Knowt
Chapter 8: The Russian Federation
Sovereignty, Authority, and Power
Russia is a federal state, whose constitution specifies six categorizations of eighty-three different local governments united together under one national federation, with three supreme branches of government.
Federalism was established as the solution to the diverse needs and interests of the many disparate ethnic minority groups across the massive territory of the country, but the last decade or so has seen the erosion of federalism as local levels of government lose more and more power to the central national level.
Geographic Influences on Political Culture
Russia is a massive country, the largest territory of any state in the world today, even after the loss of its smaller republics that declared independence from the Soviet Union in the 1990s.
It spans across eight time zones, and borders fourteen states, with neighbors as diverse as Finland and Norway in the west, to China and North Korea in the east.
Components of Russian Political Culture
Statism
The diversity within Russia and surrounding Russia has created another crucial element of Russia’s political culture: statism.
Statism a belief that the state should take a central role in protecting and providing for the society
Russia’s history of foreign invasion and the relative lack of geographic protection has contributed to a political culture that values a strong state that can defend and provide for its people.
Equality of Result
Related to statism, Russia’s relative lack of arable farm land and unstable food supply created a climate in which citizens expected the state to step in to care for people in times of need.
In Russia, it is often assumed that those who are wealthy gained what they have illicitly or through exploitation of others.
Russians often see the state as the solution to “solve” the problem of inequality.
Skepticism about those in Power
Interestingly, though Russians often trust the state as the instrument to solve their problems, individuals who exercise the power of the state rarely have the confidence of the Russian people.
Authorities in bureaucratic jobs are frequently assumed by Russians to be corrupt or incompetent.
East vs. West (SLAVOPHILE VS. WESTERNIZER)
As Western Europe emerged as the center of wealth and power, Russian political culture was at the same time experiencing a constant internal struggle over whether to model themselves after progressive European traditions, values, and practices, or to remain true to their own distinctly Eastern ways.
This struggle is often embodied in transitions that occur between leaders who are “Westernizers” (such as Peter the Great, 1682–1725, or Boris Yeltsin, 1991–1999), and those who are “Slavophiles” (such as nobles who opposed Peter the Great, or perhaps Vladimir Putin in modern Russia).
Slavophile a description of Russians who oppose the westernization of their culture and prefer to protect and preserve Russian traditions
Westernizer a Russian who sees adopting Western culture and practices as the best path toward modernization and development for Russia
Political and Economic Change
Early Traditions
The region of Russia adopted Christianity as a state religion in 988, and closely tied church and state revenues and functions together.
Their religious and cultural practices followed a Byzantine example rather than a Western example.
The Mongol invasions of Russia established a cooperative nobility, but under Ivan III (Ivan the Great), 1462–1505, and Ivan IV (Ivan the Terrible), 1547–1584, Russia secured its independence and laid the foundation for the modern Russian state.
Tsarist Rule
Tsars of Russia were initially princes over Moscow, established under Mongolian rule, but after Ivan III, the tsars began a long tradition of strong, authoritarian, autocratic rule.
Catherine the Great (1762–1796) held similar goals for westernization, drawing inspiration from ideas about science, philosophy, and religious toleration from Enlightenment thinkers of the west.
The most significant attempts at reform occurred under Alexander II (1855–1881) who freed Russian serfs, established local representative assemblies called zemstvas, reorganized the Russian judiciary to make it more independent, and ended many noble privileges.
The Path to Revolution
The first was Russia’s loss in the Russo–Japanese War of 1905, in which Russia was soundly defeated by what was once a similarly backward Eastern nation.
Japan had modernized under a Western model, however, and built a world-class military that Russia was ill prepared to contend with.
Street riots against the state broke out in protest, and Tsar Nicholas II (1894–1917) capitulated by creating the Duma, an elected national representative assembly, to move Russia onto a path of constitutional monarchy.
Duma the lower and more powerful house of Russia’s legislature, representing the people of Russia based on population
Marxism, Leninism, and the Revolution of 1917
Many of Russia’s political agitators were Marxists.
