However, in the case of East European countries, EU-led external constraints on state sovereignty become possible due to a voluntary choice by their elites and citizens. In Russia this issue is far from the agenda, to say the least. The problem here relates not only to the resistance of post-Soviet ruling groups and/or the attitudes of Russian citizens but also to the incredibly high costs for those nations that would impose constraints on the sovereignty of other states. Even for the EU, attempts to enforce the integration of Eastern European states have been quite costly, and this process is far from complete. Moreover, as soon as EU leverages weakened over time after the accession of East European countries, at least some of these countries—first and foremost, Hungary and to some degree, Poland—experienced major setbacks and reemergence of some institutions and practices of bad governance in the 2010s.104 For Russia and its neighbors in post-Soviet Eurasia, the possible costs of external imposition and enforcement of new rules and norms aimed at overcoming bad governance would be prohibitively high. This is why the absence of an external intervention in the post-Soviet politico-economic order, which would contribute to preserving the status quo, is the more likely scenario: both fears and hopes of Western-imposed constraints on sovereignty in the region appear to be unjustified. Thus, direct international influence on the quality of governance in Russia is most likely to remain insignificant, with some exceptions.
Meanwhile, insulating bad governance in Russia from outside influence under the guise of state sovereignty serves as a tool for preventing any improvements. State sovereignty serves as a shield for ruling groups; it helps to protect them from any weakening political and economic power and from undesirable institutional changes. The idea of defending sovereignty at any cost (including banning foreign NGOs and limiting the import of Western foods and cultural products) is not paranoia but a rational strategy of the political leadership, who claim sovereignty of their country while preserving and enlarging their personal wealth. In theory, external constraints on state sovereignty imposed by advanced countries may (but not necessarily will) create barriers for the informal institutional core, and in the longer term lead to a revision of the politico-economic order of bad governance. One cannot exclude the possibility that further aggravation of Russia’s confrontation with the West, which was launched after the 2014 regime change in Ukraine and annexation of Crimea, may turn into a major challenge of this kind. From this viewpoint, Russia’s possible defeat in a major conflict with the West may pave the way to external constraints on its sovereignty and provide certain incentives for a gradual replacement of existing political and economic institutions of bad governance by more inclusive rules and norms. One cannot even imagine the potentially outstandingly high costs for such a complex transformation in Russia. Yet the costs of preserving the vicious circle of post-Soviet bad governance may be even higher for Russia and for the outside world.
To summarize, the emergence and consolidation of bad governance in Russia and beyond has been driven by the weakness of constraints on conscious and consistent construction of a politico-economic order where rent extraction is the major goal and substantive purpose of governing the state. It has also been affected by the combination of the following negative factors: (1) ideational reliance upon a “good Soviet Union” as a normative ideal for the ruling group and society at large; (2) decline of open elite competition and reproduction of the ruling groups; and (3) weak Western influence on Russia and a lack of mechanisms for international enforcement. At the same time, some advancements that were achieved in certain sectors and policy arenas in Russia because of a winning combination of domestic and international efforts had meaningful if limited influence on government effectiveness. However, the question of why constraints on bad governance emerge in some countries, sectors, and policy areas but not in others is worth further exploration. While an answer that places particular emphasis on the process of institution-building and institutional performance sounds plausible, variations in governance can be also explained in terms of the differences in access to rents in various sectors and policy areas and barriers to such access. One might also expect that bad governance in post-Soviet Russia is a long-term feature of its future development. The next chapters will be devoted to an in-depth analysis of its mechanisms.
Chapter
3
Authoritarian Modernization
Illusions and Temptations
THE AUTHORITARIAN MODERNIZATION PROJECT sounds tempting in various political and social settings. This project is perceived in the narrow sense as a set of technical policy measures aiming to achieve a high level of socioeconomic development through rapid economic growth, while the broad aspects of political modernization (that is, political freedoms) either remain beyond the current modernization agenda or are postponed to a distant future. The attractiveness of authoritarian modernization, advocated by numerous scholars and experts during the Cold War,1 greatly increased in the twenty-first century fueled by recent economic advancements in China and once again endorsed by numerous experts, policymakers, and citizens across the globe.2 There is a strong temptation to implement successful socioeconomic policies with a free hand, without the constraints and defects inherent to democracies, as authoritarianism allows the government to be insulated from the impact of political parties and policy preferences of the mass public.
Post-Communist Russia may be regarded as an instance of this phenomenon: not only are ideas and policies of authoritarian modernization deeply rooted in Russia’s Soviet and imperial past, but its current agenda also fits certain interests and expectations of both Russia’s elites and society at large.3 To a certain degree, authoritarian modernization became Russia’s response to the numerous challenges of the complex process of post-Communist transformation of Russia, which included simultaneous political regime changes, economic reforms, and state-and nation-building (known in the jargon of the 1990s as the “dilemma of simultaneity” amid the “triple transition”).4 During this process Russia’s elites and citizens alike sacrificed democracy for the sake of a market economy and a strong state,5 and this choice affected various dimensions of Russia’s further development including the quality of governance.6 I argue that the pursuit of authoritarian modernization in post-Communist Russia became one of the main origins of the politico-economic order of bad governance in the country. This is why it is necessary to explain how authoritarian modernization emerged as a mainstream of Russia’s political and socioeconomic trajectories and how this project has contributed to bad governance.
The main problem of authoritarian modernization is that “success stories” of its policies are relatively rare, with the major notable exception of China. In the second part of the twentieth century, autocracies demonstrated a much higher diversity of economic growth rates and developmental trajectories than democracies. In fact, this diversity led to Dani Rodrik’s comment (cited in chapter 1) about the uniqueness of success stories like Singapore amid many stories of failure like the Congo: a few examples of building effective states and prosperous economies in autocracies coincide with numerous cases where dictators drive their countries into decay and deterioration. From this perspective, the political and economic trajectories of post-Communist Russia resembled pendulum-like swings. In terms of the political regime, after the great liberalization under Gorbachev, during the 1990s and especially in the 2000s, the country quickly deteriorated into a personalist electoral autocracy.7 In terms of socioeconomic development, after the deep and protracted transformation recession of the 1990s, Russia demonstrated impressive growth in the 2000s, which resulted not only from the steep rise of global oil prices but also from policy changes launched by the government.8 In terms of state-building, Russia avoided the threat of disintegration in the 1990s and greatly strengthened its coercive and distributive capacity in the 2000s,9 yet remained an inefficient state with a poor quality of governance.10 Some authors have argued that these tendencies are natural for a country with the highly problematic legacies of Communism11 and weak linkages with the West,12 but have expressed hopes that they may be overcome over time through decades of growth and development with preservation of the political status quo.13 However, other observers (including the author of this book) have expressed major skepticism of such hopes and prospects.14