Russia's Regions and Comparative Subnational Politics by William M. Reisinger

Author:William M. Reisinger [Reisinger, William M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, General
ISBN: 9781138830356
Google: kwnHoAEACAAJ
Amazon: B00B3SIQAY
Barnesnoble: B00B3SIQAY
Goodreads: 19869849
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2014-09-11T13:37:29+00:00

Conclusion

All the cases of opposition governors and mayors show that under the Putin-Medvedev regime it makes little sense for those seeking a position of executive-branch power to join an opposition party. The structural features of electoral authoritarianism not only ensure victory by approved candidates but also force the rare opposition winners to adapt to the existing regime including by changing their political affiliation. As a result, the opposition party usually loses its member or affiliate if he or she becomes a governor or mayor. Subsequently, the governor or mayor either fits into the existing system or loses power. Thus, the legislative branch is much more flexible to accommodate the opposition than executive power. The reason lies in the system of state exploitation, or rent-seeking, by which the ruling elites try to ensure their monopoly. Under conditions of elitist politics with a rent-seeking elite at its core (Blaydes 2010), the primary task is to consolidate a ruling elite which controls the resources. In this light, it is easy to understand why the regime lets the opposition have a small place under the sun in the legislative branch while preventing opposition parties from holding executive office, where the sought–after rents are controlled.

Elections give the opposition an opportunity (or the illusion of one) to win power. Yet, in Russia, the number of possible elections has diminished with the abolishment of gubernatorial elections from 2005 to 2012 as well as of many mayoral elections (because the city manager model is often introduced after an opposition mayor resigns). In addition, authoritarian practices have led to numerous cases in which unwanted candidates were kept off the ballot or the counting of votes was “corrected.” For example, the prominent A Just Russia leader Oleg Mikheev had his registration to run for Volgograd mayor rejected. In 2011, a recount of votes in the important coal town of Vorkuta (Komi Republic) showed the United Russia candidate winning by just two votes (!) while preliminary results had given the victory to the CPRF candidate. Obviously, such cases lead to widespread disbelief that an opposition candidate can win anywhere at all. Thus, both electoral fraud and pressure on opposition winners have strengthened regional authoritarianism and the country's dominant-party political regime.

Both external and internal reasons account for the numerous failures of opposition regimes at the regional and local levels, even when such regimes have switched to full loyalty. The external reasons have little to do with ideology. Rather, they flow from the impossibility of including an opposition regime into the broader system of patron-client relations. Russian politics, especially in the 2000s, has tended to produce simpler mechanisms of power relations based on close personal ties and distributing resources within closed networks of clients. Even those who have tried to ft in using formal means (joining United Russia and others) were often rejected because they lacked the necessary personal ties and inevitably created their own smaller patron–client networks, thus competing for resources. Since the ruling elite still needs a high level of control

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.