Marxism is a political and economic ideology framed by Karl Marx in his nineteenth-century writings, the most famous of which is the Communist Manifesto.
Marxism a political and economic philosophy, based on the ideals of Karl Marx, that seeks to create a classless society through shared ownership of the means of production
Marxism decries the capitalist economic system and private property as an exploitative system that effectively steals the efforts and labor of the working class (called the proletariat by Marx) to create wealth for the property-owning classes (called the bourgeoisie by Marx).
Proletariat in Marxism, the working-class laborers who are exploited by capitalism for the benefit of the bourgeoisie
Bourgeoisie the property-owning middle class that came to wealth and political power during the Industrial Revolution
Most notable among the revolutionary agitators was Vladimir Lenin, who had written a pamphlet in 1905 after the Russo–Japanese War entitled What Is To Be Done, in which he advocated the creation and support of a small, elite revolutionary leadership of professional intellectuals who could guide the workers in pursuit of revolutionary success.
This principle came to be known as democratic centralism, the idea that a small and elite central leadership would be entrusted with power and decision-making authority, but that they would exercise this power on behalf of the best interests of all people.
Democratic centralism Vladimir Lenin’s model of making political decisions centrally within the inner party elite, though ostensibly for the benefit of the majority of the people
After the collapse of the state in early 1917, a provisional government was formed under Alexander Kerensky and the State Duma, but Kerensky continued Russia’s involvement in World War I.
By late 1917, revolutionary workers’ unions across Russia revolted.
These revolutionaries, called Soviets, put Lenin’s Bolshevik Party in control of the state, renaming it the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).
Lenin’s New Economic Policy (NEP) gave peasant farmers private property ownership of their land, in addition to rights to earn profits on sales of their produce.
New Economic Policy (NEP) reforms made by Vladimir Lenin from 1921 until his death in 1924; they allowed collective farmers to sell excess produce for a profit
The plan was successful in solving Russia’s food problems and brought considerable prosperity to the Russian countryside, but it did not last because Lenin suffered a series of strokes in 1922 and 1923 that led to his death.
Stalinism
Joseph Stalin emerged from the party’s internal power struggle to rule over Russia as Lenin’s successor from 1922 to1953.
While Lenin had privately criticized Stalin as being unfit for leadership due to his excessive power and ambition, and even recommended his removal from the post of General Secretary, Stalin used doctored imagery of Lenin with himself and propagandized depictions of the Bolshevik Revolution to depict himself as a trusted confidant and preferred successor to Lenin.
Stalin labeled the wealthy peasant landowners as kulaks, and carried out a program to seize their property under state control known as collectivization.
Kulaks landowning peasants who were persecuted in Joseph Stalin’s collectivization program
Collectivization the Soviet state’s brutal seizure of land and other property from peasants across the countryside as part of jump-starting industrial development
Kulaks who resisted collectivization were regularly either sent to forced-labor camps in remote parts of the country, summarily killed by state forces, or in many cases, turned in by their neighbors sympathetic to the demands of the regime.
The collective farms owned by the state would serve the purpose of feeding the cities, whose workers were doing what Stalin perceived to be the most important work of turning Russia from a backward agrarian nation into a modern industrial power.
The objective of industrialization was expressed in the Five-Year Plan, setting ambitious goals for production of modern industrial necessities, including steel, oil, and electricity.
Five-year plans Soviet plans for industrial development establishing production goals and quotas for a designated five-year period
Nomenklatura the process of elite recruitment in communist systems, whereby leaders at higher levels of the power hierarchy provide the names of those they would like to see promoted from the lower levels
Central Committee a body of the Communist Party that is chosen by the larger Party Congress and is ostensibly empowered to choose the Politburo and senior leadership positions
Politburo in communist parties, the senior leadership group that also acts as the executive branch in most cases
General Secretary the senior leadership position in the Communist Party and the de-facto chief executive in the Soviet communist system
Purges Joseph Stalin’s program of eliminating potential opposition figures within the Communist Party through arrest or murder
In foreign policy, Stalin’s agenda was characterized by the outbreak of hostility between Russia and the West after their cooperation in World War II.
