Political analysts and scholars working on russian politics today. Nikolai petrov, he is the head of the center of political geographic research. He was previously a chair, as many of you know of the carnegie Moscow Society and in regions program. Before before that he worked for the institute of geography and is authored of many publications. Most recently to books, the state of russia, what comes next. Just out in 2015, then a few years ago russia, 2025. Scenarios for the russian future. It should be an interesting discussion. Well start off with brian and turn it over to nikolai and then open for questions and answers. Please take it away brian. I will also mention that we are refill for cspan is covering us today. Thank you for that. Great, thank you henry it is a real privilege to be here with two old friends and colleagues to talk about putin and putin ism, two years after my don. We are not going to be talking a lot about ukraine, well mainly talk about russia and we can talk about your crane if people like. Nikolai and i last i decided that i should go first which will give him the opportunity to critique everything i have said in my talks. Since im going first i also get to say that any questions about the syria situation in turkey is planes, shooting down russian planes will be held by nikolai. So a brief outline, i will talk briefly about putin ism. It will be brief because of the time constraints. I will give an overview of the system generally and then ill say a bit about how it was evolving before youre my don, before 2013, 2014. Then well talk about how it has changed in the last few years after the ukrainian event. Well talk briefly about the implication and changes it has gone through since 2014. Nikolai will say more about that in his presentation. The big claim im going to make is that over the last two years russia has moved into a mobilization role in response to the quote, unquote emergency situation they find themselves in. This is a shortterm temptation and a mediumterm trap. The temptation is it is easier to rule them to govern and what i mean by that distinction, i hope will will become clear during the talk. The trap is that when you rely on ruling rather than governing you often are prone to make mistakes. State policy becomes an effective and ultimately you take steps that we can the system in the country. So what is putin is him . First thing, i will call for his super president ial is in. This is the formal institutional structure of the political system which in 1993 in the new constitution was already super president ial. It was designed to be super president ial and to make the president the most powerful person in the particle system. The constitution also sets out a series of what made my call checks and balances, separation of power, so theres a parliamentary system with the federation council, there is a Constitutional Court with judicial review, theres formally a system of federalism with some powers evolve to Regional Government and there is a series of guarantees and the constitution both for Civil Society and individuals in terms of right to free press, right to organize, write to demonstrate and so on. What im going to claim is under putin ism we seen a super president ial system he inherited becoming more super, super president ial by weakening these other powers. Weakening parliament, taking control of the media, constructing what they call a vertical of power which weakens the power of leaders. At the same time, and parallel to the system is the informer political system which is made up of a series of competing plans that were networked together. They compete across institutional lines, cross the lines of politics and economics, for resources and for influence come in for power. I would say the combination of these two factors the sort of electoral authoritarian if you have a formal system is what political scientist with phase one of the key quote, unquote findings of post russian politics. This is a widely a widely accepted point a postsoviet russian politics that have many names. Richard who was here last night called it a dual date. Nikolai has a part in the book about the network state. Henry hale has a book on something about the same thing. The formal size is the informal side. Some people call it the system even pawlowski the former putin advisor. He said something in one of his books that is quite apt, he says putin is simultaneously the president of the formal state and the boss of the Informal Network state. That is the importance of his role in the system. So far on the institutional side it formal and informal i will suggest briefly there is a third element that is not institutional. It is more more what i call a mentality and elsewhere i have called a code of putin is him. For those that want to hear more about it there is a memo that just came out called the code of putin ism. Terry briefly the idea here is we should not think of putin as a rational actor pursuing power at will but he is motivated, not only by a set of ideas, i dont think he is an ideologue but there are some ideas undermine his behavior. He is also like any other human being, someone who who has a motion, habits, tendencies to influence the types of decision he makes. I cant call attention to all the things i outline in the memo but they include things that status him as a guiding principle that he articulated early on in terms of how the russian state should be structured domestically and how should be powered domestically and how russia should become a great power again in the international system. It is conservative in its essence. Maybe a bit of controversy here, in general i see putin as being somewhat illiberal, distrustful person in action and that he is pursuing unity is much as possible. He fears and in that sense he is more of a conservative at heart. I think has habits that he developed in his career prior to becoming president ten towards a feeling of his need to establish control in order. A feeling that the disorder allowed under gorbachev was debilitating for russia and he needs to establish order, he needs to be the strong man to establish a stronger state system. I think an