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Jamestown Foundation
www.jamestown.org
Russia and Eurasia Review
Volume 1, Issue 11
November 5, 2002
WHO IS VLADIMIR PUTIN?
By Dale R. Herspring
Dale Herspring, who served for more than twenty years in the Foreign Service and U.S. Navy, is a professor of political science at Kansas State University and editor of the forthcoming Putin's Russia: Past Imperfect, Future Uncertain (Rowman and Littlefield).
The hostage crisis in the Nord Ost Theater was the sternest challenge yet for President Vladimir Putin. Had he mishandled it, he might have faced the end of his presidency. Judging by the reactions of ordinary Russians in the week afterwards, however, he seems to have survived with his authority intact, possibly even strengthened. There were no great surprises.
Although it is barely two years since Putin assumed office, we have seen enough to allow us to begin to make some tentative judgments about him and his style of governance. And that governance does define him to some degree. First, as a patriot devoted to re-creating the Russian state while making it a force to be reckoned with both at home and abroad; second, as a bureaucrat primarily interested in solving problems; and third, as a man who is flexible in his approach to dealing with issues, a person who deals with problems in an incremental fashion but is prepared to seize opportunities. Putin is not ideological when it comes to solving problems. He believes, very simply, that Russian problems require Russian solutions.
A BUREAUCRATIC MINDSET
Putin's most characteristic feature, largely a result of his service in the KGB, is his devotion to the state and his bureaucratic approach to problems. This helps explain his somewhat ambivalent attitude towards democracy. Putin comes from an organization in which meritocracy, discipline and order were paramount. There was some room for discussing options with a degree of creativity and initiative (depending on who the boss was), but one had to fall into line once a decision had been made. His career was similar to that of a military officer. If he was given an order, he was expected to carry it out. As a result, Putin has a tendency to expect the same kind of behavior from others.
When it comes to running Russia, Putin has not tried to reimpose a Soviet or Stalinist type of regime, though I suspect he could have had he been so inclined. Instead, he believes the leader should set the system's parameters and that those who work (or live in it) should operate within them. This helps explain his approach to the media.
His government has established certain parameters for what can and cannot be criticized in public. It is up to the media to abide by these limits. As long as it does, it is free to publish or say what it wants. One might call this "restriction without repression." Russia must--and Putin believes this deeply--avoid the kind of political chaos that an unrestrained media helped create during the Yeltsin years.
Putin's bureaucratic mindset also helps us understand his approach to issues such as legal reform, the military and even Chechnya. He believes (rightly or wrongly) that bureaucracy is the way to deal with such problems. When it came to legal reform, the solution was bureaucratic: increase the pay of judges, while trying to restructure the way the legal system is constructed. The same is true of the military. While he appointed one of his top assistants as defense minister, he has made it clear that he intends to eventually get rid of conscription in favor of a professional military. In typical bureaucratic fashion, he is pushing and prodding a rather reluctant general staff in that direction. And he expects obedience. As far as Chechnya is concerned, his first response was bureaucratic: create a unified command, and find a way to get rid of the rebels by gradually wearing them down. He has found it hard to be flexible or creative in seeking a solution to the Chechen problem.
IDEOLOGY VS PROBLEM-SOLVING
Putin is also a dedicated supporter of the idea of political culture, though I am not certain that he has ever heard of the term. He believes deeply that Russia must find solutions that fit with its history and culture. Governance must fit the political beliefs and attitudes of the populace--and if they are to be changed, that can be accomplished only gradually. He does not believe that Russia should import a Western-style democracy. "It will not happen soon, if it ever happens at all, that Russia will become the second edition of, say, America or Britain in which liberal values have deep historic traditions. Our state and its institutions have always played an exceptionally important role in the life of the country and its people. For Russians a strong state is not an anomaly that should be gotten rid of. Quite the contrary, they see it as a source and guarantor of order and the initiator and main driving force of any change." [1]
This is exactly what Putin has been doing since he took office: strengthening state authority, while permitting freedom to the degree that it doesn't get in the way of the effective functioning of the country's bureaucratic structures.
