How is the Russian government organized?

Last week, Vladimir Putin announced sweeping changes to the Russian constitution. Shortly afterward, the Prime Minister and his government resigned; there is no doubt that they did so at Putin’s behest. (On Monday, Putin formally submitted the constitutional changes and fired the country’s prosecutor general.)

Putin’s tenure as President is not supposed to extend beyond 2024, and the changes were widely seen as an attempt to extend his hold on power for as long as he deems fit. But, beyond that, no one really knows how he plans to reorganize the Russian state. To discuss Putin’s moves, I recently spoke by phone with Masha Lipman, a Moscow-based political analyst who has written extensively on Putin’s regime. During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed Putin’s decision-making style, how his personality and leadership have changed over the past two decades, and the differences between his rule and the later years of the Soviet Union.

Four years ago, you wrote a piece for The New Yorker in which you argued, in part, “The political environment in Russia is growing more chaotic. Putin may be the Russian tsar, but it is less clear to what extent he is in control.” Is it more clear how much he is in control today?

The issue of control is tricky. If one talks about whether government management is efficient in Russia, then no, it is not. And Putin has repeatedly, over his very long time in office, spoken about the need to increase the productivity of labor and quite a few other very important goals. I wouldn’t say he has delivered so well on those. But, if we define control as control over the élite, over making the decisions, of course Putin’s fully in control. And the developments of the past few days are very clear and persuasive evidence of him being in control of making decisions.

How do you understand his moves over the past few days?

This is a demonstration of how Putin is ultimately in charge and how he can make very important decisions by himself in an atmosphere of complete secrecy. We still do not know who was aware of what was in store for the country three or four days ago, and to what extent there is anyone who can actually challenge his decisions, even verbally.

Putin rarely consults with anyone, and, even if he does, it is done in a totally opaque way. He’s rarely explicit. Even if he consults with some people in his circle, people leave without having a clear idea of what his goal is and have to guess. Sometimes they guess right. Sometimes they guess wrong. Sometimes they try to curry favor and succeed, sometimes not. At the end of the day he is the ultimate decision-maker. And the strategy and the grand plans that he has for Russia, in their entirety, exist only in his mind.

You say he’s in a position of complete control. But he’s not Kim Jong Un. He doesn’t just say, “This is a diktat. I am President for life.” He seems to have some interest in going through what appear to be, but of course are not, democratic procedures. Is that just for public show? Is it to keep people within the Russian system, the élites, happy in some way? It often seems like he’s a dictator who doesn’t fully act the way people tend to think of dictators acting, if that makes sense.

Yes. I think there’s truth to that. He is way more sophisticated than to just say, “I rule by diktat and whatever I say is the law,” even if in practice it often is this way. He already was facing this dilemma back in 2008, when the constitution required that he step down after two consecutive terms as President. And he was so popular at the time—his approval rating was above eighty per cent. He could have changed the constitution easily and said, “I’m President for life,” which was something that his colleagues in some of the former Soviet republics had done before him. But he wanted to look more, I don’t know, European. He wanted to look more democratic. He wanted to maintain the appearance of being engaged in a procedural democracy. So he actually did step down but remained in charge. He figured out the configuration in which he anointed his very loyal colleague, Dmitry Medvedev, as President, and he himself took the office of the Prime Minister. So on the surface, on the formal levels, he did step down as the constitution requires. But he remained informally in charge, and “informally” means a great deal more sometimes in Russia than the formal institutions do. But he still kept the appearance of democratic legitimacy. And I think he cares about that.

Putin has been the leader of Russia for more than two decades now. Do you divide up that time into different eras, based on Russia’s place in the world or by the ways in which he chose to rule?

One way to look at it is that, when Putin first came to power, he inherited Russia in a state of misery and turmoil. And he undertook to consolidate power in the Kremlin by weakening all these formally defined institutions of power. He brought back stability and he was able to deliver prosperity because of the high and rising price of oil. At that point, he was certainly concerned a great deal about being fully in control, and he was able to reinstate that control for himself. However, he was also concerned about things such as a national development, economic growth. And he was able to balance his top priority of political monopoly with socioeconomic goals of national development and economic growth.

