POLITICAL INSTITUTIONALIZATION IN RUSSIA IN THE CONTEXT OF INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC CHALLENGES IN 2008-2012

POLITICAL INSTITUTIONALIZATION IN RUSSIA IN THE CONTEXT OF INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC CHALLENGES IN 2008-2012

Vladimir Karlakov

Postgraduate student, Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation,

Russia, Moscow

ABSTRACT

The article is devoted to the study of the influence of political and economic challenges on the change in the political architecture of Russia during the presidency of Dmitry Medvedev. The author defines a political institution as a set of formal restrictions regulating the activities of political organizations, and challenges as circumstances that don’t threaten national interests, but require a response to its.

Keywords: political institutions, legitimacy of the political system, military reform, world financial crisis.

The primary task of the Russian leadership in the first half of the 2000s was to ensure political stability by solving economic and political problems, in particular, the confrontation between the legislative and executive branches of power, the lack of uniform "rules of the game" in the interaction of government and business, the influence of regional elites on the process decision making in view of the specifics of the formation of the Federation Council.

Political stability, along with a favorable situation on the energy market, contributed to a shift in emphasis from domestic to foreign policy in the context of meeting Russia's national interests. Therefore, in 2007 in the framework of the Munich Security Conference, Russian President Vladimir Putin noted that the modern international system should take into account the interests of developed and developing countries.

The first serious test of Russia's desire to occupy one of the leading positions in the system of international relations was the Russian-Georgian conflict over South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The interests of the United States, which supported Georgia both financially and militarily, consisted in strengthening its position in the Transcaucasia. In the case of a successful military operation, Georgia (ensuring territorial integrity) could become a NATO member, which would ensure the presence of a NATO military contingent on its territory. The advantages of such a potential alignment for the United States are as follows: firstly, the advancement of NATO military forces to the southern borders of Russia and Chinese territory; secondly, the possibility of exerting pressure on the territory of Iran; thirdly, the possibility of a counter-terrorist activities in the region; fourthly, the deterioration of Russia's position in the Transcaucasia [1, p.63].

Despite the positive outcome of the conflict for Russia, external and internal political risks and challenges were identified. Potential deterioration of relations between the Russian Federation and the European Union (the USA, Great Britain, and the Baltic countries advocated economic sanctions for the “aggressor country”), deterioration of Russia's image in the international scene, destabilization of the political regimes of the CIS countries were considered as foreign policy risks. Internal political risks related to the territorial integrity (intensification of movements for self-determination) and national security (intensification of terrorist activities) of Russia.

Russia won the war due to numerical superiority over the enemy in manpower and equipment. Nevertheless, the campaign reflected problems with the quality of weapons and a complex command structure that wasn’t designed to resolve regional conflicts. Accordingly, the reaction of the Russian leadership to the internal challenge was the reform of the Russian Armed Forces.

The goal of the reform was to improve the level of Russia's military security. At the same time, the following main tasks of the reform can be distinguished: 1) rearmament of the Armed Forces of Russia; 2) changing the organizational structure.

As part of the reform, the officer corps is being reduced by 150 thousand people. This was due, on the one hand, to the quantitative predominance of the leading corps over rank-and-file soldiers; on the other hand, by optimizing the expenditures of the military budget; third, the dismissal of politically independent officers who have their own opinion regarding a place, role and direction of development of the Armed Forces.

The reduction in the officer corps and the number of military units made it possible to transfer part of the military budget to finance the procurement and development of weapons. In the future, it was planned to allocate more than 70% of the military budget for rearmament.

In the context of military reform, an organizational change is taking place. So, the place of the four-link (military district - army - division - regiment) was taken by a three-link (military district - operational command - brigade) control system, instead of six military districts, four united strategic commands were created.

Thus, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation were to consist of military formations of constant readiness, capable of promptly responding to local challenges and regional conflicts.

Despite the contradictory results of the military reform, it is worth noting the timely reaction of the authorities to the challenges identified after the events of August 2008.

The second test of Russia's position in the system of international relations was the global financial crisis. The financial crisis is associated with a change in the structure of the economy. If before the real sector prevailed in the economic structure, whereas in the 2000s the amount of financial capital was several times higher than the volume of commodity output. The main problem was that speculative capital penetrated into all cycles of the production process, but since real resources don’t back up this type of capital, it is impossible to create conditions for sustainable economic development on its basis. Accordingly, the crisis of the financial system affected the real sector of the economy.

