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This presentation explores the principles of governance in Russia, the sustainability of the regime, challenges faced in the 2000s and 2010s, and the role of patrons, clients, and brokers in the system.
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Changing Institutions and Incentives in Russia: Patrons, Clients, and Brokers Vladimir Gel’man (European University at St.Petersburg / University of Helsinki) ASEEES Annual Convention, Boston, MA, 8 December 2018
Changing Institutions and Incentives in Russia • Principles of governance in Russia (Gel’man, 2017: 499): (1) Rent extraction is the major goal and substantive purpose of governing the state at all levels of authority; (2) The mechanism of governing the state tends towards a hierarchy (the “power vertical”) with the only one major center of decision-making; (3) The autonomy of domestic political and economic actors vis-à-vis this center is conditional; (4) The formal institutions are arranged as by-products of the distribution of resources within the “power vertical”: they matter to the degree to which they contribute to rent-seeking; (5) The state apparatus within the “power vertical” is divided into several groups and/or informal cliques, which compete with each other for access to rents
Changing Institutions and Incentives in Russia • The regime and the state maintained governance in Russia pretty well in the 2000s and 2010s, but how sustainable it will be in the future? • Rising challenges (as of 2018): • (1) Increasing perceptions of regime’s existential threats amid international confrontation (repressive ”politics of fear” etc.); • (2) Declining mass patronage amid sluggish economic growth (increasing taxes, the rise of retirement age, etc.); • (3) More intensive conflicts among elite cliques for the shrinking pie of rents and resources; • To what extent these challenges will be crucial for regime’s survival?
Changing Institutions and Incentives in Russia • The best description of resilient personalist authoritarian regime in the fiction literature – Gabriel Garcia Marquez, The Autumn of the Patriarch (1975); • Long-standing personalist dominance of the ageing leader, who increasingly relied upon low-intensive coercion; • Endless struggle between pro-regime cliques, including coercive apparatus of the state and family members; • Notorious inefficiency of governance and increasing international dependence; • … yet despite all domestic and international challenges, regime tenured for 100 years until the death of the leader
Changing Institutions and Incentives in Russia • Clients: • No more positive incentives to loyalty – less material benefits for masses amid their conspicuous disrespect by elites; • Declining mass support of political status-quo (gradually falling approval rates of the overall order as well as of political leadership); • Increasing socio-economic and environmental protests across the regions; • … but no major anti-regime political mobilization as of yet (alternatives to the status-quo are not so attractive, while perceived costs of regime changes looks incredibly high)
Changing Institutions and Incentives in Russia • Brokers: • Mid-level actors of the ”power vertical” – regional and local officials, public sector managers, representatives of business etc.: between the Kremlin and hard place; • No more interests for improving performance, increasing risks of criminal prosecution (Rogov, 2018), no expectations on overcoming negative economic and international trends; • Conflicting incentives: • would-be beneficiaries (Levada-Center: increase of public support of regional governors to 62% in November 2018)? • or potential victims (”shifting the blame” strategy, purges of cadres?)
Changing Institutions and Incentives in Russia Patrons: Increasingly chaotic policy planning and decision-making amid decline of efficiency of state propaganda (the case of increasing of retirement age); Increasing replacement of positive incentives to negative ones, and top-down translation of these incentives; ”Wait-and-see” tactics as a systematic response to numerous ad hoc challenges; Expectations of the ”turning point” of 2024 (the end of Putin’s fourth term in office) and the major institutional changes; What next?
Changing Institutions and Incentives in Russia Low-level equilibrium of Russia’s bad governance is vulnerable to exogenous shocks, but sill resilient enough to avoid regime collapse (unless the Kremlin will make crucial mistakes); If not collapse, then what? (1) further political and institutional decay a la The Autumn of the Patriarch up until physical extinction of the current generation of the Russian leaders (”Will Putin’s System Survive till 2042?” (Travin, 2016)); (2) further ”tightening of the screws” with turn to high-intensity coercion and increasing top-down pressure a la Day of the Oprichnik (Sorokin, 2006); Bottom line: the current regime and the state in Russia cannot be improved. The question is: how to eliminate regime and the state?
Changing Institutions and Incentives in Russia Comments are welcome! (vgelman@eu.spb.ru, vladimir.gelman@helsinki.fi)