In 2011 and 2012, the economic growth slowed down. He could no longer deliver as generously as he had before. And, also in 2011 and 2012, he faced mass public protests. That was the first important turning point, when, actually having faced the challenge of mass protests, he tilted the balance quite strongly in favor of control and away from national development and economic growth. And this tilt became even stronger in 2014, when he made arguably the riskiest move in his whole career and annexed Crimea. This came at a cost, of course, of Western sanctions and a slowdown of the economy. And again he sacrificed those goals for the sake of control within and the concept of sovereignty abroad, which Putin thinks should be totally unbound. Nobody should be able to dictate to Russia what to do. Nobody should be able to bend its will and to bend its policy.

The Constitution was adopted by national referendum on December 12, 1993

Russia is a federal presidential republic

The executive power is split between the President and the Prime Minister, but the President is the dominant figure. The legislature is represented by the Federal Assembly of Russia. It has two chambers: the State Duma – the lower house, and the Federation Council – the upper house. The judicial power is vested in courts and administered by the Ministry of Justice.

The President

The President is the head of state and is elected by popular vote every six years for a maximum of two consecutive terms. The original constitution had four-year presidential terms, but this was amended to six years by parliament late in 2008. The new rules will not apply to the current administration and will come into effect only after the next election, due in 2012. The President’s working residence is in the Moscow Kremlin. The President determines the basic domestic and foreign policy, is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, can veto legislative bills, resolves issues of citizenship of the Russian Federation, awards state decorations and grants pardons.

The Government

Government duties are split between a number of ministries, some of which, in turn, have federal services and federal agencies answerable to them. The head of government, the prime minister, is appointed by the president and confirmed by the State Duma. The government is housed in the so-called White House in Moscow. The government ensures the implementation of domestic and foreign policy, works out the federal budget, oversees the implementation of financial and monetary policy, ensures the rule of law, human rights and freedoms.

The Parliament

The bicameral Federal Assembly makes federal law, approves treaties, declares war and has the power of the purse. Both its chambers are located in Moscow.

The Federation Council

The Federation Council of Russia is the upper house of the Russian Parliament. Created by the 1993 constitution, it was to act as a voice of Russia’s federated entities. The Council has explicitly stated that no political factions are to exist in the upper house.

Unlike the State Duma, the Council isn’t directly elected. It consists of representatives of Russia’s federal entities – each has two. One is elected by the entity’s legislature; the other is nominated by the entity’s head. The terms of the members aren’t nationally fixed, but depend on the terms of the regional bodies that chose them.

The Council works with the lower chamber to complete and vote on draft laws. But the Federation Council also has special powers of its own, including the declaration of a presidential election, impeachment of the President and decisions on the use of the armed forces outside Russia’s territory.

The State Duma

The State Duma is the lower house of the Russian Parliament. The 450 deputies are elected for terms of five years following constitutional amendments agreed by parliament late in 2008. However, the original term of four years will apply to the current Duma, as the new rules do not come into effect until after the next election.  Any Russian citizen over the age of 21 is eligible to run. Half the seats used to be filled through proportional representation and the other half through single seat constituencies. Now the system has changed.

The 2007 parliamentary election used a new format whereby all deputies were elected from party-lists through proportional representation.

The term Duma comes from the Russian “dumat” (“to think”). Compared to some European democracies, the Russian Duma is quite a youngster. Founded in 1906, it didn’t survive the 1917 revolution. But it bounced back in 1993, when Russia’s first President, Boris Yeltsin, introduced a new constitution.

All bills, even those proposed by the Federation Council, must first be considered by the State Duma. Once a bill is passed by a majority in the Duma, a draft law is sent back to the Federation Council. If the Council rejects it, the two chambers may form a commission to work out a compromise.

The Judiciary

Three types of court make up the Russian judiciary:

• The courts of general jurisdiction (including military courts), subordinated to the Supreme Court;
• He arbitration court system under the High Court of Arbitration;
• The Constitutional Court (as well as constitutional courts in a number of federal entities)

The municipal court is the lowest adjudicating body in the general court system. It serves each city or rural district and hears more than 90 per cent of all civil and criminal cases. The next level of courts of general jurisdiction is the regional courts. At the highest level is the Supreme Court. Decisions of the lower trial courts can generally be appealed only to the immediately superior court.

Arbitration courts are in practice specialised courts which resolve property and commercial disputes between economic agents. The highest level of court resolving economic disputes is the High Court of Arbitration.

The Constitutional Court is empowered to rule on whether or not laws or presidential decrees are constitutional. If it finds that a law is unconstitutional, the law becomes unenforceable and governmental agencies are barred from implementing it. The judges of the Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court and the Higher Arbitration Court are appointed by the parliament’s upper house, the Federation Council.