Return to Normality and Advanced Democratisation: Scenarios for a normal Russia in the future. Part 3

Part 3 of the report ‘Return to Normality and Advanced Democratisation’ is dedicated to possible scenarios for political transformation in Russia and was prepared as part of the project ‘Platform for Normalisation: Restoring the Future’. It addresses a question that is usually left outside the scope of political reform plans.

A ‘window of opportunity’ for democratisation generally opens in the context of a crisis of the authoritarian regime. However, not all such crises lead to democratisation. The likelihood of a favourable outcome is increased by the existence of a competitive democratisation agenda that is not limited to a purely liberal conception of democracy, and by the formation of a relatively broad and stable coalition around it, capable of giving the regime transition the right direction.

The results achievable at each stage of democratisation will be limited and almost always compromise-based. The outcome of a successful transition will not be the triumph of democratic ideals, but rather a period of structurally ‘weak’ democracy, vulnerable to crises and attempts at reversal. Democratisation is a long-term political and social process of establishing new practices, organisations, and a new political map.

Nonetheless, democratisation in Russia is by no means an unattainable project; on the contrary, it represents a return to the natural trajectory of civil society and political development. Reversals of democratisation are not uncommon in history, just as reversals of autocratisation are.

The first and second sections of the report can be found here.

3. Democratisation as a process: stages, forks in the road, opportunities and limitations

The ‘window of opportunity’ and scenarios for regime transformation

Democratisation projects framed around the ‘big bang’ concept stand out both for the radical nature of their proposals and for their complete detachment from the question of how, and under what conditions, these proposals might actually be demanded or implemented. To address this question, it is useful to adopt the opposite perspective: to view potential democratisation in Russia as a political process with its own logic, stages, intermediate goals, and constraints.

As already noted, a ‘window of opportunity’ for democratisation usually arises as a result of an economic, administrative or political crisis. Yet statistics suggest that only one in four authoritarian regime crises leads to democratisation (→ Geddes, White, Franz: How Dictatorships Work). Early formulation of a realistic democratic alternative and the formation of a broad coalition to support it, together with experience of living under even an incomplete democracy, are the factors that can increase the likelihood of a positive outcome.

Even at the crisis maturation stage, the demand for democratisation will not be the only alternative on offer. Other proposals may include calls for further centralisation of resources and powers, compromise solutions such as a return to pre-war ‘soft Putinism’ (Putinism without Putin), or anti-regime appeals for ‘patriotic mobilisation’ — variations of a ‘Prigozhin-style’ anti-liberal and anti-Western agenda, which simultaneously incorporates strong anti-elite and anti-corruption rhetoric (this is broadly how the landscape of likely alternatives looks today). Within this competition, a pro-democracy coalition can mobilise supporters around slogans such as leadership turnover, decentralisation of power, anti-corruption measures and limiting the influence of security services, genuine federalism, normalisation of relations with the West, reduction of political and fiscal pressure on business, party representation, political competition, and fair elections. Such an agenda addresses a wide spectrum of grievances with the current regime.

The task of the democratic opposition will be to persuade society that demonopolisation — understood as a multi-faceted decentralisation of power — is the principal condition for returning the country to a normal, non-confrontational trajectory, one that would remove the existing constraints on economic development. In other words, the goal is to build a broad and relatively stable coalition around this idea, which could become one of the leading political forces in the regime’s transition and give it a clear direction. This coalition will face intense competition both for the ‘moderately dissatisfied’, aligned with a party of ‘Putinism without Putin’, and for regime opponents focused on issues of social injustice and corruption, aligned with the ‘patriotic’ anti-liberal opposition. Competition for the periphery of its electoral base is a key factor in the coalition’s success; without it, discussion of the ‘optimal design’ of democratisation remains a purely academic exercise.

