Russian Democracy: Still Not a Lost Cause
Michael McFaul
The Washington Quarterly, Volume 23, Number 1, Winter 2000, pp. 161-172
(Article)
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Michael McFaul
Russian Democracy:
Still Not a Lost Cause
Copyright © 1999 by The Center for Strategic and International Studies and the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Washington Quarterly • 23:1 pp. 161–172.
THE WASHINGTON QUARTERLY ■ WINTER 2000
161
Michael McFaul is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace in Washington and an assistant professor of political science and Hoover Fellow
at Stanford University in California.
In the recent explosion of articles about “Who Lost Russia,” ana-
lysts have focused almost exclusively on the trials and tribulations of
Russia’s economic reform and Western attempts to assist these reforms.
Russia’s financial collapse in August 1998 and recent accusations of money
laundering through the Bank of New York are cited as evidence that Russia
is lost. The logic of this analysis is flawed. It assumes that these setbacks to
economic reform or the rule of law represent end points in Russian history.
In fact, they may really just reflect the transitional consequences of Russia’s
ongoing revolution. Russia is midstream in one of the most far-reaching at-
tempts in history to simultaneously transform an empire, a polity, and an
economy. It is naive to expect this revolution to go smoothly all the way.
Russia’s transition has been not only long but also confrontational and at
times violent. Negotiation between the ancient regime leaders and demo-
cratic challengers never produced agreements or constitutions. Instead, im-
position was the mode of transition. Most dramatically, Yeltsin’s imposition
of the political rules of the game in the fall of 1993 produced the current
political order. This system, often called the Second Russian Republic, has
many qualities of an electoral democracy, even if it lacks the deeper at-
tributes of liberal democracy.
1
After destroying his political enemies by force in October 1993, Yeltsin
used his temporary political advantage to dictate a new political order, ini-
tiating Russia’s third attempt at democratic transition. In November 1993,
he published a new constitution and announced a referendum on the new
basic law for December 1993. At the same time, voters were asked to elect
l
Michael McFaul
THE WASHINGTON QUARTERLY ■ WINTER 2000
162
representatives to a new bicameral parliament replacing the Congress of
People’s Deputies. The October events—a euphemism for the armed con-
flict between the president and the parliament on October 3-4, 1993—
were a blow to popular support for Russian democracy. Opinion polls
immediately after the October 1993 standoff revealed that support for de-
mocracy—a word unfortunately identified with the Yeltsin regime—had
decreased considerably. Yet a majority (or close to a majority because the
turnout numbers were probably falsified) participated and voted to ratify a
new constitution. Equally important, ma-
jor parties from the opposition, including
the Communist Party of the Russian Fed-
eration and the Agrarian Party of Russia,
chose after long and hard debate to par-
ticipate. Even the losers from the October
1993 standoff believed they were better
off if they acquiesced to Yeltsin’s rules,
however flawed, than if they challenged
the regime by other means.
Since 1993, all major political actors
have abided by the political rules of the game outlined in the new consti-
tution. Likewise, all political individuals and organizations of consequence
participated in the 1995 parliamentary election, the 1996 presidential
election, and dozens of elections for regional executives and legislative
representatives since 1996. On the whole, elections have been competi-
tive and consequential, as two-thirds of the Duma deputies elected in
1993 did not win reelection or compete for reelection in 1995, and nearly
half of the regional heads of administration lost reelection bids. The 1999-
2000 electoral cycle already has produced some negative signs for the
future of competitive and fair elections. Most disturbingly, the Kremlin-
controlled media has blatantly violated Russia’s electoral law by viciously
attacking opposition parties participating the December 1999 parliamen-
tary elections, a hint of what might ensue in 2000 presidential elections.
Nonetheless, however imperfect, elections are the only game in town for
assuming political power, and the constitution survives as the ultimate
guide for resolving conflicts between the executive and the legislative
branches.
Measuring the stability and quality of this system involves two related but
distinct undertakings. Full-blown liberal democracies have well-developed
party systems, vibrant civil societies, rule of law, an independent media, and
mature liberal norms embedded in society. They are more immune to anti-
democratic challenges than partial or electoral democracies that use elec-
The Kremlin-
controlled media has
blatantly violated
Russia’s electoral law.
THE WASHINGTON QUARTERLY ■ WINTER 2000
Russian Democracy
l
163
tions to select political leaders but lack many of these deeper qualities of de-
mocracy.
2
However, a political system can be stable without being liberal.
