Referendums as an imitation

Political scientist Grigory Golosov explains that not so at the Institute of Referendum itself

From September 23 to 27, “referendums” will be held in four occupied regions of Ukraine on entering Russia. Propaganda positions this mechanism of the will of citizens as the most democratic. Doctor of Political Sciences, Professor of the European University in St. Petersburg Grigory Golosov, specifically for the “cold”, explains why the referendum institute, even in a democratic context, is not such, but in the authoritarian-even more so.

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News about partial mobilization was obscured by the media theme of referendums about joining Russia, which were appointed in two “people's republics” ( self -proclaimed. - approx. “Cold” ) of the LPR and the DPR, and in two ( occupied. - approx. “Cold”) of the regions of Ukraine - Kherson and Zaporizhzhya regions. Such a shift in focus looks quite justified. Referendums will not change little in the actual position of these territories.

Paradoxically, after Russia recognizes the independence of the LPR and the DPR, the real powers of their authorities did not expand compared to those that were in accordance with the provisions of the Minsk agreements on “individual regions of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions”. De facto, the territories of “individual regions” both were and remained under the full control of Russia, and in the Donetsk region the zone of Russian control practically did not expand. As for the Zaporizhzhya and Kherson regions, their partial control of Russia is formalized by the very fact of the appointment of “military-civil administrations” there, which Ukraine does not recognize the legitimacy.

Formal connection to Russia will not affect the international legal status of territories. As the official representatives of a number of countries have already stated , they consider these referendums as false, and their predictable results are as legally insignificant. Naturally, Ukraine adheres to the same position.

The consequences of the accession of these territories will, of course, be of quite serious importance from the point of view of the dynamics of the military conflict itself: the authorities of the Russian Federation will be able to state that now the fighting is carried out on the territory of Russia itself. This can serve as an excuse for further waves of mobilization in Russia and, in the worst version, for the escalation of the conflict by using weapons of mass destruction. It is also clear that in the Zaporizhzhya and Kherson regions the immediate effect of their accession to Russia will be universal mobilization like the one that has already been carried out in the DPR and the LPR.

Of course, an increase in the number of Russian troops involved in hostilities is extremely desirable from the point of view of the Russian authorities, and in this sense, referendums completely fit into the logic of Russian mobilization activity. However, these results can be achieved without referenda. In fact, the pro -Russian authorities existing in the fighting zone could simply make decisions on joining Russia without spending energy and funds on consultation with citizens in any form. In practice, the consequences would be the same.

However, the addiction of the Russian authorities to the conduct of referenda is insurmountable. In this way, the annexation of Crimea was formed, and then - in obvious contradiction with the constitution itself, which did not provide for such a procedure - constitutional amendments were made to the "popular survey", which allowed Vladimir Putin to remain president for two more terms of a row. This leads us to the issue that is clearly secondary in the current actual context, but is important for understanding the Russian political regime and the logic of its actions: where does this obsession with referendum come from, the desire to necessarily receive a popular approval, expressed in this form?

The Russian authorities have given the answer to this question repeatedly, and it always came down to the fact that the referendum is the “ most democratic path ” of important government decisions. Let's find out if this is really so. Unfortunately, for such a clarification, we will have to go quite far from the current topic and turn to some alphabetical truths of the theory of democracy.

The word "democracy" is ambiguous and can be equal to two completely different political regimes. Distinguish between direct and liberal democracy. The second prevails in the modern world, and the first today is not practiced anywhere in its pure form, but exists as several peripheral moments of the liberal-democratic order. The referendum includes such moments. However, there are important historical precedents of direct democracy, the main thing of which is the political structure of the city-states of ancient Greece, the so-called policies.

Without going into historical details, we can say that the ideal of the policy of the policy involved the adoption of the main political decisions with the entire set of citizens through their direct will, which was carried out at the general meeting. The bosses only had to execute these decisions, their own power was very limited both in terms of volume and in terms of authority. It was believed that every citizen can be the boss, so most key posts were replaced by lot. In a sense, the decision-making process in the policy was a continuous referendum.

It is clear that such a system could be viable only in conditions when the number of citizens was limited even in relation to the population of the city-state-state, and it was already small by current standards. The rights of citizenship were not used, of course, slaves, as well as women, migrants and many other categories of the population. Another important feature of policy democracy was that the discussion of the decision and its adoption was followed by such a strict obligation that no criticism was already allowed. There was no opposition in the policy.