When forming a coalition agenda, it is important to recognise that democratisation is not a project of opposition revenge (‘the last shall be first’). The liberal, pro-European party, which remains quite significant within Russian society, is not the sole bearer of democratic ideas nor its only legitimate representative. On the contrary, a democratic order is grounded in compromise among a sufficiently broad range of political forces regarding the rules of competition for executive power. The ability of a concert of political actors, representing not only the liberal sector but also conservative and socially oriented sectors, to reach such a compromise is the basic condition for democratisation. It is therefore essential to distinguish between liberal-democratic values and the aspirations of the most radical segments of society in relation to the regime, and the democratic order itself as a set of rules for political competition and the use of state coercion. These are distinct concepts and political goals.

When discussing democratisation as a political process, our aim is to draw attention to the logic of mobilisations, confrontations, and agreements or pacts, which move society towards an acceptable compromise and are subsequently codified in legislative innovations. The legislative consolidation of a new institutional design is not the starting point of democratisation but the outcome and confirmation of a crucial stage, the stage of regime transformation, during which a broad coalition in support of democratisation may or may not form. In this sense, a crisis truly represents a window of opportunity, which the democratic opposition does not always take advantage of.

Our objective is not to forecast any particular development, as outcomes will inevitably be unpredictable at critical turning points. However, drawing on a broad historical experience of democratisations, it is possible to identify key crossroads and dilemmas likely to arise in most real-world scenarios along the path of forming and advancing a democratic coalition, should an imminent crisis trigger regime transformation. Broadly speaking, the stages of this process can be outlined as follows:

(1) growing signs of crisis and erosion of the regime: among the population, an expanding demand for change; within the regime, elite fragmentation and debate between hardliners and softliners over how to respond;

(2) liberalisation: either managed, initiated and controlled by the regime, or collapse-driven, triggered by an acute crisis and the regime’s breakdown;

(3) interim elections in a managed liberalisation scenario or constituent elections in the case of regime collapse, conducted under an unformed party system;

(4) a period of structurally ‘weak’ democracy: competition over political design reforms and new rules for market competition, alongside the reconfiguration of former coalitions.

Bargaining or uprising: top-down liberalisation vs. bottom-up democratisation

Scenarios of sudden regime collapse resulting from an unforeseen bottom-up uprising, which authorities are unable to contain, are far from rare in history. Examples include the anti-communist revolutions in Eastern Europe and the Arab Spring of the early 2010s. In such cases, just a year or so before collapse, the authoritarian regime appears entirely stable, often even more inertially robust than the current Russian regime. The suddenness of these regime failures is not accidental, but a natural excess of dictatorships (→ Kuran: Sparks and Prairie Fires: A Theory of Unanticipated Political Revolution), and therefore one should not rely on present-day intuitions in assessing this risk.

At first glance, a scenario of rapid regime collapse may appear preferable, particularly for the more radical elements of the democratic opposition, as it would entail a one-off and complete removal of political restrictions, a collapse-driven liberalisation. In reality, however, it generates enormous uncertainty and offers little chance for the consolidation of a democratic coalition or the achievement of democratisation. Repressive autocracies typically reach the point of sudden collapse with a burned-out field of social initiatives and alternative projects, blocked communication channels, and elites that are fragmented, intimidated, and demoralised by their participation in the regime’s crimes. Party coalitions created under such conditions in haste and for electoral purposes are often random and unstable, and their division, in the context of insufficient legitimacy of new authorities, can lead to civil conflict, which in turn sets the stage for a new autocracy. Historical examples include the failed Russian February Revolution of 1917 and the aftermath of the Arab Spring, which can be seen as a series of unsuccessful democratisations following the sudden collapse of old autocracies.

More common, however, are scenarios of relatively prolonged confrontation between the regime and the opposition amid a deepening crisis. In this scenario, the political process is often initiated by the regime itself. At the first stage of economic deterioration, the regime usually attempts to tighten control further, forcing centralisation of resources in the hands of a narrow ‘coalition of violence’ (a period of ‘tightening the screws’).If this strategy fails to reduce the crisis potential, it can intensify public discontent and lead to the formation of two factions within the ruling coalition: hardliners and softliners.

