Russian Politics
Tabish Shah
Word Count: 3468
How Federal is Putin’s Russian Federation?
In a Federal system of government, power over the same people and geographical area is
shared between two or more governments consisting of an overarching national central
government and a series of regional governments. In theory, both national and regional
governments are equally bound by the country’s constitution, and the point of this
resultant sharing of power is effectively to facilitate dialogue between regional and
central centers of power to ensure that views from all areas of a country are heard. In
turn, this dialogue ensures that all individuals within a country are accurately represented
through its political channels, and essentially, acts as a regulator of policy by allowing
views and debate that either challenge or agree with the viability and worthiness of a
respective government’s policies. Ultimately, federalism is a system that aims to ensure
the preservation of democracy through measures that seek to include all members of
society in the decision-making processes of their respective countries.
In practice however this is not always the case, and thus I am brought to the subject of
this paper: Federalism under Vladimir Putin. Based on our brief explanation of the main
principles that federalism relies upon, the extent to which it is being practiced in today’s
Russia is largely questionable. Academics, analysts, and the international community
have all recognised Putin’s increasing re-centralisation of the federal system in Russia,
and have duly voiced concern over whether the extent of this re-centralisation is
bordering on the undemocratic. Therefore, this paper will focus on discussing whether or
not these concerns are justified, and will essentially question the motives behind Putin’s
federal reforms, as well as analyse events in which re-centralisation has been the
outcome. This will allow us to evaluate whether Putin’s Russia is operating what is
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essentially a form of ‘redundant federalism’, in which the system’s purpose of creating a
political environment conducive to transparency and cooperation between center and
periphery governments is being undermined by central policies converse to this.
Although the majority of this paper will focus on events spanning Putin’s Presidency, it
will also initially involve providing a context for Putin’s reforms through a brief
consideration of the federal system in the 1990s and its apparent spiraling out of control
under El’tsin. Ultimately, we will determine whether Russia is facing regression towards
a dictatorial system of political monopoly under Putin, or effectively, if Putin’s approach
should instead be interpreted as a genuine desire to sustain a Russian Federation that
necessitates substantial central control.
Therefore, first let us establish the context from which Putin’s reforms of the federal
system arose. The type of federalism that emerged after the Soviet Union’s collapse
essentially constituted an unbalanced system in which regional governments were given
vast amounts of autonomy in return for their support and unity towards El’tsin’s national
government. El’tsin established this system following a grab for presidential power in
which he used the promise of ‘as much sovereignty as you can swallow’1 to gain the
support of regional elites as well as diffuse the threat of ethnic separatist movements such
as those occurring in Chechnya and Tatarstan. The effect of this meant El’tsin’s Russia
was forced into conceding executive power through a series of power-sharing treaties and
agreements with 45 of its regions2. Subsequently, regional leaders took the opportunity to
1
El’tsin qtd in: Kempton.D ‘The Republic of Sakha (Yakutia): The Evolution of Centre-Periphery
Relations in the Russian Federation’ Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 48, No. 4. (Jun., 1996), p.589
2
Hahn.G, ‘Reforming the Federation’ in White.S, Gitelmen.Z, Sakwa.R (eds) Developments in Russian
Politics 6 (New York, 2005) p.154
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abuse these power-sharing agreements by implementing laws that violated the Russian
constitution and federal law whilst benefiting themselves, and even involved themselves
in areas such as foreign policy and national security that are reserved only for the federal
government in a federal system. In an attempt to contain the power of regional leaders,
El’tsin created administrative bodies in the form of presidential representatives and
regional governors, however the latter were chosen through election and were responsible
for appointing important federal officials in territories under their jurisdiction. This
allowed regional governors a significant amount of power and leverage over the federal
government, since they were in control of officials responsible for the correct
implementation of federal tax laws, customs and judiciary affairs amongst other
important areas. Thus since federal officials were controlled by regional governors rather
than the presidential representatives, the latter effectively had no real authority over the
federal officials and could not successfully oversee federal policy implementation. This
inevitably resulted in corruption within the system, and resulted in instances such as
Bashkortostan’s illegal dam-building project that took place in 1998 and explicitly
contravened Russian law on environmental and safety grounds3, as well as
Bashkotostan’s prosecutor admitting that 50% of arrests were illegal under federal law4.
