John Rapley
RUSSIAN PRESIDENT Vladimir Putin has turned post-communist Russia on its head. In the heady 1990s, as Russians tasted their new-found freedoms, the economy imploded. Privatisation enriched a handful of oligarchs, but inflation and restructuring drove millions into poverty. As nouveaux riches raced around Moscow in imported cars, dining in expensive restaurants, the newly-liberalised press bombarded Russians with a plethora of messages they had never before heard.
A decade on, much has changed. Russia's economic decline bottomed in 1998. That year, the country was shaken by a financial crisis so severe that for a brief time, the global financial system seemed at risk of collapse. Since then, the economy, buoyed by resurgent oil prices, has been growing steadily. Incomes are rising. At the same time, political liberty is being pared back.
CONCENTRATED HOLD ON POWER
Increasingly, Russia is a democracy in name only. After serving as President Boris Yeltsin's last prime minister, Vladimir Putin, went on to become president. Since then, he has steadily concentrated his hold on power. He has curtailed the powers of regional governors, who at one point in the anarchic 1990s seemed on the verge of carving up the country. In the 2003 parliamentary elections, he virtually locked up the country's legislature. In the 2004 presidential election, he trounced the already-cowed opposition.
Meantime, his Kremlin has harassed and shut down opposition media. And many analysts say that the populist campaign against the oligarchs - many of whom have admittedly engaged in shady dealings - is motivated by the fact they also fund the opposition.
NOT UNDEMOCRATIC
Not that any of this is undemocratic. On the contrary, President Putin can do what he does because the Russian people want him to. Even if the political opposition were free in Russia, few think it could do much to chip away at Mr. Putin's popularity. The plain fact is that in many Russian minds, Mr. Putin has delivered prosperity. If the price they must pay for that is a loss of political liberty, so be it.
Russia scholars make much of the country's history and culture, and its lack of a democratic tradition. Whether czars or communist dictators, Russians are said to have always had a penchant for strong, nearly divine leaders.
Yet the country is not all that exceptional. Students of democracy have in recent years shown that the commitment to democracy is typically conditional. As long as a democratic system can deliver prosperity, people support it. If it fails to produce the goods, people look to authoritarian populists. And this appears to have happened in Russia.
On the face of it, Russia's autocracy is working. The people are richer than they have been in a long time. Few are bothered that they cannot read political criticism. After all, sales figures show that what Russians are eagerly consuming is Cosmopolitan and Playboy. Political commentary has dropped well down their priority list.
PUTIN'S AUTOCRACY NOT VERY EFFECTIVE
And yet, Putin's autocracy is probably much less effective than many think. True, autocrats need not worry about institutional barriers to effective action. The problem is that their actions, while effective, may also be harmful.
And President Putin's Kremlin has repeatedly shown a proclivity for poor judgment. It bungled the Beslan hostage crisis and Ukrainian election. Its break-up of the Yukos business empire made it seem jealous of political power. Then earlier this year, when it briefly cut energy supplies to Ukraine, it prompted west European countries to start looking for new energy supplies, since Russia came to be seen as unreliable. With such actions, Putin's autocracy is arguably paying a high price for squelching debate.
Democracy may be messy. But as Putin's Russia shows, the alternative may mean tidy but inept government.
John Rapley is a senior lecturer in the Department of Government, University of the West Indies, Mona.
