Russia's faux semi-presidentialism

Russia is often lazily lumped in with semi-presidential countries, largely because it has a president and a prime minister. The model does not really fit. Dmitry Medvedev's assumption of the presidency was so managed by the country's elite that you cannot really call the president directly elected, while Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is only responsible to the Russian parliament in the most notional of senses. Meanwhile, state maintains a stranglehold on the media and journalists who criticise the regime have an unfortunate tendency die sudden and violent deaths. Russia is effectively an authoritarian regime with a semi-presidential façade.

Still, Russia has the trappings of a dual executive system, and there is always the possibility that the premiership and presidency could turn into rival centres of power. When Putin handed over the presidency to Medvedev and assumed the premiership, it was widely believed that he would remain the real master of Russia, with Medvedev acting as his puppet or the friendly face he could present to the world. Events seemed to support this interpretation, with Putin appearing to use the premiership as a way of ruling form the shadows.

More recently, though, there have appeared what might be the first signs of a Putin-Medvedev split. Russia's economy has been hit hard by the collapse in oil prices, and without petrodollars to throw around the regime finds it harder to buy compliance. Russian cities have seen demonstrations recently, with angry people hit by the economic crisis taking to the streets. Perhaps in an effort to shore up his own position, Medvedev has made some statements that could be interpreted as criticism of his prime minister's response. In the more presidential of semi-presidential countries, presidents often seek to attach the blame for all regime failures to their premiers; this would have been normal when Putin or his predecessor were Russia's presidents. The prospect of a Putin-Medvedev split is interesting, though one should not assume that its victor would be Medvedev. Putin's power seems largely to come from his being Putin and from his personal control of the state security apparatus; that could easily trump Medvedev's mandate in a comedic election, unless Russia's leading figures decide that Putin has become a liability.

The nascent Putin-Medvedev split could of course all be a charade, with the two pals merely playing good-cop bad-cop with the Russian people. The BBC, however, reports that there may be genuine differences emerging between the two. These differences are not primarily political, but musical. It appears that Russia's prime minister is a fan of Abba, recently flying in Abba tribute act Bjorn Again to play a private concert for himself, a mysterious and attractive young lady, and some of his cohorts (all at a trifling cost of £20,000). President Medvedev, however, is a keen fan of Deep Purple, last year enjoying them in concert at the 15th anniversary celebrations of Gazprom. Perhaps it was a fraught discussion on rockism that has brought forth tensions in the Putin-Medvedev partnership.

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It's later than you think

Student harangues politician; student is then dragged from the meeting by policemen, subjected to electrical shocks, and charged with trying to incite a riot.

This was in the United States of America. The incident is reminiscent of the bundling out of a Labour Party conference in 2005 of a delegate who heckled the then foreign secretary (and his subsequent detention under anti-terrorism legislation when he tried to re-enter the hall).

Arab World Despotism

So these days I am taking this course on Political Islam, with the course focussing on Islamist movements in the Middle East and North Africa, an arc stretching from Morocco to Iran*. Thus far it seems quite interesting. I am doing it more because I am interested in the politics of the Arab World rather than in Islamism as such.

One thing that came up in the last class was the subject of how undemocratic the regimes in the region are. If you look at the area covered, almost all of the countries are places where ultimate political power resides with unaccountable elites. This is in contrast with the world generally, where democratic politics of some sort or another is considerably more common. In the world generally there is an association between rising national income levels and democratic regimes, but the Middle East and North Africa is far less democratic than its income levels would predict, with the richest countries in the region being as comedically undemocratic as the poorest.

There are, of course, a couple of regimes with democratic elements. The Palestinian Authority seems to run elections that meet the highest international standards and see turnover of office holding, but it is not a state and its elected leaders do not actually rule anything of substance. Lebanon has elections all the time, but its consociational setup means that the same clique of family bosses are always in power. Turkey in many ways looks like it has democratic politics, though there is the unfortunate question of Kurdish oppression and the fact that the army still sees itself as having the right to sack the government, even if it has not chose to do so for a while. Israel has a lot of the features one expects for a democratic regime - parties, elections, free press, robust political argument, etc. - but it has its own democratic problems: firstly, the country rules over a huge subject population to whom it gives no political rights, and secondly, within its own citizenry those not from the dominant ethnic-religious group are subject to degrees of discrimination and marginalisation.

It is interesting to consider why the Middle East and North Africa seem so prone to authoritarian rule. One has to be careful of lazy explanations, particularly when you consider the differences between the countries (oil rich Qatar with its tiny population, oil poor Egypt with its teeming masses) and the different regimes that rule the countries. One possible cause can be discounted - there does not seem to be in practice a general Muslim problem with democracy. If you exclude the Middle East and North Africa the countries of the Islamic world are apparently more democratic than their income levels would suggest.

So, what has kept the authoritarian regimes in power, in a world where since 1989 there has been considerable pressure to move to democracy? Our lecturer suggests that the regimes have maintained themselves by playing their opponents off against each other. Some oppositional figures are simply bought off with plush government jobs or hard cash, but more subtly the regimes can throw minor concessions to their more old-school liberal-secular-nationalist opponents as a way of turning them into allies against the Islamists. Meanwhile, with the Islamists the main opposition forces, the regimes can always face down Western pressure to democratise by scaring the West with the prospect of democratic elections leading to mad bearded clerics occupying the Presidential palace and organising the country for Jihad against Israel, Europe, the USA, and anyone they take a dislike to.

I find this theory interesting, as it suggests that it is Western disdain for the region's main oppositional force that keeps the authoritarians in power. Certainly, when the generals in Algeria annulled their country's last free election and banned the party that won it, the world community somehow managed to see the election winners, and not the generals, as the enemies of democracy.

I am curious as to how this kind of thing will progress in the future. Maybe the mainstream Islamists will try to create a new friendly image for themselves and to cultivate alliances with the secular opposition while trying to reassure the West that they are not maniacs. Or maybe they will continue to grow their popularity in society at large to such an extent that the authoritarian regimes simply cannot sustain themselves any longer and collapse in a manner reminiscent of the Shah's. Or maybe the current situation is indefinitely sustainable. Time will tell.

*as you and I know, Arab countries do not make up all of those in the Middle East and North Africa. Iran is not an Arab country (though it has a small Arab minority). Neither is Turkey. Israel and the territory it rules has a large Arab population but a (declining) non-Arab majority.