Effectively, instead of presidential representatives exercising their powers of control over
regions, they became controlled and essentially represented the interests of respective
regional governors. The problem worsened in several regions as El’tsin allowed a number
of regional governors to appoint their own presidential representatives as well as federal
3
Under Russian Law, in order to begin such a construction, the project should receive a positive
assessment from the State Ecological Expertise at the federal level. Kiritchok, E. ‘Illegal Construction of a
Dam in the Republic of Bashkortostan (Russia)’ The World Commission on Dams (1999)
http://www.dams.org/kbase/submissions/showsub.php?rec=OPT135 [accessed 21/03/2007]
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officials, and situations occurred such as that in Stavropol’ Krai in 1994 whereby the
presidential representative in the region also held the post of regional governor5. Practical
issues such as the reliance of presidential officials on regional governments to provide
resources such as housing and transport also served as another weapon in the armory of
regional officials in co-opting representatives’ loyalty. Ultimately, the federal system that
Putin inherited had been exploited throughout the 1990s to the point that it could no
longer provide basic law and order, political and civil rights, or a stable economy to the
people of Russia.
On assuming presidency in 2000, Putin made clear his objective to restore order to
Russia’s federal system, and introduced a series of presidential decrees to this end. Putin
explained that the only way to achieve balance and control out of the chaos of the 1990s
was to enforce a ‘dictatorship of law’ in which all members of the Russian population
would be subject to the same set of laws and legislation6. This was to be implemented via
a restoration of uniformity and adherence to the constitution through what Putin called
the ‘power vertical’. This essentially meant transferring regional power back to the center
in a top-down chain of command style federation as opposed to the failed horizontal
structure that had harbored extreme imbalances of power between federal and regional
governments as opposed to the sharing it had aimed to encourage. Putin created seven
new federal super-districts that matched Russia’s military districts and also made sure to
include a mix of ethnicities in each. This seemingly had the overarching aim of restoring
4
Ross.C, ‘Putin’s Federal reforms and the consolidation of federalism in Russia: one step forward, two
steps back!’ Communist and Post-Communist Studies, vol 36, no.1, (2003), p.44
5
Ibid p.33
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order since the latter measure aimed at neutralising ethnic separatist movements by
breaking them up, and the former was a move to ensure that presidential representatives
were not controlled by regional governors since they now had access to military power.
Putin also granted new presidential powers to dismiss regional governors and dissolve
regional assemblies, and in theory this meant that governors would have to tow the
federal line in order to stay in power. Other important changes occurred via reform of the
Federation Council, regional governors and chairs of assemblies were no longer
automatically allowed to sit in the upper chamber of the parliament7. Along with this, if
regional governors were not chosen to sit in the upper chamber, they would lose their
immunity from criminal prosecution. Thus, this gave Putin the option to use the threat of
criminal charges against regional governors as a reminder to cow to central authority. We
must not forgot to mention Putin’s implementation of the State Council, which although
has no legislative functions, is chaired by the President and thus provides regional
executives access to the President in a policy-debating capacity. This theoretically allows
for at least some degree of input from regions into policy formation, and is essentially
federalist in principle. At this point, it is also important to note that Putin’s approach to
federal reform shared much with many other ideas present in Russian politics prior to his
Presidency. For example, by 1999 former prime minister Yevgenii Primakov had said
that “restoration of the vertical state power”8 was necessary to ensure that separatist
movements caused by the weakness of the system were “quelled, liquidated, and
6
Putin.V, ‘Television address by the Russian President to the Country’s citizens’ Rossiiskaya Gazetta,19
May 2000, translated in Current Digest of the Post-Soviet Press, Vol 52, No.20, p.5
7
Sakwa, Richard, Russian politics and society (London 2002) p.134-135
8
Corwin.J, ‘Primakov calls for national unity’ RFE/RL Newsline, Vol 3, No. 11,(18 January 1999) part I
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uprooted”9 to avoid a complete break up of the Federation. Thus, it wasn’t solely Putin
that advocated strengthening central power and the effective adoption of a somewhat
unique, ‘Russian’ form of federalism. This lends support to the idea that Putin’s
federalism is not as dictatorial as perceived, but is simply a more centralised version of
federalism tailored to the needs of Russia. As Putin himself explains in his book First
Person “Russia was created as a super centralised state. That’s…laid down in its genetic
code”10, and effectively, makes clear his belief this centralisation is fundamental to
Russian democracy.
Therefore, since Putin’s reforms largely addressed the restoration of authority in a system
grossly lacking it, is it thus possible to interpret Putin’s “dictatorship of the law” as
simply a well-intentioned attempt to re-orientate Russia away from its 1990s trajectory of
economic, social, and political disarray? In theory, the answer to this is yes, however
such an analysis relies upon a one-dimensional approach that looks solely at Putin’s
reforms on paper. Certainly, if we instead also consider the current political climate in
Russia today alongside the practical implementation of reforms, we see that evidently our
previous answer is simply incorrect.
