"This chasm cannot be crossed in one leap."
Kirill Rogov, political scientist and director of the Re:Russia project, on the project to restructure Russia
Tatiana Rybakova
The more it becomes apparent that Russia's current system of government has reached a dead end and is no longer capable of responding to the challenges of the times, the more often those who advocate for its preservation claim there is no alternative. Meanwhile, the opposition abroad has already begun presenting its work, which is gradually being compiled into the project "Normalization Platform: Returning the Future." Political scientists, economists, and legal scholars are presenting their proposals for reforms—political, economic, constitutional, legal, and law enforcement reforms. These are not mere armchair studies: each program is the fruit of lengthy and often heated discussions among experts. Upon completion, a collection of the results is planned. In the meantime, "NotMoscow Speaking" decided to speak with the authors of these programs, focusing on the regional component of the picture currently being painted by the independent expert community. The first word goes to the author of the inaugural report, "Returning to Normality and Advanced Democratization: Scenarios for a Normal Russia of the Future." To Kirill Rogov.
Two horizons of reform
What is the main idea of the report? "Return to Normality and Advanced Democratization: Scenarios for a Normal Russia of the Future"?
The report's main point is that this chasm cannot be bridged in a single leap; the movement toward a more reasonable democratic model will in any case be a rather lengthy process. Moreover, this process has two obvious stages, two horizons.
The first horizon is a return to normalcy. A return to normalcy means a return to a situation without political repression, without censorship, where the media can freely write and say whatever they want. A return to elections is possible and not rigged. In other words, a return to the basic standards that existed in Russia in the 90s and, to a significant extent, in the 2000s. This is the key to initiating dialogue, debate, and competition among various concepts and views on Russia's structure. This competition and dialogue must take place peacefully, within a framework of pluralism and the provision of minimal but essential rights of access for various groups to political interaction and participation in this dialogue.
It is important to distinguish between these two, because today the democratic opposition often thinks of the transition to democracy as a transition to the kind of liberal democracy that it professes, but which, in general, is not the consensus in society.
At the same time, normality, as I described above, may well become a consensus decision of society, a kind of consensus platform.
And this distinction, in my view, is crucial. In this regard, democratization, which I understand as a process with two horizons of goals, is largely a process in which society will need to be able to form coalitions, particularly broad coalitions.
The coalition to achieve the first stage must be much broader than the liberal democratic opposition. It must include a variety of forces.
Let's assume normalization was successful, and rights and freedoms returned to the levels of the 1990s and 2000s. But people back then, despite unprecedented freedoms, weren't entirely happy...
- AT the fourth section of the report The paths and forks of already advanced democratization are discussed. This is the discussion that will take place after a state of normality is achieved. And there I discuss some of the forks that have long been the subject of debate in society.
This, in particular, is the dichotomy between parliamentary and presidential forms of government—or rather, parliamentary and semi-presidential systems. Here, we must also take into account that many today favor a parliamentary form of government, believing it better protects against autocracy and the usurpation of power, but this is not strongly supported by historical evidence. In the 20th and 21st centuries, we rather see this tendency. However, in the 20th century, parliamentary forms often became systems used by authoritarian regimes. Moreover, the choice between a parliamentary and presidential form of government is not simply an analytical choice, a choice of some abstract optimum. This will be a major debate in the country; support for the parliamentary system will initially be very low, because it will be very difficult to convince citizens that they need a parliamentary system if they don't have a party, if they don't have a party identity, if they don't trust parties, if they don't see parties as political actors.
Restructure the federation
Your report states that Russia needs a new federalization. What is this about?
"Regarding the part you're interested in about new federalization, it primarily refers to the fact that today, among many federalism experts, there's a consensus that we should be talking about a three-tier federal system, not a two-tier one. That is, not about the center and the regions, but about the center, the regions, and the local, municipal level of government. This would be the liberal proposal, the proposal of the liberal faction. This three-tier system must be built into the design from the very beginning, and it still needs to be developed and thought through."
In particular, I hypothesize that the distribution of resources between the three levels of government could be prescribed at the constitutional level. That is, it would immediately be determined that resources are distributed in a certain proportion between the three levels of government.
The second problem of federalism we will face is that we will have to consider the actual distribution of resources—human and economic—across the country. In our region, a regional capital typically concentrates approximately 40% of the region's population and economic potential. Clearly, such a capital is an unusual municipality, a unique level of government. Perhaps municipal reform should envisage three types of municipalities. Here, we will need to revisit this and rethink this model, projecting it onto the actual distribution of resources that exists in the country.
It should be noted that citizens highly value the direct elections of governors and mayors; to them, they largely represent democracy. It's something in democracy that they are willing to defend. And this, too, will need to be taken into account.
Finally, another problem with Russia's federal system is the incredible disparity in the size of its constituent entities. We have constituent entities with populations of 100, 200, or 300. And then there are constituent entities with populations of 13–15 million, like Moscow. As a result, economically underdeveloped, sparsely populated constituent entities hold a majority in the upper house of parliament, while the 17 regions, home to more than half the country's population, have only 20% representation.
Many perceive this as the equality of the subjects of the Federation...