This tension came to be known as the Cold War (1945–1991).
Cold War a period of prolonged but generally nonviolent conflict, lasting from the mid-1940s to the late 1980s, between the Soviet Union and its allies and the United States and its allied European powers
Winston Churchill famously characterized the military buildup along the border between democratic and communist countries as an Iron Curtain, which had descended across Europe, dividing the East from the West.
Iron Curtain a metaphor used to describe the division of Europe between communist countries and liberal democracies
Reforms After Stalin
Nikita Khrushchev rode a reformist wave within the party to win the power struggle after Stalin’s death, and he delivered the now famous secret speech to the assembled Communist Party leadership, in which he decried Stalin’s program of personality cult and rule by totalitarian fear.
Personality cult the use of media, propaganda, spectacles, social controls, and other mechanisms by the state to promote an idealized and heroic image of the country’s leader
Khrushchev revealed the existence of Lenin’s letter that criticized Stalin, and this began a program of de-Stalinization of the party.
De-Stalinization Nikita Khrushchev’s program of ending purges and the cult of personality around the Soviet Union’s leader in the aftermath of Joseph Stalin’s death (1953)
The Gulag forced-labor camps were greatly reduced in size, and eventually disbanded in 1960.
Gulag forced-labor camps for political prisoners in remote parts of the USSR during the Soviet era
Leonid Brezhnev (1964–1982), who articulated and exercised the Brezhnev Doctrine of Soviet military intervention in any country where communist rule was threatened.
Economic Problems and Reform Under Gorbachev
Mikhail Gorbachev, General Secretary from 1985 to 1991, promised reforms to save the communist economy from certain disaster through a three-pronged program.
Glasnost: Rather than continuing to attempt suppression of bad news of the Russian economy and dysfunction of its political institutions, Gorbachev allowed glasnost, or “openness” of the sharing and discussion of information as a limited form of free speech.
Glasnost Mikhail Gorbachev’s program of opening Soviet society to allow the formation of independent groups and reduce controls on freedom of expression
Perestroika: Perestroika was a program of limited market reform to try and bring modern economic practices to Russia.
Perestroika Mikhail Gorbachev’s economic reforms allowing a limited role for markets, rather than the state, to determine what would be produced
Democratization: Gorbachev attempted to preserve the existing Communist Party structure while incorporating limited democracy through the creation of a directly elected Congress of People’s Deputies, who would also be empowered to choose a president of the Soviet Union.
Collapse of the Soviet Union
Conservative Communist Party hardliners opposed to Gorbachev's reforms attempted a coup d'état in August 1991 while he was away.
Protesters opposed the coup when tanks surrounded the White House, where the Supreme Soviet assembly would meet.
Boris Yeltsin famously spoke on top of a tank immobilized by the protesters, urging the military not to accept this unconstitutional action and calling for a national strike until the coup ended.
Gorbachev stayed in power after the coup, but the Communist Party's instability spurred several Soviet Republics that wanted independence to act.
By December, eleven of the fifteen Soviet Republics had gone without Red Army resistance (which historically had been used to reassert control under the Brezhnev Doctrine).
On December 26, 1991, Gorbachev and Soviet officials announced the formal collapse of the USSR because they no longer had a "unity" to lead and Boris Yeltsin was increasingly controlling Russian politics.
As president of the independent Russian Federation, Boris Yeltsin would lead.
The Yeltsin Years
Yeltsin attempted to act quickly to build Russia into a westernized modern constitutional democracy.
Politically, he worked with allies in the Duma to draft the Russian Constitution of 1993, which created a three-branch government, featuring a directly elected and powerful president as chief executive, a bicameral legislature with a directly elected lower house called the Duma, and a Constitutional Court empowered with judicial review and constitutional interpretation.
Constitution of 1993 Russia’s constitution, drafted after the collapse of the Soviet Union and ratified by referendum, establishing a federal presidential republic
Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation one of two high courts in Russia that are empowered with judicial review over acts passed by the Duma
Asymmetric federalism, as opposed to the typical symmetrical federal system, in which all lower-level regional governments are given consistent, similar, constitutionally defined powers generally equal to one another.
