Russia’s March 2000 presidential election represents one step forward and two steps back for Russian democracy. For the first time in Russia’s history, power within the Kremlin has changed hands through an electoral process. The election not only took place but was conducted as constitutionally prescribed, no small achievement for a country with Russia’s authoritarian history. More than two-thirds of the eligible voters participated, and they appeared to make informed choices among a range of candidates who offered competing platforms, policies, and leadership styles. The election, however, was not contested on a level playing field. The winner, acting president Vladimir Putin, enjoyed tremendous advantages that tainted the process. Although weak in some arenas, the Russian state still enjoys too much power with respect to the electoral process, while nongovernmental forces—political parties, civic organizations, trade unions, and independent business groups—remain too weak to shape the outcomes of elections. Does this latest election represent a fundamental turn away from democratic practices or merely a temporary setback for democratic consolidation in Russia? It is too early to tell. Putin may turn out to be Russia’s Milo‰eviç. Or he may develop into a weak leader presiding over a feudal order, dominated by oligarchs and regional barons, in which the people have little say. Yet it is also possible that he will lead Russia out of its chaotic, revolutionary, and anarchic recent past into a more stable decade of economic growth and political stability—and economic growth and political stability can help consolidate democratic institutions. Thus far, Putin has provided mixed signals about the direction in which he wants to take Russia and has demonstrated a real indifference to Michael McFaul is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and an assistant professor of political science at Stanford University. His latest book is Russia’s 1996 Presidential Election: The End of Polarized Politics (1997).

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

Who watches over the party-state? In this engaging analysis, Maria Repnikova reveals the webs of an uneasy partnership between critical journalists and the state in China. More than merely a passive mouthpiece or a dissident voice, the media in China also plays a critical oversight role, one more frequently associated with liberal democracies than with authoritarian systems. Chinese central officials cautiously endorse media supervision as a feedback mechanism, as journalists carve out space for critical reporting by positioning themselves as aiding the agenda of the central state. Drawing on rare access in the field, Media Politics in China examines the process of guarded improvisation that has defined this volatile partnership over the past decade on a routine basis and in the aftermath of major crisis events. Combined with a comparative analysis of media politics in the Soviet Union and contemporary Russia, the book highlights the distinctiveness of Chinese journalist-state relations, as well as the renewed pressures facing them in the Xi era.

Media Politics in China: Improvising Power under Authoritarianism

In this article, which is adapted from the seventh annual Seymour Martin Lipset Lecture on Democracy in the World, Ivan Krastev addresses three main questions: 1) Why are authoritarian regimes surviving in the age of democratization? 2) Why did political science fail to anticipate the resilience of these regimes? and 3) Why it is so difficult to resist contemporary authoritarianism?

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Paradoxes of the New Authoritarianism

Although the energy trade is the single most important element of nearly all European countries’ relations with Russia, Europe has been divided by both worldview and practice. Why, in the face of the common challenge of dependence on imported Russian gas, have national reactions to such vulnerability varied so dramatically across the continent? And why have a handful of French, German, and Italian corporations somehow taken responsibility for formulating the energy strategy – and thus the Russia policy – for essentially all of Europe? The resolutions of these two puzzles are, I show, interlinked; they also demand theoretical innovation. With several case studies – of Gazprom's decision-making during the 2006 and 2009 gas crises, and of the response of western and central Europe to their gas dependence – I find that: firms are driving these political outcomes; those firms are motivated by profits but employ sociological conventions along their ways; and firms generally seek the necessary inter-fir...

The profits of power: Commerce and realpolitik in Eurasia

Post-Imperial Democracies by Stephen E. Hanson

Who are the holders of political power in Russia today, and what is the relationship between them and the rest of Russia’s people? The answer to the first question boils down to the siloviki (sometimes called “securocrats” by political scientists). These are the people who work for, or who used to work for, the silovye ministerstva—literally “the ministries of force”—charged with wielding coercion and violence in the name of the state. All told, there are 22 such agencies in today’s Russia. The best known is the Federal Security Service (FSB), the successor to the Soviet-era KGB secret-police and spy agency. Other coercive agencies are associated with the Interior Ministry, various branches of the military, the state prosecutor’s office, the intelligence services, and so on. Whatever their specific institutional affiliation, all siloviki have in common a special type of training that sets them apart from civilians. This training provides the skills, motivation, and mental attitude needed to use force against other people. The distinguishing feature of enforcement in today’s Russia is that it does not necessarily mean enforcement of law. It means enforcement of power and force, regardless of law and quite often against law. The personnel of each of these enforcement agencies, whether still in active service or retired, form unified groups—often informal but real and potent nonetheless—that can be called brotherhoods or corporations. There is a hierarchy as well as a high level of in-group allegiance in them. Most current and former members of the enforcement agencies form the siloviki caste as a distinctive part of society. At the peak of this caste are current and former secret-police op-

Andrei Illarionov

Papers

The Siloviki in Charge

The Roots of the Economic Crisis