The likelihood of this scenario is influenced by the fact that resource scarcity heightens competition for them within the ruling coalition. Proposals for ‘softening’ the regime emerge as attempts by one faction to gain broader support and redistribute resources in its favour, for example by reducing spending on defence and security, which today account for up to 40% of the Russian budget and literally drain resources from the civilian sector. The probability of factionalisation is further increased by the existence of two main groups within the Russian elite: professional managers and business figures shaped by a period of external openness and relatively mild domestic rules, and security forces whose political influence grew in proportion to the intensification of isolationist and repressive policies.

Scenarios in which liberalisation is initiated by the regime are widespread. The purpose of managed, limited liberalisation is to preserve the regime by reducing public discontent, increasing the returns from economic measures, co-opting part of the opposition, and similar measures. An additional factor, particularly relevant to Russia, is external pressure. The positions of softliners are strengthened by the need for a détente with the West, easing of sanctions, and the restoration of minimal trust among foreign investors. Although managed liberalisations aim not at regime dismantling but at its preservation, two-thirds have ultimately led to its collapse, while one-third resulted in stabilisation (→ Treisman: Democracy by Mistake). The Soviet regime employed managed liberalisation twice, in the 1950s and 1980s: in the first instance, it stabilised the regime, in the second, it precipitated its collapse.

A scenario of top-down liberalisation presents both opportunities and challenges for the democratic opposition. Relaxation of censorship and repression and internal struggles among regime elites create prospects for partial legalisation of the opposition, its organisational structuring, more effective communication with the electorate, and mobilisation campaigns. Amid growing economic instability and political uncertainty, the democratic opposition will be heeded by parts of the regional elite dissatisfied with centralised authoritarian control, by segments of the federal civil bureaucracy unhappy with the dominance of security forces, by a significant portion of business deprived of export revenues due to Russia’s isolation, and by a substantial segment of the urban population under 45, seeking a return to modernisation and openness, and opposed to the ideology of the ‘besieged fortress’ with its endless prohibitions and restrictions. Such a coalition, in terms of its base, has a strong chance of success if it demonstrates superior organisational capacity at the moment when hardliners are discredited by the failure of the ‘tightening screws’ policy.

At the same time, managed liberalisation presents a major challenge for the democratic coalition. From the regime’s perspective, its aim is to split the coalition into moderate and radical factions, co-opt the first, and marginalise the second. Softliners will claim patronage over the ‘legalised democrats’ provided they distance themselves from radicals, particularly the ‘foreign opposition’. This will embroil the democrats in endless debates over the war, Crimea, and relations with the West. Such persistent internal disputes will undermine the formation of a broad coalition. The overarching task for the democratic opposition will be to retain its most committed supporters while avoiding alienation of moderate critics of the regime and sympathetic elite groups.

In summary, the fundamental crossroads between managed and collapse-driven liberalisation produces the following challenges for democratisation:

— managed liberalisation is a manipulative process, but the success of manipulation is not guaranteed, and any ‘gains’ the opposition achieves during negotiations with the regime may prove irreversible;

— the main goal of the democratic coalition in this context will be to secure new concessions from the regime through mobilisation campaigns and participation in elections under the most favourable conditions possible. Such efforts will serve to structure and consolidate the democratic coalition;

— the principal challenge of managed liberalisation is the division of the opposition, with radical and moderate democrats focused more on debating with each other than on confronting the regime and achieving shared objectives, a scenario that will likely result in regime stabilisation;

— the main challenge of sudden, rapid regime collapse (collapse-driven liberalisation) is the unstructured and organisationally unprepared opposition, unable to retain power, returning the country to the vicious cycle of autocracy.

