Transit (13)

A modernization breakthrough in the context of limiting democracy - this was the strategy of the Putin start. It is possible that the new president will attempt to return to the beginning of the Putin presidency. This return may be associated with some relative (compared with the current legal lawlessness) “thaw”, which will be needed to return at least the relative confidence of the elites (primarily expert, information, cultural) to the authorities and mobilize their support. In the terms of our scenarios, this situation is closest to the “development dictatorship” (with all the reservations that I made earlier regarding the use of this term). In the previous article, I suggested that this return is doomed to failure if there is no fundamental change in the political regime, for which Medvedev clearly does not get resources. Now we have to understand what the collapse of the “Development Dictatorship” script is fraught in a new situation.

I argue that radical options, such as “revolution” or “Smart Russia” (which in the current conditions can be considered as more than radical), do not threaten us in the near future. This is due, first of all, by the very fact of the change of presidents, despite the very dubious legitimacy of the change procedure. However, the shift of the first person always gives rise to certain hopes in various social or elite groups, despite the fact that these hopes can have a completely opposite character among different groups. Hopes for some time remove the accumulating stress and reduce the chances of radical scenarios. Therefore, we have the right to consider the fork between the two scenarios - “Sluggish Russia” and “Protective dictatorship”.

In a new situation, it is difficult to expect the same sequence of a change of scripts that were characteristic of the Putin presidency. Now the script "Development dictatorship" can be directly replaced by each of the two scenarios. What determines, first of all, a fork between them?

Let's turn to the political maps again, which I showed in the article “Transit-5”. We will see how the system of analytical tools that I introduced earlier will now work. For your convenience, I will play these cards here again.

Figure 1. Projection on the plane of the axes “Adaptability-trigidity” and “Game according to the Rules is the Rules” of four basic political scenarios and points describing the political regime in Russia in 1991-1996. and in 2001

Take a look: all three scenarios are close to each other according to the variable "Adaptability - Rigidity." But the “development dictatorship” is located between the two other scenarios along the “Game according to the Rules - Game with the Rules”. The "security dictatorship" mixes the figures on the board when one group defeats another. “Sluggish Russia” is looking for a system of rules (“concepts”), which would reconcile everyone. In 2003, everyone reconciled the system of concepts, allowing universal security of universal theft.

Now take a look at the second projection.

Figure 2.

Here we see a similar situation. The script “Development dictatorship” is located between the same two scenarios, but now on the “Consolidation - Conflict” axis. I remind you that in the case of “sluggish Russia”, the consolidation of power is achieved around the “concepts” system it accepted.

Please note: it turns out that from one point of political space, almost diametrically opposite trajectories are possible. Where the political drift will go, it can depend on the impact of seemingly completely insignificant factors, sometimes random. This is what is called the “bifurcation point” - the point of gap of smooth trajectories. This is a typical instability, and it stems from the rigidity of the political system. For the worst thing in rigidity is the lack of mechanisms for adaptation and damping of unexpected effects on the system.

Now it is easy to imagine how the plot that forms this point of bifurcation can develop. This is approximately, the skeleton can form it:

The first phenomenon : the Medvedev team begins the transition to the script "Development dictatorship".

The second phenomenon : groups of dissatisfied with this attempt are formed.

The third phenomenon : the dissatisfied are divided into those who are ready to sharply stop this attempt, and those who are inclined to negotiate, putting pressure on Medvedev and his team, but at the same time seeking the base for agreements.

The fourth phenomenon : the competition begins between these two ways to break the script “Development Dictatorship”.

Fifth phenomenon : ???????????????????

To try to clarify what could be in the final, we must answer the following questions that form the field of uncertainty:

1. What can be a Medvedev strategy and the “thaw” accompanying it?

2. How realized is it?

3. Who is the two groups of dissatisfied?

4. What does not suit them and what are their goals?

5. What are their resources?

6. Are there any resources to suppress them?

7. What can consensus be achieved on?

8. Can he involve radically dissatisfied?

9. Whose will take?

Now let's try to answer these questions.

