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Kent Academic Repository Full text document (pdf) Citation for published version Sakwa, Richard (2020) The Putin Paradox. I. B. Tauris Bloomsbury, United Kingdom, 338 pp. ISBN 978-1-78831-830-3. DOI Link to record in KAR https://kar.kent.ac.uk/80013/ Document Version Publisher pdf Copyright & reuse Content in the Kent Academic Repository is made available for research purposes. Unless otherwise stated all content is protected by copyright and in the absence of an open licence (eg Creative Commons), permissions for further reuse of content should be sought from the publisher, author or other copyright holder. Versions of research The version in the Kent Academic Repository may differ from the final published version. Users are advised to check http://kar.kent.ac.uk for the status of the paper. Users should always cite the published version of record. Enquiries For any further enquiries regarding the licence status of this document, please contact: [email protected] If you believe this document infringes copyright then please contact the KAR admin team with the take-down information provided at http://kar.kent.ac.uk/contact.html i THE PUTIN PARADOX 99781788318303_pi-306.indd781788318303_pi-306.indd i 115-Oct-195-Oct-19 112:25:332:25:33 ii 99781788318303_pi-306.indd781788318303_pi-306.indd iiii 115-Oct-195-Oct-19 112:25:332:25:33 iii THE PUTIN PARADOX Richard Sakwa 99781788318303_pi-306.indd781788318303_pi-306.indd iiiiii 115-Oct-195-Oct-19 112:25:332:25:33 iv I.B. TAURIS Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA BLOOMSBURY, I.B. TAURIS and the I.B. Tauris logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2020 Copyright © Richard Sakwa, 2020 Richard Sakwa has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identifi ed as Author of this work. For legal purposes the Acknowledgements on p. xiv constitute an extension of this copyright page. Cover design: Adriana Brioso Cover image © All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third- party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN: HB: 978-1-7883-1830-3 PB: 978-1-8386-0127-0 ePDF: 978-1-8386-0372-4 eBook: 978-1-8386-0371-7 Typeset by Newgen KnowledgeWorks Pvt. Ltd., Chennai, India Printed and bound in Great Britain To fi nd out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters. 99781788318303_pi-306.indd781788318303_pi-306.indd iivv 115-Oct-195-Oct-19 112:25:332:25:33 v Dedicated to the memory of Anastasia Baburova, Stanislav Markelov and Natalya Estemirova 99781788318303_pi-306.indd781788318303_pi-306.indd v 115-Oct-195-Oct-19 112:25:332:25:33 vi 99781788318303_pi-306.indd781788318303_pi-306.indd vvii 115-Oct-195-Oct-19 112:25:332:25:33 vii CONTENTS List of Tables ix Preface x Acknowledgements xiv List of Abbreviations xv 1 PUTIN AND HIS TIMES 1 From kommunalka to the Kremlin 1 The many Putins 6 The post-Cold War context 12 The democracy paradox 16 2 STATE, SOCIETY AND REGIME 23 The birth of the regime-state 24 The meta-factions of Russian society 29 The dual state and neo-patrimonialism 44 Reform, transition and beyond 51 3 PUTIN AND POLITICS 59 The state of exception and regionalism 59 Putin and the past 65 Anti-revolution as a political practice 70 Putin’s statecraft 76 Stasis , or the developmental impasse 81 4 POLITICS AND THE THIRD STATE 85 Regime reset 85 The third state and meta-corruption 92 The third state and micro-factionalism 100 99781788318303_pi-306.indd781788318303_pi-306.indd vviiii 115-Oct-195-Oct-19 112:25:332:25:33 viii 5 MANAGED CAPITALISM 113 State and market 114 Economic performance and plans 123 Powering Putinism 132 Sanctions and their effect 138 6 FROM PARTNER TO ADVERSARY: RUSSIA AND THE WEST 145 The clash of post-Cold War world orders 146 The logic of Russian foreign policy 152 A new era of confrontation 158 7 RECREATING THE HEARTLAND: EURASIAN PARTNERSHIPS 167 Eurasian integration in perspective 168 The post-Atlantic world 175 Putin’s Asian gambit: Escape from confrontation? 