An important event that illustrates Putin’s manipulation of these new presidential powers
is the Yukos affair that occurred in October 2003. Yukos, previously Russia’s most
successful oil company, and fourth largest in the world, was shut down and auctioned off
by President Putin, with Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky subsequently facing arrest
9
Ibid
Sakwa, Richard, Russian politics and society (London 2002) p.182-183
10
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on charges of fraud and tax evasion. With just these details, this case would seem like a
routine attempt at upholding the law. As Stiglitz comments “regardless of politics,
enforcing tax laws is essential…Any government, particularly one that has been starving
of resource income, needs to enforce the tax law… you can’t let your wealthiest party
abscond with billions of dollars without paying taxes”11. However, there are several
aspects that create complexities here. Firstly, the early 1990s was a period of extreme
corruption, and the illegal privatization of firms and companies was prevalent, and
subsequently tax evasion and fraud occurred. Many of Russia’s present-day oligarchs
rose to financial supremacy through this murky privatization process in the early postSoviet era, and thus could and should, according to the Khodorkovsky case, face the
same fate as the former Yukos CEO. However instead, they freely enjoy the spoils of
post-Soviet corruption whilst Khodorkovsky languishes behind bars. Why is this? A
number of factors support the explanation that it was a selective implementation of the
law by Putin to justify hyper-centralisation of business that would work to consolidate
political power by extracting loyalty from those in Russian society that have the
resources to challenge it, namely the oligarchs. For example, Khodorkovsky was
involved in funding political parties and institutions that were not pro-Kremlin, and this
involvement in politics was thus seen as an unwanted interference in political affairs.
Effectively, the development of an “independent political actor…a political personality
outside of the establishment was unacceptable to the Kremlin”12. Alongside this, Yukos
pursued energy policies that were independent of central policy, as Khodorkovsky
11
Stiglitz qtd in Schor.D, ‘The Yukos Affair: Rectifying the Past or polluting the Future?’ The Birch:
Journal of Eastern European and Eurasian Culture (2005) http://www.thebirchonline.org/schor.htm
[accessed 21/03/2007]
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conducted talks with China regarding the construction of export pipelines that would
challenge the monopoly of state pipeline Transneft, as well as possible mergers with
Western companies. Energy is an area that Putin and his government want to keep as
centralised as possible13, and thus, Khodorkovsky effectively served as an example of what
could befall others that meddled in affairs that opposed Putin’s government. In the words
of Putin, such attacks were officially reasoned as the result of not “ following strict rules
and tax discipline”14. Ultimately, the subtext to this however is much more sinister, since
the “political initiatives of any man with billions at his disposal scare the Kremlin
automatically”15. Putin essentially set a precedent with Khodorkovsky, sending a clear
message that the illegal wealth acquired by oligarchs would be ignored, but only in
exchange for unchallenged political power, and this points neither towards a federal nor
democratic state of affairs.
Another example of Putin’s use of 1990s chaos as a justification for measures that
consolidate personal power is the extension of his reforms in 2004 to removing the
electoral system of appointing regional heads and replacing it with nominees chosen by
the President. The implications of this are quite clear, since as long as the President has
control over regional executive positions, regional loyalty to Putin is virtually guaranteed.