Asymmetric federalism Russia’s constitutional principle that gives uneven amounts of power and autonomy to the lower regional governments, particularly giving more local power in republics populated by non-Russian ethnic groups
Yeltsin used shock treatment to rapidly turn Russia into a market economy.
Shock therapy created an emergent class of businesspeople and investors who did well in the privatization of Russian industry, while most Russians saw high inflation, unemployment, the termination of many Soviet welfare state promises, and a decreasing standard of living.
Shock therapy after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Boris Yeltsin’s program of rapid conversion from a command economy to a market economy
There are many allegations across Russia regarding the role of corruption in shaping the emergence of Russia’s newly wealthy private classes, the wealthiest of which came to be known as oligarchs.
Oligarchs a small number of individuals controlling a massive amount of wealth and potentially controlling political processes through their wealth, particularly regarding Russia
Through the "loans for shares" controversy, oligarchs gave Yeltsin huge campaign funds and favorable media coverage in their networks to help him win reelection in 1996.
“Loans for shares” scandal a scandal in the 1996 Russian presidential election in which Boris Yeltsin’s campaign received loans and favorable media coverage from wealthy Russian oligarchs, after which the Russian government sold shares in state-owned companies to the oligarchs at apparent discounted prices
Putin: Stability and the Retreat from Democratization
Creation of federal super-districts: In 2000, responding to terrorist attacks believed to have originated in the Russian republic of Chechnya, Putin created seven Super-Districts.
Power to remove governors: The 1993 Constitution gave voters the power to directly elect their own governors in their local region, but the Constitution was amended to allow the president the power to remove a governor if that governor would not conform local law to the Constitution (or perhaps the president’s interpretation of the Constitution).
Power to appoint governors: Another change was made in 2004 to end direct election of governors altogether.
Federation council reform: The 1993 Constitution created the Federation Council as an upper house to represent the interests of local governments.
Managed elections: The 2004, 2008, and 2012 presidential elections all exhibited signs of the state heavily influencing the outcome, if not fully “rigging” the election, through fraud or sham ballot counts.
State duma election reform: In 2005, the law changed State Duma elections from a partially single-member-district (SMD) and partially proportional representation (PR) system to a fully PR system, and raised the PR threshold to win representation from 5 percent to 7 percent.
United Russia Party the dominant political party of Russia since 2004, often characterized as a party of power
Extending the presidential term: The 1993 Constitution called for a president to serve no more than two consecutive four-year terms.
Crimea a former Ukrainian territory claimed by Russia after a referendum in 2015 and currently governed as one of Russia’s republics; Ukraine continues to claim the territory
Federation Council the upper house of Russia’s legislature, wherein each regional government has equal representation
Citizens, Society, and the State
Significant Social Cleavages
Ethnicity and Nationality
Chechnya one of Russia’s regional republics, populated by the Chechen ethnic minority; a point of concern for Russia because of Chechnyan separatist movements
20% of Russians are ethnically varied, including Tartars, Baskirs, Chuvash, Chechens, Armenians, and others.
The Tartars are the second-largest group with 3.9 percent, while most of these groupings are below 1 percent.
Twenty-one of these groups have their own autonomous "republic" in Russia's asymmetrical federal system.
Except for Chechens, most of these tribes are fully incorporated into Russian society.
Chechnya has long fought for independence from Russia, resulting in two wars in the 1990s and terrorist acts against Russia in 2002 (the capture of a Moscow theater) and 2004. (the occupation of a school in Beslan, South Ossetia).
Religion
Since early rulers before Russia's founding, Russian Orthodoxy has been the state religion.
Early Communist authority sought to eliminate religion, especially Orthodox Christianity, as a weapon of tsars and property owners to subjugate the populace for their own gain.
Stalin needed societal support to battle Nazi aggression in World War II, so he sought cooperation with the Orthodox Church.
Since then, Communist Party leaders have either opposed the Church for ideological reasons or used it as a tool.