180 Global Russia 185 8 THE WINDS OF CHANGE 189 Towards Putin’s fourth term 189 The return of politics 195 The 2018 presidential election 198 Challenges of Putin’s fourth term 206 9 THE PUTIN PHENOMENON 215 Putin’s people and power 215 Is Putin an ism? 220 Putin’s grand strategy 229 10 PARADOXES OF PUTINISM 233 When success means failure 234 Towards the succession 236 Russia without Putin 242 Notes 247 Bibliography 283 Index 307 VIII CONTENTS 99781788318303_pi-306.indd781788318303_pi-306.indd vviiiiii 115-Oct-195-Oct-19 112:25:332:25:33 ix TABLES 4.1 State Duma election, 18 September 2016 90 7.1 Th e EEU in fi gures 170 8.1 Presidential election of 18 March 2018 205 99781788318303_pi-306.indd781788318303_pi-306.indd iixx 115-Oct-195-Oct-19 112:25:332:25:33 x PREFACE Vladimir Putin is one of the most important leaders of our era. He is in equal measure misunderstood and condemned. He has been at the helm of the world’s largest country since late 1999, and his decisions have shaped not only Russia but also some of the key issues in world politics. It is therefore crucial to understand what motivates the man, what shapes his policies and what the consequences have been. Th is study is an exploration of these issues, focused on explaining the Putin phenomenon through the prism of ‘paradox’. A paradox is something that at fi rst appearance appears absurd or untrue, yet the contradiction ultimately makes sense. A paradox appears to deny the truth, yet the implied meaning reveals some deeper truth. In practical terms, the duality of meaning refl ects a particular type of politics, as in George Orwell’s ‘war is peace’. It was indeed Orwell who coined the term ‘cold war’, and the world stumbled into a Second Cold War from 2014. Equally, Russia formally remains committed to the principles of the ‘democratic revolution’ that gave birth to the independent country as it emerged from the Soviet Union in 1991, yet from early on it became a ‘managed democracy’. Democracy by defi nition requires the open-endedness of outcomes and the fi rmness of rules, yet in post-communist Russia it is the rules that are fl exible and the outcomes predetermined. Can a managed democracy be a democracy at all? Who does the managing, and with what justifi cation? Th ese are the issues explored in this work. Th e Putin phenomenon is a response to the challenges facing Russia, but it is also the outcome of the complex reaction between the man and the system. Putin refl ects the contradictions and paradoxes of contemporary Russia, but he is also a unique leader who is both more and less than the country that he rules. He is more, because of the extraordinary powers vested in the presidency by the December 1993 constitution. Th e president is designated as the ‘guarantor of the constitution’ (Art. 80.2), suggesting that they stand outside of the constitution in order to protect it, a paradox of power that cuts through the whole system. Th is helps explain the emergence from the very early days of a self-designated power system focused on the presidency but not limited to it, which eff ectively claimed supervisory or tutelary rights over the management of public aff airs. Th e administrative regime derives its power and legitimacy from the constitution, but it is not eff ectively 99781788318303_pi-306.indd781788318303_pi-306.indd x 115-Oct-195-Oct-19 112:25:332:25:33 xi constrained by it. A ‘dual state’ emerged, in which administrative and democratic rationality are entwined. Th is is why it is misleading to call Russia an ‘autocracy’. Th e authoritarian features are rooted in a non-democratic technocratic appeal to the pursuit of the public good. Th e priority under Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s was economic and political reform, and then under Putin from 2000 as economic development, state sovereignty, national unity and international status. Putin’s ability to articulate an agenda of progress, although in contrast to the Soviet years no longer embedded in a coherent vision of the future, helps explain his extraordinary and enduring popularity, which with some ups and downs has been maintained at levels far exceeding those normally found in liberal democracies. Putin is also less than the country, in the sense that his rule, as we shall see, draws its power from most of the main political and ideological constituencies, but he allows none full rein. Putin is a brilliant ‘faction manager’, maintaining the stability of the dual system by playing off the various groups against each other but allowing none to assert its dominance over the others.