Incidentally, if regional governments fail twice to confirm the president's nominee as
executive, the president has the right to disband the legislature and appoint an acting
12
Kolt.G, ‘Analysing the Yukos affair’, US-Russia Business Council (2003)
http://www.usrbc.org/events/2003%20events/Kolt_11-18-03.pdf [accessed 20/03/2007]
13
Ibid
14
Buckley.N, ’Putin finds room for loyal oligarchs’ Financial Times, (February 7 2007)
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/dedfac86-b6d9-11db-8bc2-0000779e2340.html [accessed 20/03/2007)
15
Timofeeva.I, ‘An interview with Liliya Shevtsova’, Novaya Gazeta (23 November 2003) Carnegie
Moscow Center http://www.carnegie.ru/en/pubs/media/69013.htm [accessed 21/03/2007]
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regional head to serve until a new legislature is elected16. Furthermore, “the president
would also have the right to dismiss any regional head for failure to fulfill his duties or if
he ‘loses the president's confidence’"17. The vagueness and potential subjectivity of such
a statement is certainly a cause for concern in a State operating a system of federalism
and democracy, and can perhaps be considered in outright opposition to it. Effectively,
the statement stifles any form of transparent dialogue in regional-center politics. Putin’s
subsequent abuse of this extension of presidential power is quite evident if we consider
the case of Alexander Veshnyakov, the Russian Central Electoral Committee (TsIK)
chairman since 1995. President Putin was expected to appoint Veshnyakov for another
term as chairman of the Electoral Committee, however this did not occur. Although
staunchly pro-Kremlin, Veshnyakov had recently publicly criticised some United Russia
(Pro-Kremlin Party) members and had contested several new amendments to election
legislation that were initiated by United Russia18. Another issue was perhaps the recent
results of the elections in the Stavropol region, where United Russia gained only 23.9%
of the vote and lost to A Just Russia, which won 37.6%. According to Kommersant
sources in United Russia and the TsIK, “United Russia had been counting on an informal
agreement that both parties would get approximately the same number of votes. But when
the party demanded a recount in several precincts… the TsIK refused to get involved”19.
This essentially signaled that the TsIK chairman was not sufficiently under Kremlin
control, and essentially looks as if it was the nail in the coffin for Veshnyakov. Putin’s
search for politicians willing to give complete obedience to the Kremlin is reinforced if
16
Coalson.R, ‘Analysis: How Will Russian Governors Be Appointed?’ RFE/RL, (November 1, 2004)
Ibid
18
Nagornykh.I, ‘Alexander Veshnyakov Dropped from Elections Commission’ Kommersant (14 March
2007) http://www.kommersant.com/p749632/r_527/Veshnyakov_step_down/ [accessed 20/03/2007]
17
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we consider regional appointments such as Kamil Iskhakov, Putin's envoy in the Far
Eastern Federal District appointed in 200520. Iskhakov had never worked anywhere other
than Kazan, and this appointment illustrates that Putin is willing to move those loyal to
him even if this means conceding regional experience to that of appointing individuals
guaranteed to maintain the presidential line, regardless of how undemocratic and nonfederal it may be.
.
Another important aspect to consider when assessing the federal nature of Putin’s Russia
is the suffocating nature of State control over the Russian media. In his first presidential
term, Putin's enforcers of federal policy, the polpredy, were also given powers to appoint
heads of regional branches of the All Union Television and Radio Company21. This
effectively meant that the Russian media was now subject to control by both federal
government via the polprody and the regions via regional governors. This amount of
centralisation of the media is hardly conducive to democratic, open debate. Evidence that
substantiates this can be found in the startling fact that under Putin, 13 contract-style
murders of journalists in Russia occurred since his arrival in 2000. A report by the
Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) highlighted Russia as having one of the worst
environments for journalist safety and the report also commented on the Russian
authorities ignoring of work-related motives in journalist deaths. In at least four cases
since 2000, CPJ found, “Russian authorities classified journalist slayings as “street
19
Ibid
Corwin.J, Peuch.J.C ‘Russia: Putin Appoints Regional Figures As Trusted Envoys’ RFE/RL (November
15, 2005)
21
Ross.C, ‘Putin’s Federal reforms and the consolidation of federalism in Russia: one step forward, two
steps back!’ Communist and Post-Communist Studies, vol 36, no.1, (2003) p.37
20
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crimes” despite compelling work-related evidence.”22 In the case of Eduard Markevich,
who published a newspaper in the Ural Mountains region, a family friend Maria Istomina
shared with CPJ that “Prosecutors deliberately ignored journalism as a motive because
Eduard Markevich actively criticized local officials”23. All 13 murders during Putin’s
term have involved journalists working on controversial or sensitive issues ranging from
human rights abuses by Russian’s in Chechnya to corruption amongst local officials24.
The most recent and high profile of these cases, that of the murdered journalist Anna
Politkovskaya in October 2006, who was a vocal critic of Putin’s policy towards
Chechnya and Putin-supported Chechen prime minister Ramzan Kadyrov, has been
widely recognised as a political murder. In her last interview, with RFE/RL on October 5,
Politkovskaya said her latest report implicated Kadyrov's militia: "Right now I have two
photographs on my desk. I am conducting an investigation about torture today in
Kadyrov's prisons. These are people who were abducted by Kadyrovsty for completely
inexplicable reasons and who died. These are bodies absolutely disfigured by torture"25.
