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02/28/2008
Putinism
As Russian President Vladimir Putin turns over the office to
hand-picked selection Dmitry Medvedev, with Medvedev
prepared to roll in the election March 2, just a few notes on the
Putin years (thus far), via an article in the January/February issue
of Foreign Affairs by Michael McFaul and Kathryn Stoner-
Weiss; both hanging their hats at the Center on Democracy,
Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford University.
The authors write that the standard explanation for Putin’s high
popularity in Russia is a result of a return to order and a booming
economy following the chaotic Yeltsin years, even as political
freedoms have been eliminated one after the other.
Russian democracy began evolving during the time of
Gorbachev and Yeltin, yet Putin has been rolling it back; a
process that started with the end of totally all independent media
outlets, including television, print and online outlets. Only one
national, independent newspaper, for example, exists today and
one radio station, though the future of both is iffy. Separately,
Russia now ranks as the third most dangerous place for
journalists behind only Iraq and Colombia. 21 have been
murdered in Russia since 2000.
And when it comes to regional governments, in September 2004,
Putin announced that he would begin appointing governors –
“with the rationale that this would make them more accountable
and effective.” There hasn’t been a single regional election since
February 2005.
Of course when it comes to parliament, Putin’s control of the
media has led to a strong majority (at least 2/3s) for the
Kremlin’s mouthpiece, United Russia.
But as McFaul and Stoner-Weiss observe, “In terms of public
safety, health, corruption, and the security of property rights,
Russians are actually worse off today than they were a decade
ago.”
“Security, the most basic public good a state can provide for its
population, is a central element in the myth of Putinism. In fact,
the frequency of terrorist attacks in Russia has increased under
Putin. The two biggest terrorist attacks in Russia’s history – the
Nord-Ost incident at a theater in Moscow in 2002, in which an
estimated 300 Russians died, and the Beslan school hostage
crisis, in which as many as 500 died – occurred under Putin’s
autocracy, not Yeltsin’s democracy. The number of deaths of
both military personnel and civilians in the second Chechen war
– now in its eighth year – is substantially higher than during the
first Chechen war, which lasted from 1994 to 1996. [Conflict
inside Chechnya appears to be subsiding, but conflict in the
region is spreading.] The murder rate has also increased under
Putin, according to data from Russia’s Federal State Statistics
Service. In the ‘anarchic’ years of 1995-99, the average annual
number of murders was 30,200; in the ‘orderly’ years of 2000-
2004, the number was 32,200. The death rate from fires is
around 40 a day in Russia, roughly ten times the average rate in
western Europe.
“Nor has public health improved in the last eight years. Despite
all the money in the Kremlin’s coffers, health spending averaged
6 percent of GDP from 2000 to 2005, compared with 6.4 percent
from 1996 to 1999. Russia’s population has been shrinking since
1990, thanks to decreasing fertility and increasing mortality
rates, but the decline has worsened since 1998.
Noncommunicable diseases have become the leading cause of
death (cardiovascular disease accounts for 52 percent of deaths,
three times the figure for the United States), and alcoholism now
accounts for 18 percent of deaths for men between the ages of 25
and 54 .Life expectancy in Russia rose between 1995 and 1998.
Since 1999, however, it has declined to 59 years for Russian men
and 72 for Russian women.”
Then there is the issue of property rights. Simply, the nation’s
leading assets have been confiscated, an obvious case in point
being energy giant Yukos, whose assets were funneled by the
Kremlin to state-owned oil company Rosneft. Sibneft, another
privately held oil outfit, was forced into selling its operations to
Gazprom.
But what of the economy? Real disposable income has indeed
risen by more than 10 percent a year, while consumer spending
has skyrocketed. Unemployment has also been cut from 12
percent in 1999 to 6 percent in ’06.
McFaul and Stoner-Weiss:
“One can only wonder how fast Russia would have grown with a
more democratic system. The strengthening of institutions of
accountability – a real opposition party, genuinely independent
media, a court system not beholden Kremlin control – would
have helped tame corruption and secure property rights and
would thereby have encouraged more investment and growth.
The Russian economy is doing well today, but it is doing well in
spite of, not because of, autocracy .
“The Kremlin talks about creating the next China, but Russia’s
path is more likely to be something like that of Angola – an oil-
dependent state that is growing now because of high oil prices
but has floundered in the past when oil prices were low and
whose leaders seem more intent on maintaining themselves in
office to control oil revenues and other rents than on providing
public goods and services to a beleaguered population.
Unfortunately, as Angola’s president, Jose Eduardo dos Santos,
has demonstrated by his three decades in power, even poorly
performing autocracies can last a long, long time.”
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Hot Spots returns in two weeks .March 13.
Brian Trumbore
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