emotional level there is an element of resentment about the way he feels, this is not just putin but other members of the elite field russia has been treated in the post cold war environment that they were not adequate later respected by the west and they do not get their due in international politics. These are some of the things that go into the mentality of putin and those people around him that influences the way they react to various legal challenges. So, i want to move to the period between 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, what i call as a putinism bc which is before crimea. Already, and i think it is important to remember this casting our minds back to it is important to remember this casting our minds back to 2012 if you can remember this, there was a crackdown launch when putin returned to the presidency in 2012. We saw this in many different realms, the crackdown came as a response to a series of proteins that broke out in moscow and other cities in 2011, 2012, after the 2011 parliamentary election. This came in many different responses. It came in terms of a new political strategy i would argue that targeted what the regime saw as a conservative majority in the country, Russian Orthodox voters, rural voters, workingclass voters, state employees, people who worked in the power structures like Law Enforcement and the military. The alliance was put on those actors and there is a subconscious disdain the small and medium business, etc. This came in many different guises. Increase fines for participating in protests, a series of trials that we could perhaps call show trials designed to communicate to the opposition the danger of engaging in protests. You see some of these events affected in the slide the may 2012 product test a mask cow that turned violent. Twenty people were arrested and charged with crimes as a result of that disorder. There is the infamous case which was designed to show opposition is some kind of alien, bizarre, antirussian, anti russian cultural force. There were a series of trials in involving opposition is who is pictured there, his first trial in the summer 2013. There are series of laws cracking down on what were called ngos, the gay propaganda, etc. There is a there is a conservative, more conservative, more anti american authoritarian before crimea happened. Putin ism a d, which is after has gone more in the direction they were already in 2012 and 2013. In terms of what i describe as the code of the mentality of putin ism we see the notion of russia as a besieged fortress. By external enemies working with internal enemies trying to destabilize the country. One person who has been out in front in of articulating this vision is nikolai who is the secretary of Security Council and longtime ally of putin from st. Petersburg. He used to work at the kgb and had an organization the fsb, and he articulated in an interview this summer his idea that the americans are trying to drag russia into an interstate military conflict using the ukrainian events to bring about a change in power in russia and in the final analysis dismember our country. Controversy all others would like to point to an entirely fictional quote they attribute to Madeleine Albright while she let it release said that this is what the americans hope to do. What about putinism in terms of informal politics and network . I think early on under putin ism is especially 2000, 2003, 2004, putin played the role four, putin played the role of the first among equals, arbitrating between different clans. Some inherited from the earlier. And some that came with him from st. Petersburg and other business interests that were circulating around the kremlin. He has managed to concentrate more and more authorities at the boss of different plans and put himself at the center of the system so he is more as are like figure than a first among equals figure. He is the one that makes the important decision and he is the one who rules over the system as much as he governed the political system. The russian political analysts in an interview this summer said there is a new group and the Different Networks at the top. And not a new group but a reformulated group that has an idea that we are not a mafia, we, we are punto. What does he mean by where not a mafia we are who you talk . His basic with some of the networks run putin were some obsessed with finding their own pockets. There is is another group who are true patriots, who are pursuing their political interest as a great power and those are the people that are coming to prominence now in this post ukraine environment. So he is attacking certain actors around putin say there is a group of loyalists that really have russias true interest at heart. Rogoff refers to the decision in february 2014 to annex crimea to a coup. His logic is a q because there is overnight a huge shift in the balance of power among the elite, the prowestern more economically elites lost power instantaneously in the socalled others, the people who put background in the Parliament Industry like the fsb or the military or similar Security Organization instantly gained a lot of power. There has been a shift. Some of the people who talk about you can see along the bottom of the slide here the defense administer, the head of the fsb, the head of the foreign intelligence service, the Security Council, and the chief of the president ial staff also longtime kgb ally from st. Petersburg of vladimir putin. Im not suggesting this is a single unified team. Perhaps nikolai will have more to say about this. For example, there are rumors that the defense administer may not have been consulted about the crimea decision when it was taken. There are also rumors he was reluctant to actually take the military option in crimea. Again these are rumors, im not sure how much truth there is to them. Putin himself suggested in an interview that the military, at one point during the annexation of crimea actually stop the operation. He had to call and get it restarted. There is a suggestion that there is some disagreement among this root group, in general i think it is fair to say that since february 2014, those elements in the policy elite