutionalism in Putin's Russia: A pragmatic constitutional court in a dual state

This article analyzes the successful adaptation of the Russian Constitutional Court (RCC) to an increasingly authoritarian regime under President Vladimir Putin. It argues that the key to its success lay in its pragmatic approach, whereby the Court decides cases that matter to the regime in a politically expedient way, while giving priority to legal and constitutional considerations in other cases, thereby recognizing the reality of a dual state. Over the years the RCC has taken a pragmatic approach in its reaction to changes in the rules of its operations, in its personnel, and in the policies of the popular political leader, including reducing the country's subordination of European legal norms. In so doing, the Court and its skillful chairman Valerii Zorkin achieved considerable autonomy in pursuing its own legal vision on many issues and even improved the implementation of its decisions by other judges and political bodies alike (previously a big problem). In short, the RCC developed its own version of “authoritarian constitutionalism”, which may serve as a model for constitutional judicial bodies in other authoritarian states.     

The ghosts of the past, the dreamlands of the future … or why fantasies are bound to fail in socialism and the market: The case of public health policy development in the Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia

The transition ‘from planned to market economy’ in the former Soviet Union and in several countries in post-communist Europe is one of the most sweeping social transformations of the second half of the 20th century. It is widely accepted that this transformation was driven by a shared belief in the market's superior ability to deliver economic growth, to create wealth and contribute to the well-being of the populations after the demise of the defunct socialist ideology. However, the element of utopian fantasy undergirding the grand projects of socialism and the market is usually ignored, often with detrimental results. The study draws on Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis to propose an alternative reading of the process of transition, as an exchange of one powerful fantasy for another. My key contention is that as long as the common utopian dream of social harmony underlying both projects will not be recognised for what it is, which is in itself an unattainable desire of the human psyche, the illusory dreamlands will continue to exist and so will their violent political consequences. The study uses the example of public health policy development in the Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia to illustrate how unacknowledged fantasy leads to violent utilitarianism as it was manifested in socialism, and is now repeated differently but no less tyrannically in the market. In conclusion, I argue for integrating fantasy as a constitutive element of political projects and explore the possibility of the autonomous (self-determined) mode of governance that Cornelius Castoriadis (1987/2005) theorised on and juxtaposed to the heteronomous ways of organising ruled by master signifiers present in various ideologies.     

The evolution of policing in post-soviet Russia: Paternalism versus service in police. Officers' understanding of their role

This paper examines two interrelated issues: the role of police as an institution of Russian society and their role during the past 25 years. This research is based on a series of in-depth interviews conducted by the author in 2014–2016 with former and current police officers in three Russian cities. The paper traces changes in the perceived institutional roles of the Russian police by comparing police officers' views during three periods: early through mid-1990s, late-1990s through mid-2000s, and mid-2000s through 2010s. The study reports that, during the early period, Russian police were disfranchised from the state and this abandonment was a source of institutional identity crisis for law enforcement officers who remained on the job. This process was coupled with high levels of job dissatisfaction and the overall feeling of “abandonment” of police by the state.At the same time, it was during this post-Soviet period, when ideas of policing as a service to the society were introduced and sometimes entertained among the professional circles of police officers and other government officials. Furthermore, this period was marked by continuous, though often sporadic, institutional reforms and anti-corruption measures.In the second period, the Russian police were slowly engaging back into the state-building process, which caused increased job satisfaction and better retention rates. At the same time, the second period signified a decline of the “police as service” ideology and the comeback of paternalistic views on policing. During this time, the government's efforts to reform police and anti-corruption measures became systemic and better organized. Also, in the second period, members of the civil society became more active in demanding public accountability and transparency from the Russian police.Finally, the modern period of police development presents a case in which the institutional identity of the Russian police has been clearly connected to the state's capacity. This process is coupled with increased paternalistic views among police officers and a failure of “police as a service” doctrine. In such an environment, the efforts by a maturing civil society to demand public transparency and accountability of the police are often met with hostility and anger. The paper concludes that further development of the Russian police depends on the role that they will play within the modern Russian state.