Social Class
Tsarist Russia severely segregated Russians by birthright and noble position.
The 1917 Revolution replaced the class system with a Marxist classless society.
A new class structure with Communist Party officials on top, urban managers and employees in the middle, and rural peasants on the bottom did not follow this ideal.
The Communist Party class system was at least oblivious to social background, allowing people from the bottom to rise.
Urban vs Rural
Russians are 74% urban and 26% rural.
Before Joseph Stalin's Five-Year Plans of industrialization, many Russians lived in the countryside. City Russians have a little higher level of living, are more educated, and are more likely to favor Western ideas that contradict the present president's democracy control.
Civil Society
Communist Russia corporatized civil society.
The authorities selectively granted access to influence state policy and prohibited independent trade unions, political clubs, and other civil society organizations.
State-funded clubs like the Young Pioneers would indoctrinate young men into the regime's worldview through Boy Scout-like activities.
Russian civil society is weak.
Only 1% of Russians are members of a political party, and most never attend church.
Russians rarely join clubs for charity, politics, or amusement.
Since the 1980s glasnost changes, civil society has flourished, but state measures that monitor and intimidate state critics continue hinder it.
Nashi a youth group created and funded by the Russian state that worked for the election and agenda of Vladimir Putin and Dmitri Medvedev
Political Institutions
Linkage Institutions
Elections
In Comparative Politics, illiberal democracy was coined to describe Russia's manipulated elections and others (or possibly transitional democracy).
Illiberal democracy a regime in which, despite the fact that elections determine who holds political office and wields power, protection of civil rights and liberties is missing and the fairness and competitiveness of elections are questionable
Illiberal regimes hold elections, count the votes, and install the winners.
The election process makes them illiberal.
Candidates cannot freely run for office.
Opposition candidates cannot convince citizens to vote for them because to media restrictions.
Illiberal democracies aren't democracies because those in power can use the state to protect their authority, thus voters can't hold a government accountable or vote it out.
Despite its totalitarian nature, Russia's Constitution allows three national elections.
Presidential Elections
In a two-ballot majority system, Russians directly elect the president for six years (previously four years).
Two-ballot majority an election system that requires a candidate to receive a majority of the vote to win and take office; if no candidate receives a majority in the first round of voting, a runoff is held between the top two candidates
If no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote in the first round, the top two candidates compete in a runoff.
The last runoff was in 1996.
International observers and internal dissidents condemned Russia's 2004–2018 elections for lacking much of the basic competition and human rights protection needed to reflect the people's desire.
State Duma Elections
State Duma has 450 members.
The Constitution previously required elections every four years before the presidential election.
It also gave half the seats to SMD constituency winners and half to party list candidates based on a nationwide PR vote if the party received at least 5% of the vote.
2005 reforms created a fully PR system with a 7 percent threshold for representation.
After the 2007 elections, the reforms reshaped the State Duma.
Regional and Local Elections
Russia has a central government and eighty-five "federal subjects" that govern regionally.
Under the 1993 Constitution, each federal subject elected governors and regional legislatures.
After Chechen terrorists took a school hostage in Beslan, North Ossetia, a Russian federal subject, in 2004, Putin signed a law giving the president the power to dismiss regional governors and later canceled governor elections and gave the president the power to appoint each regional governor with the consent of the regional legislature.
Putin's appointees won elections afterward. Putin's ascendancy has concentrated Russia's federal system under national and presidential rule.
Referendum
Russian voters sometimes vote on a policy.
The approval of the 1993 Constitution, a 2007 constitutional referendum in Chechnya that made several technical amendments and declared the republic a "inseparable part of Russia," and the 2014 vote in Crimea to join Russia after Russian military intervention are unusual examples.
Given that Crimea was still occupied by Russian forces, international observers viewed the referendum as fundamentally flawed, and data analysts and reporters on the ground scrutinized the stated results of almost 96 percent in favor of joining Russia with 83 percent voter turnout.
Political Parties
Russian political parties are more flexible than British ones.
