electoral seismographs I

I had the opportunity to talk with Prof. Busygina, an expert on federalism and the economies of space at the MGIMO yesterday. We discussed the question of elections in Russia very briefly, but verz fruitful. There are four major points, that can be considered the results of this meeting. First, it is easy to run elections when there is no real opposition and therefore the chance of a defeat of the party of power is very little. Second, she told me about serious rumours that United Russia probably will experience a schism. This, in my opinion, might partly happen because the experiment of Just Russia did not work. Third, Prof. Busygina pointed out that the most important development of the last years was that there are less elections that ever since the elections of the governors were abolished. And last, not least, I asked her what she thinks the functions of parties and elections in Russia are. The answer was a little more complex, but I will briefly summarize it: People are really habitualized to elections as even the Soviet System held elections. The difference today is that they have a choice, and that there is an opposition, even if it is compliant with the system. I argued  that elections probably are the only possibility for the elites to stay in touch with the electorate and probably have the function of a political seismograph and, after thinking about it, she agreed. Even though there are a lot of opinion polls, there is little credible information passing from the bottom to the top because of the huge problem of social desirability researchers have to deal with in Russia. Apparently, she said, people first look at you to estimate what the interviewers expectations are, and then they adjust their answer. But as they are habitualized to elections and now have the possibility to choose where to make their cross, the percentage of the party of power and of the other parties serves as a good indicator for the satisfaction of the electorate with the (national or local) government, at least in the urban regions. This is a very interesting argument.  It will be interesting to do further research and fieldstudies on this pattern of what i call “electoral seismography”.

Putin to become Chairman of Edinaja Rossija

Another interesting turn in the russian merry-go-round: President Putin announced to accept the proposal of president elect Dmitri Medvedev to become Chairman of Edinaja Rossija after resigning on Mai 7th. One could arguethat this was a foreseeable move. But what is interesting about this, is that Putin will become the leader as a non-party-member. This might be interpretet as the next step of Edinaja Rossija towards becoming an all-russian movement somewhat in the tradition of the former CPSU, but with a substantial difference: The new ideology is neither totalitarian nor inspired by communism. It rather is what some analysts call etatist turbo capitalism or neo-liberalism. With the chairmen of Gazprom, Dmitri Medvedev and Alexei Miller, and the future leader of Edinaja Rossija, Vladimir Putin, the most exposed men control the most important posts in the country. This strategy fits well into what I would analyze as authoritarian consolidation. One main factor in this strategy seems to be the institutionalization of informal politics and networking to raise the capacity of the state to demobilize the people, civic society and oppositions.

Formal Institutions and Informal Politics in Central and Eastern Europe

The second – and affordable paperback – Edition of Formal Institutions and Informal Politics… has been published recently. This volume gives an introductory insight into the title-giving relationship between 1989 and 2005. It comprises a systematic explication of central concepts, analyses the character and main mechanisms of informal politics as performed by power elites as well as the personalisation of politics. Being rather free from norm-driven evaluations up to this point, the authors rise the question of democratic legitimacy in the context of national political cultures and their legacies.

Probably the volume could have produced more fruitful insights, if the authors had set the democratic legitimacy-aspect aside, but nevertheless the book is an excellent introduction into the informal politics debate. In addition, there are four very good case studies. Conclusion: Buy the book, if you are interested in informal politics and/or CEE

• Gerd Meyer (ed.) (2008): Formal Institutions and Informal Politics in Central and Eastern Europe. Hungary, Poland, Russia and Ukraine. 2nd, revised edition. Opladen: Barbara Budrich Publishers. ISBN: 978-3-86649-147, 29,90€

Quelle Surprise – it’s Medvedjev!

As 99,73% of votes are proceeded – some call it counted – by now, one can hardly imagine that there will be any change in the results: Political engineering and Image making in Russia, whether legal or not, has provided 70,24% victory to Dmitrij Medvedjev in the presidential elections. The result is not really surprising. More important is the fact that voter turnout (about 69%) was considerably higher than in the 2004 elections.

This might be valued as a strong legitimation for Medvedjev. But this also means that out of the about 109 Million eligible voters, only 48% voted for Medvedjev, while 30%+ didn’t vote at all and the rest selected another candidate. What this fact really indicates is that the candidates were able to mobilize their following. Taking into account theb results of political opinion research the results of nationalist Zhirinovski (9,36%) and communist Zyuganov (17,75%) come very close to their real potential. Most of the non-voter then seem to have withdrawn from politics because of the predictable outcomes.

But will there be a new direction of russian politics? We strongly disbelieve the moderate optimism in western politics. The designated president stated that he will – together with a Prime Minister Putin – continue the work of his predecessor. Even if there will be no new distribution of power between those two institutions (as Medvedjev indicated today), the influence of the Prime Minister will probably stay rather high. And, by the way, as all pc-owners, might know: never change a running system. For Russia the current configuration of the clearly authoritarian political system seems to run pretty well.

But it is much too early to give an in-depth analysis, even though many journalists and even political scientists will come up with such in the next few days and weeks. In our opinion, one at least has to a 100-day period to get a closer idea of what path of development Russia will chose in the Future.

Russian presidential elections

There are elections going on in Russia at the moment. Considering the developments in the political system of Russia in the last few years, they cannot be called democratic in any way. They seem to be part of the emerging so called “russian way to postmodernism”, that is openly authoritarian. Elections and electoral engineering are part of a complex system of electoral authoritarianism (Schedler) that evolved under Putins regency and reduced elections to plebiscitarian functions. As his close ally Dmitrij Medvedjew is supposed to be the winner of the elections, there are signs that this system will be stabilized and last for at least the next electoral term.

Kopfmaennchen are closely observing the elections and will come up with an in-depth analysis later this year. In Addition we hope to be able to provide a short analysis in the next few days.