Equally important is Putin's anti-ideological mindset. As he put it in his millennium speech, "I am against the restoration of an official state ideology in Russia in any form." [2] He has described Marxism-Leninism as "nothing but a beautiful and harmful fairy tale." [3] What this means in practice is that, with the exception of his tendency to rely on the state to solve problems, he is open and pragmatic when it comes to dealing with issues. The key question for Putin is simply "does it work?" This too should come as no surprise given his background. When it comes to problem solving, the KGB was arguably one of the least ideological organizations in the Soviet Union. The key task was to get the job done, to solve the problem at hand.
For example, Putin has shown no interest in North Korea from an ideological standpoint. But he is concerned about the economic viability of the Russian Far East, and with this in mind is trying to convince Pyongyang to agree to permit the construction of a rail connection through to South Korea.
What about democracy? What if Putin felt that reforms taken from Western democratic systems would help him solve some of his problems? As long as they did not go beyond the parameters that he believes are critical for maintaining central control, I suspect he would introduce them. If, on the other hand, he thought that further restrictions were necessary, he would not hesitate to reverse course. While this pragmatic approach may be unnerving to those who fear Russia could revert back to a more authoritarian state if the political and economic situation were to deteriorate, it also leaves open the option for a movement in the opposite direction if things continue to improve.
This pragmatism means that Putin is not a long-term planner. Politically, his main worry has been on getting rid of obnoxious oligarchs, or forcing resistant generals to go along with the American request for help in fighting al-Qaida and the Taliban. He has neither the time nor the inclination to look at problems conceptually. In his mind, theories are irrelevant unless they help him solve the immediate problem facing him.
Finally, Putin's overall approach is one of caution, with policy developing through a series of incremental steps rather than radical shifts, again an approach characteristic of someone who spent his life in a carefully regulated bureaucracy--that is, the tortoise rather than that the hare. This was evident in his removal of the notoriously corrupt and inept Primorsky Krai Governor Yevgeny Nazdratenko. Rather than just firing him, he bided his time and eventually forced him out placing him in charge of the Russian fishing industry.
When it comes to foreign policy, it is worth noting that while Putin is patriotic, he is not jingoistic. He believes that Russia's only hope is to integrate itself into the world economy and to do that, if possible, without offending other states. This is the main reason why Putin seized on the events of September 11 to move Russia closer to the West. From a domestic standpoint, those attacks provided him with an opportunity to overcome opposition on the part of the Russian military and other conservatives to closer ties to the West. From his perspective, China is important to Russia, primarily because of its willingness to purchase Russian weapons, something that (together with arms sales to India) is keeping the country's military industrial complex alive while he tries to restructure and reform it. However, he does not see China as relevant when it comes to solving Russia's deep-seated problems. For this he needs the West, and especially the United States. September 11 provided the opening he needed to move in that direction. This is also the main reason why he has played down Russian opposition to NATO and NATO expansion.
"MANAGED DEMOCRACY"
So what should we call Putin's form of governance? No title--especially one taken from another political system--would fit the Russian system exactly. Soon after Putin became acting president Russian journalists coined the term "managed democracy," and that still seems the best fit.
As Putin sees it, he was given the task of trying to lift Russia out of the mess Yeltsin left the country in. He accepted the responsibility of trying to solve the myriad problems as he "manages" the country. He fears that if he does not impose order through the power of the state, Russia will collapse. This is his paramount concern. Everything else is secondary.
How long will this period of managed democracy last? Given his orientation, I suspect that it will remain in place for the indefinite future. After all, Putin's world is one of putting out one fire after another. And the crises will keep coming. I suspect that Putin never knows what kind of a disaster he will face when he walks into the Kremlin in the morning. In suggesting that managed democracy may be the future of Russia as long as Putin is in charge, I am not suggesting that I agree with it from a moral standpoint.
It seems to me that the best one can hope for from Putin and Russia in coming months and years is that the economic situation will improve, that the country will remain stable, and that Putin will become increasingly convinced that movement toward greater democracy (as we in the West define it) will be in his and Russia's interest.
NOTES
This essay is based on the author's essay in the forthcoming, Putin's Russia: Past Imperfect, Future Uncertain, (Rowman and Littlefield) which he edited. Publication date: November 12.
1. Vladimir Putin, "Russia at the Turn of the Millennium," Pravitel'stvo rossiyskoy federatsii at www.government.gov.ru/english/statVP_engl_1.html, 6.
2. Ibid.
3. "Putin wants powerful Russia its citizens can be proud of," RTR Russia TV, 7 October 2002 in Johnson's List, October 9, 2002, p. 15.
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