The most stable "opposition parties" won't confront United Russia, which hasn't run for office since 2003.
Liberal democratic parties in Russia frequently breakup and regroup because they struggle to organize and communicate their message against Putin and the state.
United Russia
United Russia, created in 2001 from the Unity and Fatherland parties, promised to end the "communism vs. capitalism" split in Russian politics and stabilize the political system.
Dominant-party system a party system in which one party consistently controls the government, though other parties may also exist and run
Party of power a political party without a defining ideology that makes policies with the primary goal of remaining in power
The party was founded to legislate for President Putin.
The party supports all candidates who support the president, regardless of ideology.
Russia is a dominant-party system, meaning United Russia exists to secure and keep power for its members rather than to pursue an ideological goal.
Powerful parties have vast patron-client networks and often exhibit public administration corruption. United Russia has both.
In 2013, 51% of Russians believed that "United Russia is the party of crooks and thieves," a term used by political activist Alexei Navalny.
Navalny has been imprisoned multiple times for various white-collar offenses, generally within days of spearheading rallies against Putin and United Russia, and he has served time in prison and home arrest.
Supreme Court of the Russian Federation one of the two high courts in Russia that are empowered as the highest courts of appeals
Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF)
The CPRF was created shortly after Boris Yeltsin banned the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the former USSR ruling party.
It became Yeltsin's main opposition in 1995's Duma elections.
Since Putin's ascension, the party's voters have mostly been older Russian "conservatives" who miss Soviet Communism.
Transitional democracy a regime transitioning from authoritarianism to liberal democracy but where democracy has not yet been consolidated
Brezhnev Doctrine a foreign policy of the Soviet Union during the administration of Leonid Brezhnev that asserted the right to intervene militarily within neighboring communist states if the Communist Party was in danger of losing power in those states
Communist Manifesto a political pamphlet, published by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in 1848, calling upon the world’s proletarian workers to organize a revolution against the bourgeoisie
Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR)
Communist Party of the Russian Federation a party created from the remnants of the powerful Communist Party of the Soviet Union; now a minority opposition party in Russia
Liberal Democrats are neither liberal nor democratic.
The party's nationalist and far-right worldview follows Vladimir Zhirinovsky's radicalism.
It wants to unite numerous former Soviet countries into a new Russian Empire.
Like the CPRF, it has little trouble qualifying candidates for the ballot or voicing opposing views, but it performs poorly in elections, with Zhirinovsky never topping 10% in his six presidential attempts.
Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) an extreme right-wing nationalist minority opposition party in Russia
Actual Liberal Opposition Parties
Russia's liberal opposition groups (not the LDPR) are disorganized and lack a charismatic leader due to the harassment and intimidation that comes with opposing the current administration.
Since 2000, Yabloko, The Union of Right Forces, Democratic Choice of Russia, and Solidarnost have campaigned for fair elections and an end to political corruption.
Liberal parties that have the potential to win elections and challenge Putin for power frequently have a difficult experience in communicating their message and getting their candidates on the ballot.
Interests Groups
Federal Public Chamber a bureaucratic agency empowered to approve or block NGOs from operating in Russia
Russia's interest group system shows how Soviet corporatism stifled civil society.
Russia has approximately 300,000 recognized non-governmental interest groups, however human rights organisations are often denied registration.
The Federal Public Chamber might evaluate the registration of international NGOs and ban them if it was in the national interest under a 2006 statute.
NGOs found the reporting requirements burdensome and expensive, and the rules were ambiguous, giving Public Chamber employees a lot of latitude in determining whether an NGO met statutory requirements to register.
Siloviki is a Russian term for people who worked in the security services such as the KGB (Russia’s Soviet spy service) or its modern day successor, the Federal Security Service (FSB), agencies that Vladimir Putin worked for during his early career.
Siloviki in Russia, people who have worked in the security services, such as the military or police forces
Oligarchs
The super-wealthy oligarchs of Russia emerged in the chaos of shock therapy privatization of the early 1990s, using insider ties, corruption, and other illicit business practices to gain control of the most valuable formerly state-owned industries of the former Soviet Union.