have been more powerful than the economic and liberal block within the government. I think that remains true today. Maybe that will change but i do i do not think it has changed yet. One thing that is interesting about this elite is there fairly nationalize, meaning if we looked at the career tracks of the children of all of these people blow here, they all work for a state affiliated banks or corporations. Theyre not abroad, they were not educated abroad, they are not living in london or switzerland at some of the children of other close putin are. They are different political profile. In that sense they are more nationalized which has been a priority of putin since even before 2014. Final thing i want to talk about briefly, the notion that ruling rather than governing and what it implies for decisionmaking. The guy at the top you may recognize, you probably would not have recognized before last week, that is the administer sports for russia. The Russian Ministry of sports was it in the media last week because of the doping scandal. He is an interesting figure, give you one guess from where his rent. From st. Petersburg. He is the minister sports. The second person pictured is and nikolai will say more about him, he comes from st. Petersburg and has a background in the kgb. The last picture there, ill give you one guess where hes from, st. Petersburg and he worked in the Police Previously and under yelton he headed the federal Security Service. So the issue i want to talk about that brings these three actors together is a meeting with the Russian Football Association, the executive board board of the Russian Football Association and summer 2014. Football of course mean soccer in this context. Someone leak the transcript of the executive Board Meeting in an opposition newspaper. Medco has sent a request to the board to bring three crimea football clubs into the russian association, the executive committee was supposed to rule on this decision. You might think this was an easy decision but the people who are on the board, some of them were billionaires, the rest are multimillionaires and they all own football clubs the various cities around russia. There instantly nervous about this proposal. One of them instantly sort of set, we might get sanctioned if we take this decision, who is going to guarantee we are not sanctioned . And another spokes once said who is going to compensate me for losses if where sanction question where sanction . A third one says, what happens if they decide after the decision to take away the 2018 world cup which is supposed to be held in moscow question marks all of these various elite economic actors are pushing back with this idea thinking it may harm their interests. Why putin after a while has had enough of this. He breaks in and says, what is the matter with you people . You are crawling on your bellies before the west, putin is standing alone, he is alone, he is under attack, and we need to as citizens, support his stance. The club owners then decide that her tact was network team and we will approach it differently. He will say of course of the country says i have to suffer some losses for the good of the state i will do so. So. We are willing to do that. If there is an order will do this, no question. But what are putin himself does not really want this . Maybe this will maybe this will be against what putin himself wants. Maybe we should ask him. And then he said it would be unethical to approach the president about this decision. And the other one says i can imagine this meeting if i go to puna say while were having this discussion about the football clubs and he said putin with say buzz off. He would be right to do so. One of the owners say if we take the decision without consulting him and we lose the world cup, you are responsible for the president for this decision taken place. Another one speaks up and say i have been building my company for 25 years, i am play 250,000 employ 250,000 people, it is worth 30 billion, if i have to, for the bid on trinket of the country fight, i will go fight. Im prepared to discard everything if necessary but only if it is what the first person wants. So we better check with the first person and decide before we do this. So they decided to wait a few days and someone was to check with putin whether this was the right decision. Then they adopted adopted this decision to bring the three football clubs into the football association. So what is the point of the story . The point of the story is imagine 100 decisions around russia every day, every one of them is wondering what is the first person think about what we are about to decide. You can imagine how this would make the Decision Making process rather inefficient the people at lower levels in the system are wondering all the time well maybe putin doesnt want us to do this. Or maybe he wants us to go further so we have to consult with him. Another interesting thing of this episode was that you can and has an lotta status in this not because of the time he was head of Russian Railways but because he is considered someone who is in the putin inner circle, had direct access and had to be listened to and respected. The third thing, despite the feeling they had to defer to the first person, these group of elites were still willing to push back to try to protect their interests within the constraints they saw themselves operating under. Even as i described earlier that you really still try to have their interest to pursue. The problem with russia is that if you have a decisionmaking system that is this concentrated and this much focused on the rule of the boss rather than the governing of the president than medium and longterm challenges tend to get neglected. That is is the trap and that is why think were seen an inability of the system to come up with a coherent economic response to the current economic crisis they find themselves under due to Lower Oil Prices and partially due to international sanctions. So it was an easy decision to make in some sense that ruling is easier than governor he, but is also a trap that is leading to mistakes and policy that i think in the median term are not going to be healthy