Likewise an electoral democracy can be stable without being a liberal de-
mocracy. In a democratic polity, stability may be enhanced and even stimu-
lated by development of liberal institutions, but the causal arrow may also
point in the opposite direction. Moreover, countries can get stuck in the
“twilight zone”
3
between electoral and liberal democracy, sometimes called
unconsolidated democracies or illiberal democracies.
The current Russian political system has many attributes of an unconsoli-
dated democracy or electoral democracy, while still lacking the features of a
liberal democracy. The distribution of formal powers between the president
and parliament is too skewed in favor of the president. Russia’s party system,
civil society, and rule of law are underdeveloped. The crude military meth-
ods being deployed to “fight terrorism” in Chechnya suggests that respect for
basic human rights of all Russian citizens still does not exist within the Rus-
sian state or society. Yet this system exhibits qualities of stability. In Russia
today, all major actors demonstrate an interest in the institutions of democ-
racy. No major group believes that it will be better off by deviating from
electoral and constitutional rules. Different actors want to change the spe-
cific form of the constitution and the specific rules governing elections, but
no major political force has an incentive to violate these basic democratic
rules of the game of Russia’s polity.
The Revolution Is Over
In contrast to earlier periods in the Soviet-Russian transition, the current
system is more stable owing to two major changes. One is the narrowed
agenda of change. A decade ago, three major questions were on the agenda:
Where were the borders of the nation and state? What kind of economy
should the Soviet Union-Russia have? What kind of political system should
be created? Today two of these major issues are resolved. With the excep-
tion of Chechnya, the borders of the Russian state are no longer in dispute.
Likewise the market has replaced the command economy, and few believe
that there will be a reversal. Although Russia and Belarus have moved
closer to reuniting over the past several years, no serious political force in
Russia today believes that it can recreate the Soviet Union by controlling
the Kremlin. Nor do serious actors believe that they can roll back capitalism
if they take back the Kremlin extraconstitutionally.
As the stakes for obtaining political power decrease, the time horizons of
those seeking political power stretch further into the future. When the So-
viet Union’s fate was on the line, political actors heavily discounted the fu-
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Michael McFaul
THE WASHINGTON QUARTERLY ■ WINTER 2000
164
ture and focused solely on the short-term consequences of collapse or pres-
ervation of the state. The same was true of economic reform. Political actors
rightly believed that initial decisions about these outcomes would have
long-term consequences; therefore the time to effect initial trajectories was
the present, not the future. Because actors did not know the consequences
of losing these debates, they played for broke, believing there might be no
tomorrow if they lost. As these issues have been resolved, the imperative for
immediate action is no longer obvious, because actors are compelled to
adopt longer-term policy agendas within the general parameters of the eco-
nomic and political system in place. Equally important, the losers have not
been killed or imprisoned but have reemerged as important actors within
the new political system. For example, Anatoly Lukyanov, a loser from the
August 1991 coup attempt, is a Duma Deputy and chairman of the Legisla-
tive Affairs Committee, whereas Aleksandr Rutskoi, a loser from the 1993
military confrontation, is governor of Kursk Oblast. The safer it is to lose,
the longer politicians can stay in the democratic game.
Challenges to Stability from Within the Kremlin
A second stabilizing development has been the new balance of power be-
tween political forces that has evolved since the 1993 showdown. A skewed
distribution of power in favor of one side created a focal point for institu-
tional emergence in 1993; Yeltsin dictated the rules and everyone had two
choices—acquiesce or reject. Most acquiesced. Ironically, the weakening of
this same side over time has helped preserve the 1993 constitutional design.
After October 1993, Yeltsin and his entourage represented the one political
force in Russia with the power to undermine the new political rules of the
game. At the beginning of 1996, when Yeltsin’s popular support hovered in
the single digits only months before the presidential election, many pre-
dicted that he would use his disproportionate power (or, more accurately, his
perceived preponderance of power) to stay in command. One of his closest
advisers at the time, Aleksandr Korzhakov, urged him to do so. When
tempted by the extraconstitutional option during the 1996 presidential elec-
tion, Yeltsin abided by the electoral process.
We do not know, and probably never will, why he decided to play by
these electoral rules. On the one hand, the president must have reasoned
that he was too weak, domestically and internationally, to pull off a coup.
Even if he and his allies wanted to use extraconstitutional means to im-
pose their preferences regarding a political issue, the probability that the
military would intervene again on his behalf or that the population would
support him was much lower after the October 1993 confrontation.
4
On