"This will create a conflict as soon as we start talking about real federal relations and attempts to build them—a situation where those federal subjects with the greatest economic potential and human capital find themselves in a clearly losing position, in the minority. Therefore, as a hypothesis for discussion, I propose a model in which each federal subject directly elects at least two representatives to the Federation Council, using the formula: one person per million residents, plus one senator. This means that federal subjects with fewer than one million residents will have two representatives in the Federation Council. And, say, Moscow, which officially has 13 million residents, will have 14 members in the Federation Council. A similar system is in place in Germany, and I believe a transition to it is quite inevitable as soon as the Federation Council regains its significant and appropriate role in the system of state power."
Unity and struggle of opposites
How can the contradictions between the lower house of parliament, the State Duma, which is proposed to be elected by party lines, and the Federation Council, which is elected by direct citizen vote according to your proposed principle, be resolved? Clearly, in this case, deputies will be guided primarily by the ideological principles of their party, while senators will be guided either by the interests of their constituents or the interests of the local clans that nominated them.
"I don't see any contradiction here. When there is party competition for the State Duma elections, party structures will be strengthened. In fact, their importance in the Federation Council elections will also be quite high. In other words, senatorial candidates will also be supported by certain parties. There's no barrier here. Moreover, we will have much greater representation at this level, since a significant number of regions will have four, five, or six representatives in the Federation Council."
I'm not saying that these solutions are optimal: the point is that, unlike previous experiments of this kind, the goal was not to write some kind of optimal scenario, some kind of optimal model.
In general, there is no optimal model of democracy or federalism. Models are formed through political struggle, complex compromises, and traditions that, while not necessarily optimal, can gradually evolve and be optimized—again, through the political process.
It's a rather dangerous process: after all, the winner might not be the best option..
"This is fundamental: my view on the democratic transition process is that there's no need to write some optimal constitution for a future democratic Russia. There's no need to insist that it's a parliamentary republic or a semi-presidential one. That's not something we can decide. It's something we can resolve through political struggle and the political process. But we must understand the cost and significance of any given choice, what it depends on, and what problems, costs, or, conversely, potential benefits it entails."
One proposal, for example, that I'm putting forward, is to consider creating multi-member constituencies. Roughly speaking, a region has a population of 2 million. This means the region can elect three senators. Such elections take place in the constituency in which the three candidates with the most votes win. So, let's say you have seven candidates. Three of them receive 30, 25, and 17 votes, respectively, and all three of them qualify for the Federation Council. This would support the party system. Roughly speaking, if a communist receives 30%, the region will also have a democrat represented, because 25% of the votes went to the democrats. This is an attempt to move away from the current majoritarian system, where if one political force, say, receives 35% of the vote, and its opponent receives 30%, then only the first party will be represented in the Federation Council. This is the situation we need to get away from, and a multi-mandate system, a system of a single, non-transitional vote, helps here.
Unite and divide
To balance economic and demographic imbalances between regions, you propose the creation of a unified government and a unified budget by the federal subjects. How, then, can we prevent such unions from being formed according to the principle of one strong region gathering neighboring ones, bringing them under its influence, and, in the extreme case, separating from the Russian Federation along with them?
"You know, it's impossible to prevent all the possibilities of this kind of crisis in principle. This could happen whether they merge or not. What's at stake here? The fact that regions are incomparable in terms of economic potential and population size. And, in principle, if you begin to grant a region powers that, it seems to me, at least from a liberal perspective, could be transferred to the regional level and become its prerogative, then you'll face the problem that small regions with weak economies are fundamentally unable to bear this burden. And in this sense, the choice is simple. Merging regions causes extreme political irritation among the population and is very unpopular. And it shouldn't be forced. But there is the possibility of a kind of unification, like the European Union, where a government is created that covers two or three regions, has certain powers, and certain management functions are transferred to it from the individual regions that make up the union." In other words, you'll have a certain macro-region with a specific government with specific administrative functions, but the remaining functions will remain with the regional government. In other words, it won't be a political union, but rather an administrative and economic one.
The proposed three-tier system of law enforcement agencies—municipal police, regional investigative bodies and prosecutors, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation of State Crimes—exists in many countries. But there are also real cases where local police, investigating a crime in their own area, make connections that lead to the federal level—and the case is transferred "up" and safely buried. Or vice versa: local police turn out to be corrupted by some "Tsapkov gang." How can such cases be prevented?
"You know, democratic governance isn't a panacea for crises, for infighting between different levels of government, for various agencies, or for conflict. Claims to be a panacea for conflict are usually made by authoritarian regimes."
When we talk about a democratic system and the distribution of powers among government bodies, we always increase the potential for conflict in the environment. The only countermeasure is that we must simultaneously increase the potential for some kind of peaceful resolution to conflicts. Of course, conflicts will always exist, and we need to adapt to them. But, as you rightly noted, this system works in many countries, and it's essentially more rational for many reasons. It will have a significant number of stakeholders because the population will be interested in it, because it ensures greater accountability for the police and law enforcement system, greater dependence on the population. Regional elites will also be interested in this. But for everything, certain checks and balances will need to be sought to balance this system.
I want to emphasize that I'm not an expert on law enforcement, but the group we worked on produced several reports, memos, and articles that have been published in recent months. There's a separate section on the law enforcement system. My perspective is bird's-eye; I simply tried to identify the points of contention within this framework. I don't have an answer for how exactly this law enforcement system should be structured to be congruent with the three levels of federalism. But global experience suggests that powers should be divided across the three levels.
