Summary — Issue 01 / 2004 Sergei Medvedev: Putin’s Second Republic: Russian Scenarios
		In the run-up to the presidential elections in March 2004, it is relatively easy to predict the victory of the incumbent. But the nature of Putin’s Second Republic, and Russia’s evolution after the elections, are open questions. Based on an analysis of the status quo, five scenarios for Russia’s future can be sketched and compared for the purpose of forecasting medium-term prospects. The results of Putin’s first term are mixed. The two principal themes of Putin’s First Republic have been centralization and modernization. The president has succeeded in rebuilding vertical power in Russia by “cleansing” the oligarchs, “embedding” the media, reining in the regional barons, and installing a system of “managed democracy”, with a pocket parliament, non-existent opposition, and predictable elections. On the other hand, Putin’s promise of reform remains unfulfilled. Centralization has occurred without modernization. Stability has ruined democracy and civility, while the corrupt and clannish fundamentals of the regime, based on the nexus of power and property, remain unchanged. Russia is a classical rentier state living off “natural rent”. The political class is oriented towards the redistribution of resources and the maximization of state power, not towards modernization. In this sense, the most probable scenario for Putin’s second term is Bureaucratic Capitalism, which means the evolution of the current state of affairs. The state bureaucracy and the siloviki (law enforcement agencies, secret services, and the Army) will privatize the state and control key vertically integrated business groups, possibly through partial renationalization. The closest historical analogy could be Indonesia under Suharto, with its mix of crony capitalism and five-year plans, complete with authoritarian rule. However, this scenario is only sustainable with high oil prices and in the absence of major natural, technological, and social catastrophes in Russia. Should any of the latter occur, however, Russia may either embark on authoritarian modernization or move towards left populism. In the Authoritarian Modernization scenario, Putin will re-orient his authoritarian rule to developmental purposes. He will opt out of the contract with the corrupt elite, and pursue the “second wave” of liberal reforms. Authoritarian modernization in Russia would take on a form of neo-corporatism reminiscent of East Asian models: post-Second World War Japan, South Korea under Park Chung Hee, Mohammed Mahatir’s Malaysia. A less likely scenario is Left Populism. Pressured by the growing social dissatisfaction, and/or by falling oil prices and natural disasters, Putin may opt to play the role of a “Russian Peron” (a closer analogy could be the charismatic President of Venezuela Hugo Chavez). The populist anti-oligarch policy, based on the ideology of paternalism and solidarism, would include a review of the privatization deals of the mid-1990s, and a redistribution of “natural rent”. The probability of this scenario is low; despite the populist appeal to a large social periphery and a part of the middle class, there are no major elites with financial clout behind it. The two extreme-case scenarios – Counter-Reformist Mobilization (the “Alexander Lukashenko scenario”) and Democratic Modernization (the “Vaclav Klaus scenario”) – can be discarded as improbable. Barring the extreme cases, and rating the Left Populism scenario as unrealistic, the choice boils down to a single alternative – between Bureaucratic Capitalism and Authoritarian Modernization. This is a choice between stagnant evolution, which means preservation of “crony capitalism” with administrators at the top, loyal oligarchs and praetorian siloviki – and an attempt at modernization, leaving behind the current system of clans and rents. This choice will be driven by external factors (most significantly, by the oil price, with lower prices inducing modernization), but also by Putin’s personal commitment to reform and Westernization.
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	© Friedrich Ebert Stiftung   net edition: malte.michel | 06/2004   Top