Modern liberal democracy is built on other grounds. Citizens do not directly participate in the adoption of political decisions - this is the destiny of elected politicians. They get the power not by randomly, but according to the results of the election campaign and elections, that is, a kind of competition, during which both past achievements of applicants and their promises for the future are taken to the voter court. The key condition for the functioning of liberal democracy is whether citizens can be removed from the power of politicians who have not deserved their trust with the help of elections, and bring the opposition to the rule of government. If this key condition is not fulfilled, then there is no democracy.

The referendum does not fit into this logic. There is only one country, in the democracy of the regime of which there is no doubt, but which at the same time constantly calls for its citizens to referendums. This is Switzerland. The peculiarity of the Swiss political structure is that the power there for many decades belongs to the same parties representing the ethnic groups of the country and ideological trends. These parties are constantly in the ruling coalition. In Switzerland, there is no change in power at the party level. At the same time, the ruling parties often enter into disputes among themselves, and if there is no compromise on some issue, then this issue is submitted to the referendum, the results of which are required for all parties. This allows you to maintain the stability of the ruling coalition, and support citizens with a sense of involvement in decision -making.

In other liberal democracies, referendums are quite rarely held, but sometimes they still resort to them, taking to the court of citizens the most important issues, from the point of view of the main political forces, issues. At the same time, the results of referenda usually reflect the levels of government support and opposition at the time of the event. Say, recently, the left government of Chile has brought a project of the country's constitution for a popular vote, which, if adopted, would become, according to some estimates, the most progressive in the world: with the broad rights of women, the indigenous population, with environmental protection and other things. However, the opposition managed to convince voters that the new constitution would shift the country too far to the left. At the same time, not only the shortcomings of the draft constitution played an important role, but also the general discontent of citizens with the first results of the reign of the left government. The project was rejected in a referendum.

In conditions of authoritarianism, such outcomes are possible only in conditions of liberalization, when the ruling forces allow the opposition to conduct active agitation against decisions preferred to the government. Such situations are, but they are rare and unusual. After all, if the authoritarian regime reaches stability, then this happens precisely due to the fact that the real opposition is removed from participation in any electoral processes and agitation is permissible only for one point of view preferred to the government. This creates an information environment in which the results of the referendum are predetermined.

The conditions of such referenda are approximately the same as in the presidential election that autocrats always win. And the reasons for holding referendums are exactly the same, by which the presidential elections are held with a foregone conclusion, although there is no fundamental meaning in these expensive events. The electoral authoritarianism is pretended by democracy without being it. The smaller in common with democracy it has in terms of the real impact of elections on power, the more he seeks to resemble democracy from a formal point of view. And a referendum is, whatever one may say, a democratic classic. Ideal for imitation.

Of course, any imitation has its limits. In fact, authoritarian rulers are worried about the possible results of any events providing for the will of citizens, even when there are practically no real reasons for concern. So to speak, blow on the water, even if they were not too burned in milk. Therefore, authoritarian referendums are often carried out according to the rules, in egregious scale, retreating from generally accepted norms recorded in international documents like the “ Code of recommended norms during referenda ”, adopted by the Venetian Commission of the Council of Europe.

If we talk about referenda, coming in the territories of Ukraine, then they will not comply even with the norms laid down in Russian law on referenda. This was recently briefly, but the famous Russian expert on electoral law Andrei Buzin spoke out . Of course, in this case, it should not be so much about the anxiety of the authorities about the possible results, but about some unpreparedness arising from prolonged vibrations about the conduct of these events and from the extreme rush, with which they were appointed when the decision was nevertheless made.

Of course, if desired, it was possible to prepare at least any convincing legal framework and organizational mechanisms that exclude the most extreme deviations from ordinary practice, like a “pond bypass” provided for in the Zaporizhzhya region. However, in this case, it is obvious that it does not matter whether the results of the referendum will consider convincing someone outside Russia and the territories themselves joined. The main audience of these events is not an external (a relatively narrow circle of users of Russian media abroad not counted), but an internal one.

And this is a noticeable feature of the modern phase in the development of Russian authoritarianism. In fact, authoritarian regimes are very inclined to take care of their reputation in the world, and a significant part of their democratic fanaberia is due to the desire to look better on the international stage. This applies even to modern China, which does not have a distant resemblance to liberal democracy, but in its own propaganda appears as democracy certainly no worse than others .

The Russian authorities, obviously, consider their international reputation completely and hopelessly spoiled, suitable only for the manifestation of “soft power” in relation to countries like Syria and Eritrea and, perhaps, “soft weakness” in relation to China, and these few partners do not give a damn about Russian democracy. However, in relation to their own population - both the current and to be included in Russia - the desire to rely on simulation democratic forms remains in force. In the end, who will understand? On TV, they will explain that everything is correct.