The global financial crisis has not harmed such significant damage to Russia as to European Union countries. This feature was determined by the fact that, firstly, the role of Russia in the processes of globalization is insignificant, since Russia wasn’t a member of the World Trade Organization, and, secondly, the lack of a culture of investment and the underestimation of the value of Russian industrial enterprises [2, p. 18].

Nevertheless, the crisis has affected the concept of innovative development of Russia. The fall in oil prices led to a drop in budget revenues from the export of energy resources and the reduction of investment opportunities exporters in the country's economy. Taking into account the crisis on the stock market, it caused a reduction in effective demand from the state.

If in the first half of the 2000s, the favorable economic situation allowed accumulating funds for the reform of the economy, in crisis time, the Reserve Fund was used to support enterprises, in fulfillment of social obligations of the state, to stabilize the economy.

In the aftermath of the financial crisis, the high price of oil again made the issue of the innovative vector of economic development urgent. Nevertheless, the political elite, due to its conservatism and lack of political will, didn’t demonstrate an interest in an innovative economy.

Russian internal political challenges in the mentioned period, related to the fall in the level of legitimacy of public bodies. The reasons for this change can be identified large-scale corruption, disregard of the existing "rules of the game", excessive bureaucratization, violation of the rights and freedoms of citizens.

Therefore, the reform of the Ministry of the Interior is a reaction of the authorities to the existing problems. The purpose of the reform was to improve the effectiveness of law enforcement. The declared reason for the transformations is associated with the need to improve the image of law enforcement agencies. At the same time, the informal political reason for the reform is a decrease in the political independence of employees of the internal affairs bodies.

In the context of the reform, the main changes should be highlighted. Firstly, the militia was renamed the police. Thus, the authorities, on the one hand, focused on historical continuity (the police as a permanent security body in Russian Empire), and on the other, noted that the police serve in the interests of civil society to protect its rights and freedoms [3, p. 84].

Secondly, the dismissal of officers disloyal to the authorities, corrupt officials, as well as the re-certification allowed to significantly reducing the staff of the internal affairs bodies. Third, the elimination of the principle of dividing the police into federal and municipal.

Fourthly, civil society, along with state institutions, received the right to control the internal affairs bodies. At the same time, the obligation of police officers to inform governors and mayors about the state of law and order in a certain territory was enshrined in law.

Despite the large-scale transformations, the attitude of citizens towards the police didn’t change significantly, since most of the population in the context of the reform noted only a formal superficial renaming of the militia into the police.

Another internal political challenge for Russia was the mass protests in 2011-2012. The significance of the protests was to threaten the legitimacy of the political system, in contrast to other challenges associated with the activities of specific institutions.

In contrast to the rallies and protests of the 1990s and early 2000s, the mass protests of 2011 and 2012 were of a political rather than economic nature, despite the rise in unemployment and a decrease in the population's income as a result of the global financial crisis. The reasons for the dissatisfaction of citizens were associated with both the lack of feedback between civil society and the authorities, and the low quality of public administration. Мass protests aren’t a consequence of the results of elections to the State Duma of the Russian Federation, but the result of the accumulation of dissatisfaction with the actions of the authorities [4, p. 23]. Accordingly, representatives of the middle class, and not the working class, as in the 1990s, formed the social basis of the mass protest.

The government's response to this challenge was the modernization of the political system, in the context of which two main directions can be distinguished: the liberalization of electoral legislation and the decentralization of government.

Thus, it has simplified the procedure for registration of political parties, changed the principle of forming the State Duma – the mixed system replaced the proportional one, the entry barrier for political parties to the lower house of parliament was reduced from 7% to 5%, and direct elections of governors were returned [5, p. 45].

A simplification of the registration procedure for parties led to an increase in the number of parties. As a result of the increase in the number of parties, the systemic opposition, especially the left ideological spectrum, has lost part of its electorate. The return of direct elections of governors implied coordination of the candidates proposed by the parties with the president. Accordingly, a contradictory nature of the reforms didn’t contribute to the strengthening of the democratic principles of the Russian political system.

Thus, the stage of political institutionalization in 2008-2012 can be characterized as a comprehensive modernization. Features of political institutionalization were due to both internal and external political and economic challenges. At the same time, first of all the authorities has responded to external challenges that threaten the integrity and security of the country, and only then to internal ones. It is also worth noting the reactivity of power (stimulus-response) in relation to both types of challenges.

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