Transitional vs. constituent elections

The two liberalisation scenarios — collapse-driven and managed — determine two fundamentally different approaches to the first elections involving the opposition. In a sudden regime collapse and collapse-driven liberalisation, elections will be constituent in nature and their rules more favourable to the opposition. In the case of managed liberalisation, elections will be transitional, conducted primarily according to rules set by the regime’s softliners.

In the second scenario, the opposition will face a difficult choice: to accept elections with numerous restrictions and a high risk of defeat, to demand further concessions, or to boycott the elections. In practice, transitional elections often become an important round in political confrontation, serving as a step towards the real legalisation of the opposition, demonstrating its organisational and mobilisation capacity, negotiating power, and electoral viability. In the final years of the Soviet regime, such a role was played by elections to the Congress of People’s Deputies of the USSR and the Supreme Soviets of the union republics. Where the opposition failed to achieve significant results in these elections, securing at least 15–20% of seats, the democratisation process stalled, as in the Central Asian republics. Where it succeeded, it advanced further, encouraging parts of the old elite to join the opposition. A scenario of managed top-down liberalisation delays the objectives of genuine and full democratisation but simultaneously leads to a split, or more accurately, a reconfiguration of elites, creating the conditions for a peaceful transition and the next stage of reform.

In the first scenario, involving sudden regime collapse, holding constituent elections would also constitute a complex political manoeuvre. Society would face the simultaneous need to resolve three tasks: 1) to conduct elections as quickly as possible to overcome the power vacuum; 2) to reform electoral legislation, which has been critically undermined by the current regime; 3) to establish a democratic mandate for the new authorities, clarifying the constitutional and legal constraints for them, that is, the very reforms discussed under the ‘big bang’ concept. On the one hand, these reforms must be implemented by new, legitimate authorities; on the other hand, this implies that they will be elected on the basis of the old mandate. This presents a ‘chicken-and-egg’ problem for the new regime. Meanwhile, addressing the second task – reforming constitutional and legislative design – will provoke intense debates and increase factional divisions, thereby promoting the fragmentation of the democratic coalition.

A possible compromise is a two-phase transition involving a legislative rollback. In the first phase, the legislative design of the political system is returned to its previous version before it was ‘corrupted’, and elections are held on this basis. Broader political reform would then be undertaken under the new authorities. This scenario has several drawbacks but provides continuity from the post-authoritarian regime and benefits from the legitimacy of a legal framework. This scenario would involve:

— repealing, by legislative act of the Duma, the law on amendments to the Constitution of 14 March 2020 on the grounds that the prescribed constitutional procedure for amending the Constitution was violated;

— repealing changes to electoral legislation introduced since 2012 on the grounds that they restricted citizens’ rights, contrary to the Constitution;

— repealing the ‘repressive superstructure’ in legislation, including amendments to the criminal and administrative codes that curtailed citizens’ rights and introduced unconstitutional repressive norms and restrictions, thereby creating a legal basis for a broad political amnesty;

— ideally, adopting a special law against interference with the popular will and attempts to limit political competition. This law could provide for restoring public oversight of state-controlled media and media empires created under the dictatorship, as well as additional norms for transparency and control over the electoral process.

These measures create a foundation for elections under reasonably competitive legislation. The logic of ‘rollback’ underpins the ‘Sanitation of Law’ project,which compiled a list of legislative norms to be repealed. On the date of new elections, a nationwide referendum could also be held on several constitutional amendments, such as presidential and Duma terms, areas of exclusive jurisdiction for federal subjects, the election of the Federation Council, and the expansion of parliamentary powers in forming and supervising the government. The results would serve as a form of electoral mandate for the new authorities to implement in accordance with constitutional procedures.

In both scenarios, whether transitional or constituent elections, they would demonstrate the organisational capacity of the democratic coalition to mobilise the electorate, as well as its ability to negotiate and compromise both among different factions of its supporters and in dealings with competing political forces.

The transition dilemma: clean slate or broad consensus, tradition or revolution?

