The Foreign Service Journal, April 2007

Regional governments regularly ignored the Kremlin’s wishes, pass- ing laws that contradicted the Russian Constitution. For exam- ple, the charter for the oblast of Sverdlovsk provided for both a gov- ernor and a head of government, but federal law provides that gover- nors head the executive branch. In Voronezh, the procuracy found that regional officials were being paid salaries higher than federal rules allowed. And the Constitutional Court ruled in 2000 that references to “sovereignty” in local charters or constitutions were unconstitutional. Lacking direction from the top, the nation seemed to be running on automatic pilot. Putin has a parallel goal on the external front: to re- establish the Russian state as a major player on the inter- national scene, one that would balance the United States and Europe. Shortly after taking office, the new presi- dent traveled around the world, visiting such former Soviet client-states as Cuba, China and North Korea. His message to the West was clear: I may not be as strong as you, but I can be a nuisance if you ignore me. A Bureaucrat Par Excellence Yet, while he shares the Kremlin’s traditional prefer- ence for centralizing power, Putin’s approach to achiev- ing both these goals is different from that of his prede- cessors in several important respects. The first, which should come as no surprise given Putin’s previous career in the KGB, is his devotion to the state. To Putin, Russia is just a larger form of the bureaucracy in which he once served. As a KGB officer, he was part of an organization in which meritocracy, discipline and order were paramount. If he was given an order, he was expected to carry it out, and for many years he did just that. Indeed, this is key to his some- what ambivalent attitude toward democracy. While Putin’s top-down approach to gover- nance appears authoritarian, it is important to keep in mind that he does not appear to be trying to reimpose a Soviet or Stalinist regime on Russia. That danger always exists, of course, but to date he has shown no interest in enforcing strict conformity throughout the system. Rather, as is normal in a bureaucracy, Putin believes the leader should be able to set the organization’s parameters, and those who work in it should operate within them. Last year, for example, the Kremlin enacted a rather stringent set of regulations that nongovernmental orga- nizations must meet in order to operate in Russia. Moscow claims that the rules are only intended to ration- alize the operation of these organizations, but it could still be an ominous sign. The concern on the part of many Russians I have dealt with is that whatever Putin has in mind, local authorities will interpret the new reg- ulations in a way that seriously restricts the autonomy and ability of NGOs — especially those that focus on human rights — to operate in the country. That said, if Putin were convinced that the introduc- tion of greater forms of what we in the West understand as democracy would help him deal with Russia’s prob- lems, then I believe he would probably move in that direction, even though it runs counter to his under- standing of the Russian mind-set. This philosophy helps explain Putin’s approach to the mass media, as well. His administration has set narrow parameters for what can be criticized and much broader criteria for what is off-limits to criticism (e.g., direct attacks on the president), and believes it is up to the media to abide by those restrictions to stave off chaos. To enforce this approach, the Kremlin has restricted the ability of the media — both TV and newspapers — to F O C U S 20 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / A P R I L 2 0 0 7 Dale Herspring was a Foreign Service officer from 1971 to 1991, serving mainly in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union and specializing in political-military affairs. A pro- fessor of political science at Kansas State University since 1993, he is the author or editor of 11 books and more than 80 articles, including: Putin’s Russia: Past Imperfect, Fu- ture Uncertain (Rowman and Littlefield; 3rd edition, 2007), The Kremlin and the High Command: Presidential Impact on the Military from Gorbachev to Putin (Univer- sity Press of Kansas, 2006), The Pentagon and The Presi- dency: Civil-Military Relations from Franklin Roosevelt to George W. Bush (University Press of Kansas, 2005), and Russian Civil-Military Relations: Past and Present (Indi- ana University Press, 1996). Putin’s top-down approach to governance appears authoritarian, but he does not appear to be trying to reintroduce a Soviet regime.