Boris Berezovsky was a media tycoon who owned Russia’s most watched TV networks, and used his networks to help Yeltsin in the 1990s.
Mikhail Khordorkovsky was once Russia’s richest man, worth over $15 billion, but used his money to fund opposition parties in the 2003 Duma elections and criticized the “managed elections” and corruption under Putin.
The assets of Khordorkovsky’s oil company Yukos, which was bankrupted after the government’s charges, were transferred to Rosneft in a suspicious auction.
Igor Sechin, a former deputy prime minister of Putin’s, is Rosneft’s chairman of the board.
The Media
Pravda, the state newspaper, was the only media allowed in the Soviet Union. Private media arose after the USSR collapsed.
Russian media is mostly privately owned but practically state-controlled.
The Russian government indirectly censors and controls what is aired and printed.
Berezovsky and Gusinsky were arrested and exiled after criticizing Putin.
Other media tycoons swiftly find that conformity with the regime controls their riches and networks. Critical government journalists often die violently and mysteriously.
State Institutions
The President
Head of government the individual in the executive branch responsible for the day-to-day operation of the government
Head of state the individual in the executive branch who acts as the ceremonial symbol of the country at public events
Russia's president is directly elected by a two-ballot majority.
He can serve two consecutive six-year terms.
After resigning in 2008, Vladimir Putin ran again in 2012.
The prime minister heads the government, while the president heads of state.
The formal powers of the president include:
Appointment of the prime minister and the cabinet: The president may appoint a prime minister with the consent of a majority of the Duma.
Legislative powers: The president may draft bills and submit them to the legislature for their consideration, and he may sign or veto any bills passed by both houses.
Issuing decrees with the force of law: The president controls the policies of the state through decrees issued to cabinet ministers, which act as the law of the land.
Suspension of local laws: The president may suspend a law or regulation in one of Russia’s regional governments if he believes it is contrary to the Russian Constitution, laws or treaties of the Russian Federation, or a violation of human rights.
Pardons and reprieves: The president may grant a pardon or a reprieve for any person under federal law.
Foreign policy: The president is empowered as Russia’s chief voice in foreign affairs.
The Prime Minimister
Presidents pick prime ministers with Duma consent. Yeltsin often fired prime ministers.
Putin became president when Yeltsin resigned in 2000 because there is no vice president.
According to the Russian Constitution, he heads the government but has little power.
The Federal Assembly
Russia’s Federal Assembly is a bicameral legislature with a lower house (the Duma) and an upper house (the Federation Council), and each possesses distinct character traits and functions.
The State Duma
After 2015 amendments, the Duma has 450 representatives elected by half-single-member-district and half-proportional representation.
The Russian Constitution allows them to approve the budget, pass measures with the president's signature, and confirm or reject the prime minister.
The president's wide-ranging power to govern by order through the cabinet, which the Duma cannot remove, limits their real influence.
It can impeach the president with a two-thirds vote in the Duma and Federation Council and a treason conviction in Russia's Supreme Court.
From 1995 through 1999, the Duma tried to use these powers against Yeltsin but never reached two-thirds.
The Federation Council
The Federation Council has 170 members, two from each of Russia's 85 regions.
The regional governor and legislature each choose one member.
After becoming president in 2000, Vladimir Putin ended governors' simultaneous Federation Council appointments.
With the 2004 amendment allowing the president to designate regional governors, the president has a lot of authority over the Federation Council, and a 2014 modification that introduced seventeen new representatives, all nominated by the president, strengthened this control.
Unlike their Duma counterparts, Federation Council members must renounce party affiliation upon taking office.
Regional Governments and Federalism
Russia is vast and diverse in ethnicity, culture, religion, and geography.
The 1993 Constitution created Russia as a federal system to give local governments geographic autonomy to meet the different demands and policy preferences of their populations.
Local autonomy varies across Russia's 85 federal subjects.
Constitutionally mandated asymmetric federalism.
Most Russian federal subjects fall into two types.
Oblasts, mostly ethnic Russian, elect their own legislature and governor.