Many post-Putin reform projects, developed by members of the opposition, conceive the optimal scenario for democratisation as a kind of re-establishment of the Russian republic and a decisive break with the post-Soviet thirty years, which are entirely regarded as a failure of ‘corrupted’ democratisation. Accordingly, a new attempt should start with a ‘clean slate’, with the practical implementation taking the form of a new constitution designed to prevent the personalist degeneration of democracy within a parliamentary system.

In contrast to this perspective, the majority of the Russian population, including those with relatively democratic inclinations, are unlikely to regard all thirty-five years of post-Soviet history as a dead-end branch and a total failure of the post-Soviet project. For this segment, the democratic process itself is not the primary criterion of evaluation. The 2000s and 2010s were periods of increasing prosperity and predictability for most households, with stabilisation of governance and public administration. In their view, the ‘corruption’ and systemic political malfeasance are associated with more recent periods, for some dating from the 2011 elections, for others from the 2020 constitutional amendment, or even from the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The idea of rectifying this ‘corruption’ does not negate their post-Soviet Russian identity, which encompasses many of its symbols, such as the tricolour flag, and institutions.

Moreover, many institutions of post-Soviet democracy seem quite entrenched to the median Russian voter and are perceived as natural and familiar, albeit subject to distortion and corruption. These include, first and foremost, the institutions of direct elections for the president, governors, and mayors. For a broad segment of citizens, slogans calling for the return of direct mayoral elections, competitive gubernatorial elections involving local rather than Moscow-appointed politicians, and the rotation of a popularly elected president give concrete meaning to calls for the restoration of popular rule and democratic order. Attempts to abolish direct gubernatorial elections in 2005 met significant resistance and were eventually annulled, while the movement supporting the election of Khabarovsk Governor Sergey Furgal against Moscow’s wishes was one of the largest and most resilient democratic protests, driven not by a strictly liberal-democratic understanding but by a broader, populist conception of democracy. Direct elections for governors and mayors also provide the clearest and most tangible representation of the federal dimension of democracy for the median voter and act as a point of consolidation for the interests of regional elites and citizens defending their autonomy against Moscow and the ‘power vertical’.

Conversely, the institutions of a parliamentary republic, in which parties play a key role, seem alien and suspicious to the median voter, given the largely fictitious or dysfunctional nature of most parties in the Russian political system throughout nearly all thirty-five post-Soviet years. According to surveys, parties consistently occupy the lowest position in public trust among political institutions. This situation could theoretically change if the democratic opposition succeeds in constructing a non-personalist party brand, akin to Poland’s Solidarity, which, having gained authority in opposition to the regime and established roots at the regional level, might eventually become a symbol of change. Achieving this, however, would take considerable time.

One way or another, trust in existing parties may serve as the foundation for broader citizen confidence in a parliamentary system, but the reverse is unlikely. Presently, it is difficult to envisage a democratic mobilisation and a broad democratic coalition united around the idea of a parliamentary republic in Russia. This represents an important fork in understanding the regime transformation process. While designers of the ‘optimal’ democratic model often bracket out questions of the driving forces and mechanisms of regime transformation, for a real democratic coalition, the question of maximising support mobilisation is primary. It must contend with the conceptions of democracy held by voters, not by liberal intellectuals.

However, the dilemma is not limited to a choice between parliamentary and presidential-parliamentary models; it reflects a broader tension in regime transition. Radical democratisation projects favour a revolutionary scenario of a ‘clean slate’ and the re-founding of the republic, while the median voter is more likely to prefer an evolutionary approach, correcting and improving familiar institutions. A democratic coalition may face a choice between its ideals and institutional paths that are more familiar to voters and encounter less resistance from elite groups, who are also wary of revolutionary institutional change. This does not imply that the question of Russia’s preferred political model must be resolved in favour of presidentialism. Rather, political logic and legislative optimality in regime transformation may diverge, and an attempt to address all issues in a single package could prove detrimental to the coalition’s stability.

