I will start with some considerations on where governance in Russia is now and what we might expect for the future, using the conceptual lenses of “political decay” outlined first by Samuel P. Huntington9 and more recently by Francis Fukuyama.10 Then I will discuss recent attempts to diminish the most pernicious effects of bad governance in some countries and why some of these attempts have generated more positive effects than others. In the concluding sections, I will consider the role of bad governance in Russia’s response to COVID-19 and possible developments of political changes in Russia and their influence on the quality of governance.
Bad Governance and Political Decay: beyond Russia
Within the intellectual tradition of modernization studies, political development is juxtaposed with political decay, the process that leads to increasing inefficiency of social and political institutions: over time, either these institutions lose their role as rules of the game in a given society or, more often, following these rules contributes to further degradation of societies in terms of development.11 In a way, long-standing institutions can be considered structural constraints on the behaviour of individuals, including political and economic actors. In such a long-term perspective, the focus on institutions in the process of political decay mostly concentrates on their major flaws stemming from an outdated nature and excessive rigidity (usually inherited from the past), which may not respond appropriately to new challenges. In the historical perspective of longue durée, such an account may be correct. However, for a short-term horizon there is a tendency to consider institutions (primarily, formal rather than informal institutions)12 as given facts without an in-depth analysis of their genesis and evolution. Meanwhile, the analysis presented in this book offers a perspective on the role of institutions in political decay through the lenses of an agency-driven process of institution-building. In this respect, bad governance as an intentional outcome of this process may be regarded as an instance of political decay, albeit from a different perspective to those previously offered by scholars of modernization.
Political decay as a consequence of agency-driven processes is not unique to Russia; in fact, many self-interested rulers would like to govern their domains without the significant constraints imposed on them both in democracies and in non-democracies. In the turbulent times of the twenty-first century, they have often gained excellent opportunities to reach these goals and establish a politico-economic order of bad governance in various states and nations. In particular, the wave of popular discontent with the status quo, which gave birth to various populist movements and political leaders across the globe from Europe to Latin America, has contributed to their drive toward bad governance in pursuit of self-interest.13 Regardless of their origins (scholars differ greatly in their analyses of causes of contemporary populism),14 these leaders tend to distort existing institutions and/or rearrange them in order to exploit public resources for private purposes. Numerous examples ranging from Venezuela under Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro15 to Turkey under Recep Tayyip Erdogan16 are quite telling in this respect. If such leaders face little or no resistance from other political and economic actors and from society at large, they may follow the path of the Russian leaders in building and strengthening bad governance. This does not necessarily mean that present-day Russia intentionally acts as a role model for other countries and exports bad governance abroad as a part of its foreign policy strategy,17 but there is no doubt that a number of politicians all over the world only dream of enjoying the scope of discretion available to Vladimir Putin.
In many ways, the recent experience of Donald Trump’s presidency could be regarded as an attempt to impose elements of bad governance on the United States.18 In placing his family members and personal cronies in key positions in the state apparatus, using American diplomacy as a tool for obtaining kompromat (compromising materials)19 on his political rivals, obstructing justice, and turning state regulations into weapons for his political dominance. However, Trump has faced strong resistance from various corners of society. American politicians, bureaucrats, media, and civil society actors have opposed his intentions and somewhat diminished the possible negative impact of Trump’s strategy: as of yet, they have not been able to build new major barriers against making bad governance but have also not let him eliminate all existing ones. This is why Trump’s effects on the quality of governance in the United States were less devastating than they could have been in many other countries under similar leadership. In the end, Trump’s poor handling of the pandemic crisis caused by COVID-19, as well as other instances of his misbehavior, contributed to his loss in the 2020 presidential contest. Given the resilience of many long-standing institutions (including fair elections, constitutional checks and balances and federalism) and the pluralism of political and economic actors, American politics prevented poisoning of its governance in the most dangerous forms, similar to those in Russia—although the experience of Trump presidency was costly for the United States in many ways.