Republics are ethnic minority homelands with their own constitutions.
The Judiciary
The Soviet courts were political arms of the Communist Party and did not follow the rule of law.
Russia failed to establish an independent judiciary with the 1993 Constitution.
The Russian courts never opposed political prosecutions against dissident oligarchs.
Russian security services like the FSB have never been convicted for human rights violations.
Russia assumes judges may be bribed to get favorable court verdicts.
The Constitutional Court
The president and Federation Council appoint nineteen Constitutional Court members.
The Constitution gives the Constitutional Court the primary authority to interpret the Constitution and evaluate unconstitutional laws and presidential decrees.
This power never manifests.
Putin ordered the Court to move from Moscow to St. Petersburg in 2007 amid rumors of a clash with the Court, a move many judges called "logistical nightmares."
Supreme Court
After appeals from subordinate courts, the Russian Supreme Court is the court of last resort.
The Federation Council confirms 115 president-nominated judges.
However, only the Constitutional Court can assess laws for constitutionality.
2012 saw the Supreme Court move from Moscow to St. Petersburg.
The Military
The Soviet military enforced control over difficult areas and was a key source of authority and credibility.
The leadership prioritized the military, depriving most other government activities of funds.
Despite this, the military never had much political influence and remained under Communist Party leadership until the instability of the late 1980s and 1990s, typified by the 1991 attempted coup against Gorbachev by numerous military personnel.
After the Soviet Union collapsed, a presidential proclamation handed the Russian Federation responsibility over all Russian military and appointed the president commander in chief.
Since most prominent Russian officials are civilians, the military appears to be under civilian political control.
Public Policy
Russians had different policy concerns than liberal countries due to the upheaval in the late years of communism and early years of the new rule.
The conflict between those who desire democratic reform and those grateful for the end of the instability, despite the authoritarianism, continues today.
The Economy
Shock therapy left most Russians damaged, as poverty rose to 10 times pre-Soviet-collapse levels and inflation and unemployment hit them more than the Great Depression.
Shock therapy policies, political corruption, or general instability during the state's demise are still discussed.
Rising oil prices helped Putin's Russia recover through 2008. After the 2008 recession, the government's budget has suffered.
Russia has no extreme poverty and a lower Gini coefficient than most of our studied countries (a standard of living of less than two dollars per day, or some similar measure).
Russia's energy and natural resource-based economy is still state-owned.
Putin and Medvedev want Russia's economy diversified.
Foreign Relations with Eastern Europe
After the Soviet Union collapsed, Russia still dominates eastern Europe. Georgia and Ukraine demonstrate Russia's hegemony.
Ukraine uses Russian natural gas to heat homes during harsh winters.
For this, Ukraine greatly subsidizes natural gas use.
Russia has regularly cut off natural gas access to Ukraine during key trade or other negotiations with Western Europe.
Foreign Relations with the West
Before its fall, the USSR and the US were polar superpowers. Russia today faces a world dominated by the US after losing its superpower status. Under Putin, US-Russia ties have worsened despite Yeltsin's promise of a Cold War conclusion.
Russia uses natural gas exports as one of many methods to restrict former Soviet satellites and republics who want to join NATO or the EU. The Russian military intervened while Georgia and Ukraine were beginning NATO membership.
Russia joined the G-7 (which became the G-8 with their admission) and the World Trade Organization in 2012, but their annexation of Crimea halted any hope of further integration. Russia was sanctioned by all Western economic powers after the G-8 was reduced to the G-7.
Population
Russian population decline undermines its strength and economic progress.
Russian men's drunkenness and falling birth rates caused the situation.
Russian men live 65 years, but women live 77. Alcohol kills about 25% of Russian males under 55.
Russian women have 1.75 children (when two would be necessary for simply replacing the current population).
Russia has tried to reverse this tendency by encouraging ethnic Russians abroad to return home and by promoting patriotic nationalism by promoting large families.
One Russian region even granted its residents a holiday in 2007 to encourage couples to conceive and offered prizes to those who "Give birth to a patriot."