1. Sketching of the thaw

The forecast given below is based on the initial assumption, according to which Medvedev and his team intend to return in 2000 and again launch the “Development Dictatorship” script: strict power that limits democracy and engaged in modernization. From here it is easy to foresee what Medvedev will not do. He will not abandon the ideas of the "vertical of power." Therefore, the election of governors will not be restored. The formula for the formation of the Federation Council will not change, perhaps only the mechanisms of informal control over its formation will be changed and made less corrupt. The independence of local self -government will not be ensured by the Constitution; Rather, on the contrary, the purpose of mayors of cities will be introduced by quiet sapa. Tough information control over the main television channels will not be canceled, although, perhaps, a list of people who are not allowed on their air will be narrowed, and the number of programs going live will increase slightly. In addition, it can be assumed that the channels management system will change towards public television, and representative public councils will appear under the channels that mimic control over the air policy. Free political competition will not be introduced; authorization projects and their financing will not be canceled. Correction will only be odious, rudeness, the rowing of the current forms of this control. Medvedev will not break the ineffective police vertical, and will not create an independent municipal security police. There will be no reform of the country's police system as a whole for reasons that I will return below. For the same reasons, there will be no serious army reform. The seven districts that arose under Voloshin are unlikely to be eliminated. Most likely, they will be rebooted with new frames and reoriented to control the implementation of the new strategy. Over the eight years of the Putin regime, many legislative norms have been adopted that conflict with the Constitution regarding the attempt on regional powers or monopolization of joint powers. Corrections of these violations are unlikely. So, I argue that the new regime will do nothing to restore real federalism, a full -fledged political competition or attempted to attempt on the idea of ​​an imperious vertical and centralized management.

A positive idea (not in the sense of my positive assessment, but in the sense of the absence of a particle of “not” in the formulation) of the new presidency, in its unspoken part, it may look something like this: “In 2000, our strategy failed due to one error and one internal enemy. The mistake was to rely on the purely command control system. Therefore, you need to restore management through the right. The internal enemy was the security forces, who, instead of ensuring effective command management, became the main source of rust. Therefore, it is necessary to return the security forces to their full -time positions and restore the functioning of legal institutions. ”

So, a positive vector of efforts of the new presidency will be aimed at restoring the institutions of legal regulation destroyed by Putin and increasing their effectiveness. These efforts are associated with counteracting corruption in the part that concerns the elimination of causes that enhance corruption. The ineffectiveness of institutions is one of their such reasons. First of all, special attention will be paid to the judiciary. It is clear that, in accordance with the logic of vertical management, the remains of local influence on its functioning, as this happens, for example, in Moscow, will be excluded. Separate steps will be taken to strengthen the procedural functioning of judges, for example, by reducing the influence on the process and its result of the chairmen of the courts. Channels of influence on the courts and judges of other institutions, such as the prosecutor's office, will be torn.

It can be expected that significant efforts will be aimed at eliminating another reason for the rapid growth of corruption: the fusion of power and business. I advise you to pay attention to Medvedev’s statement, which was missed by commentators as insignificant and technical. We are talking about his promise to terminate the practice in which senior officials are appointed to the governing bodies of companies with a large share of state property. This measure of double action. Firstly, it helps to increase the efficiency of state property management and reduce corruption; Secondly, she hits the oversaturated personnel presence of security forces outside their full-time responsibility. The importance, technological and symbolic, this measure is such that its implementation can serve as an indicator of the sequence of the efforts of the new team and its ability to realize its intentions.

The anti -corruption orientation of Medvedev’s efforts has a clear meaning: increasing the controllability of the bureaucratic vertical, which during the previous presidency became not just poorly controlled, but completely self -sufficient and independent of the highest administrative leadership. In such conditions, it is pointless to make any modernizing efforts. As I said above, this kind of modernization should be supported by a relative thaw, as was done in Gorbachev times. In the next article, we will try to discuss what consequences this will lead to.

PS

“I would prefer to be considered
liar, what would be considered for the prophet "

Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomin
(Pope Pius II)

I am afraid that some of those who read this article will impress that the future is easily calculated with the help of different political spaces and scenarios there. I hasten to spoil this impression. All that formal methods can help in this unsteady sphere is to help our intuition in two ways: the first is the organization of thinking, the second is the organization of information as food for thinking. We are doing this, attracting model considerations and formal procedures that serve them. And our conclusions have an extremely probabilistic nature, like the future itself.
Author - President of the Indem Foundation

To be continued