Revolutionary concepts such as the ‘big bang’ and ‘clean slate’ assume that, unlike previous attempts at democratisation, the current effort will produce rapid and obvious results. Accordingly, their proponents tend to distance themselves from prior efforts, regarding them as ‘unreliable’. In contrast, conceiving democratisation as a prolonged process emphasises the need to highlight continuity between new attempts and previous stages, thereby framing a narrative of democratic tradition and its embeddedness in Russian political history. Such a strategy is more conducive to the formation of non-personalist, enduring organisations, including stable parties that survive multiple electoral and political cycles and develop a substantial ‘hereditary’ electorate.

The nature and challenges of ‘weak democracy’

A key feature of constituent elections is that, even if the rules governing them are reasonably fair, they will inevitably be imperfect because they are conducted within an underdeveloped party system. Pre-election coalitions are formed hastily, often on an ad hoc basis, and are therefore highly likely to be fragile and subject to mutation. Comparative research demonstrates that both liberal freedoms and the institution of democratic elections emerge at relatively early stages of democratisation and are by no means a reliable guarantee of success (→ V-Dem: Chains in Episodes of Democratisation).

The period of transition and the first post-authoritarian elections will almost certainly be followed by a period of ‘weak’ democracy, characterised by widespread divergence from codified law, an unstable party system vulnerable to capture by oligarchic and bureaucratic groups, and the regrouping of forces of revenge who lost influence during the transition and view the emerging balance of political power as provisional. Contrary to popular belief, especially among the Russian opposition, the main reasons for the ‘weakness’ of democracy at this stage are structural rather than personal in nature.

In addition to a weak party system, unrooted political institutions, and unstable governance practices, the most significant factor in this weakness will be the distribution of property and economic structure inherited from the authoritarian era. Twenty years of asset redistribution in favour of a narrow coalition of ‘insiders’ and politically loyal owners represent a heavier legacy of the Putin era than distortions of democratic norms or militaristic ideology. This will be among the principal challenges confronting any new regime. While debates over the ‘privatisation of the 1990s’ are now mainly historical in nature, the consequences of the ‘Putin-era redistribution’ will become a new minefield of political contention.

At a structural level, the extreme concentration of capital, monopolisation of markets, weakness of the private financial sector, creeping statisation of industry, and the disproportionate role of the raw materials sector create an ideal cocktail for authoritarian resurgence. Addressing these issues appears an even more complex and explosive challenge than negotiating compromises over the core principles of constitutional design. The practical form, institutional framework, and constraints of Russian democracy will be heavily determined by the transformation of the market environment in the post-dictatorship period and the type of capitalism that emerges as a result (for the relationship between capitalism and political institutions → Yakovlev: From Hybrid to Mobilisation).

Discussions about the optimal democratic design remain an important element of the project of renewed democratisation. In this section, however, the focus is on framing democratisation as a political and social process. Democratisation is not a ‘triumph of will’ by uncompromising democrats. Its central task is the formation of a credible agenda for a broad coalition, one not confined to the value framework of a ‘liberal party’ or a strictly liberal understanding of democracy, and the maintenance of this coalition across multiple stages of regime transition. This agenda must possess significant vertical depth, appealing both to elites and to the median voter. Achievable outcomes at each stage of democratisation will be limited and almost always compromise-based. The stages of regime transformation themselves impose these constraints and often require the use of ‘interim’ institutions.

Despite all this, democratisation in Russia is by no means an unattainable project. On the contrary, it represents a return to the natural trajectory of civil society and political development. This return is not a leap into a ‘bright future’ but a restoration of the practice of political struggle, during which skills of mobilisation, structured coalitions, negotiation, and compromise are developed, the contours of the party field are re-established, and a broad network of civic organisations is rebuilt. These are the foundations of political culture and democratic infrastructure. Democratisation is therefore a prolonged social process of creating new practices, new organisations, and a new map of democratic politics.