Further to this, President Putin issued a decree on 14th March 2007 announcing the
formation of a government body to regulate web-based media content, and the same body
would also issue licenses and check information. This could be interpreted as a measure
to ensure success in the 2008 Russian presidential elections for those currently in power,
and is a sentiment shared by many within the press such as Andrei Vasilyev, editor of the
daily Kommersant, and Raf Shakirov. The latter deemed the move “an attempt to put
22
Hansen.M, ‘Deadly News’, Committee to Protect Journalists, (September 2006)
http://www.cpj.org/Briefings/2006/deadly_news/deadly_news.html [accessed 21/03/2007]
23
Ibid
24
Bigg.C, ‘Russia: Two Journalists Die In Contract Killings A Year’, RFE/RL (October 2006)
25
Bigg.C, ‘Russia: Politkovskaya Investigating Chechen Torture At Time Of Death’, RFE/RL (October
2006)
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everything [all media] under control”26 even the relatively free web. Ultimately, the
increasing centralisation of the media and press bears no relevance to implementing
federalism, and in fact stands in direct opposition to it by inhibiting communication and
debate that such a system was founded to encourage.
When discussing Russian federalism under Putin, some may argue that the degree of
federalism is underestimated due to examples of regions such as the Republic of
Tartarstan enjoying significant amounts of autonomy. The bilateral treaty signed in 1994
"On Delimitation of Jurisdictional Subjects and Mutual Delegation of Powers between
the State Bodies of the Russian Federation and the State Bodies of the Republic of
Tatarstan" between the Republic of Tatarstan and Russia, gave Tatarstan a status equal to
that of Russia’s. Today under Putin, Tatarstan still enjoys a significant amount of
economic autonomy, and Article III of the treaty states that: “The State Bodies of the
Russian Federation and the State Bodies of the Republic of Tatarstan jointly are
authorised to: co-ordinate international and foreign economic relationship”27. This
essentially involves Tartarstan in areas of policy usually reserved for federal government
only. Thus, one might play down the dictatorial aspect of Putin’s presidency on
considering this. However, again, there is an overriding element of political pragmatism
in Putin’s policy towards Tatartstan. Mintimer Shaimiev, the Republic of Tatarstan’s
president, is a loyal supporter of Putin, and hails from the United Russia party that is ProKremlin. With this support, Putin effectively has control over one of the most developed
26
Reuters ‘Putin decrees creation of a media and Internet regulator’ International Herald Tribune (15
March 2007) http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/03/15/business/russmedia.php [accessed 21/03/2007]
27
Treaty Between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Tatarstan, ‘On Delimitation of Jurisdictional
Subjects and Mutual Delegation of Powers between the State Bodies of the Russian Federation and the
Russian Politics
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Republics in Russia with substantial oil and gas reserves, and also gains legitimacy for
his federal policies by being successfully associated with as popular a politician as
Shaimiev28. In return Shaimiev maintains power and a degree of autonomy for the Tatar
Republic. Thus, essentially, Putin knows he can rely upon Shaimiev for support, and
rather than a relationship based genuinely on federal principles, is it clear that political
pragmatism guides Putin in his apparent quest to centralise the Russian Federation
without however openly implementing a single party unitary dictatorial system of
government.
Thus, the Russian Federation under Vladimir Putin is essentially federal on paper, but
quite the opposite in practice. It is clear that Putin has essentially used the early years of
post-Soviet chaos to justify measures that go beyond necessary reform. His extension of
central control to nominating regional heads, combined with his use of law to threaten
those with backgrounds of corruption into political compliance, and his domination of the
media in Russia all bring him dangerously close to edge of dictatorial territory. In fact, he
is currently tip-toeing along its precipice. It is quite clear that even if Russia is more
inclined to centralised forms of power, Putin’s interpretation of this has transformed a
justifiable system of centralisation into an unacceptable form of political monopoly. If
one could afford more words to this subject, the issue of the rise of the Siloviki is
something substantial one could look at. Arguably, at the heart of this deterioration of
democracy under Putin lies the rise of these ex-KGB officials and their connections that
State Bodies of the Republic of Tatarstan’ Article III, http://www.tatar.ru/english/append20.html [accessed
20/03/2007]
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are inclined towards to using coercion to facilitate a political monopoly. It is these
characteristics that form the fundamental basis of government under Putin, and
ultimately, are taking Russia back down a path that it knows all too well.
28
Shaimiev’s approval rating in Tatarstan, around 70 percent, is one of the highest in Russia.
Saidazimova.G,‘Russia: What's Behind Putin's Reappointment Of Powerful Tatar Leader? RFE/RL (March
16 2005)
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