REPORT ON THE INTERNATIONAL SEMINAR «THE SYSTEM OF GOVERNANCE IN RUSSIA IN THE INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT»April 21-22 the Inter-Regional Foundation for Information Technologies held the international seminar «The System of Governance in Russia in the International Context». The leading Russian and foreign experts, political scientists, federal and regional-level policymakers, and mass media representatives spent two days discussing the crucial issues relating to functionality of the domestic political institutions, in particular, and prospects for the Russian political system, in general. The Seminar's first session «The Russian State and the Russian Constitution» was opened by Alexei M. Salmin (President of «The Russian Public and Political Center» Foundation) making his presentation «Russia's State System: Functions and Dysfunctions». In his remarks A.Salmin particularly focused on the special nature of Russia's current historic moment, which has been reflective of the deep-rooted efforts pursued by the nation's political players and institutions to achieve their self-identities, define or clarify their standings, roles and policy positions. What is going on now is the functional political actors and structures (political parties, federal state, the Church, law-enforcement agencies, the armed forces, mass media) are revealing their true selves, according to A.Salmin. Notably, some leftover Soviet-origin institutions continue to operate. Those are the relics that we seek to make functional under a different set of requirements generated by a new logic and fresh challenges. One of the country's chief foreign policy problems, according to A.Salmin, comes from the misperception of the real national interests, preponderance of the worn-out paradigm of strategies, and preservation of the «old anchors» (the military-industrial complex and nuclear weapons). Basically, while totally new tasks (reflective of the foreign debt relief, disintegration and integration, globalization and other problems) have emerged, the country continues to «make settlements» with the past. Given that a capable political elite is nearly unavailable and functional mechanisms for drafting long-term policies are still lacking, Russia has failed to make a sound and balanced historic choice. According to A.Salmin, the big problem of the Russian society's «thinking» segment is that many intellectuals believe they identify with the authorities. As a matter of fact, this particular circumstance caused a rift in the domestic intellectual elite and collapse of the effort to produce a nation-building idea. While it is impossible to create a national idea for the state, one can and ought to think of developing a state idea for the nation. It is precisely the latter idea that should help reshape the state. As he commented on A.Salmin's presentation, Vladimir A. Ryzhkov (member of the State Duma) pointed out that, though the constitutional design and institutions have indeed come in conflict with the ever-regenerated archetypes of the Russian state, one would be best advised against seeking to upset the established constitutional structure. For his part, A.Salmin responded by saying that the present Constitution should only be amended under extreme conditions, though, of course, it could in part be modified through certain constitutional provisions receiving updated interpretations. The next speaker Alexei S. Avtonomov (Head of the State Law Division, the Foundation for Development of Parliamentarism in Russia) made his presentation «Development of Parliamentarism: the Russian and International Know-How» to address the increasingly important issue of parliamentarism on a global scale, the trend being particularly conspicuous in the globalization era. The speaker emphasized that, while national parliaments (for example, the French National Assembly, US Congress) have incrementally grown more powerful, Russia has been no exception in that regard. Clearly, though parliamentarism meets the Russian state interests, the domestic parliament has yet to take full advantage of the accorded powers. One of the major drawbacks in the Russian parliament's performance is that the domestic legislature has not been built as a single body. While touching on the question of reforming the Council of Federation, the Russian parliament's upper house, in order to make it a permanently functional body, A.Avtonomov underscored the utility of such shifts under the proviso that the «senators» would have the capability to maintain close links with their regions. As the discussion progressed, the Russian parliament was found to feature a whole number of inefficiencies in the course of its engagements. A.Salmin, for one, maintains that the existing Council of Federation forming strategy and the relevant body of responsibilities do not appear to be in line with the pertinent range of constitutional functions and powers. Sergei N. Riabukhin (Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, Ul'yanovsk oblast) is convinced that, despite the hardships relating to the national effort to put in place the desired legal, political and economic base, the old structure of the Council of Federation was most productive, for it not only served many state functions but also helped keep the upper house from committing some irreversible blunders. Vladimir B. Isakov (Head of the Legal Department, the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation) passed the Kremlin's initiative to alter the Council of Federation shaping system as a mistake. The need for the Council of Federation to be subsequently reshaped also was upheld by the State Duma deputy Yaroslav M. Shvyriaev believing that Council of Federation seats should be contested. But then, Igor Yu. Dines (member of the State Duma) attributes the low level of responsibility shown by politicians in general to their lack of experience, knowledge and some sort of «passionate» charge. For his part, Moscow Duma deputy Stepan V. Orlov indicated that the inefficient constituency mapping strategy for the State Duma elections (with administrative units or territories rather than the numbers of voters in a given constituency being for the most part taken as a baseline) has been applied in violation of the principle of equal representation. À.Avtonomov shares the perspective of A.Salmin and Ya.Shvyriaev in that the Council of Federation enjoys the maximized legitimacy when its members are elected, the circumstance contributing to the upper chamber's level of constitutional accountability. Obviously, the existing system has been the result of a political compromise, and the key players are unlikely to be interested in altering the status quo. The first session was completed by Reinhardt Stuth (Counselor to the CDU/CSU faction in Bundestag) making his presentation «Problems of Monitoring, Controlling and Influencing the EU Decisions by the National Parliaments (EU Legislation on the Internal Market, Negotiations of Enlargement, Parliamentary Dimension of the European Security and Defense Policy)». R.Stuth presented his vision of the problems related to expansion of the mutually advantageous EU-Russia cooperation, functionality of Russian and EU official structures, and prospects for the latter alliance's growth. In his remarks R.Stuth particularly underscored that the European Union in the first place ought to seek and find solutions to the substantive issues, with member-countries proceeding from their national interests. Coming up with their comments on the presentation by R.Stuth were Vladimir Ryzhkov and Cesare Pinelli (Staff Professor of Italian Constitutional and Comparative Law, Director of the Department for Public Law and Theory of Management, University of Macerata) who focused on the possibilities for further integration of the EU countries, in general, and on the opportunities for development and subsequent passage of a single constitutional act to create a single European government in the long run, in particular. Professor Pinelli spoke of the need to draw a line between the legal-base-building effort to constitutionalize the European Union and the process aimed to adopt everyday decisions drafted to support specific tasks confronting the Union. The International Seminar's second session was dedicated to the topic «The State System and Politics in Russia». First the session heard «The Problems of Construction of the Presidential «Vertical»(the Council of Ministers, the Security Council, presidential representatives in the regions, the State Council)» — a blitz-report made by Alexei A. Kara-Murza, Valentin G. Stepankov and Vitaly V. Shlykov. In his brief presentation Alexei Kara-Murza (Director of the Center for Philosophical Research of the Russian Reforms, Institute of Philosophy, Russian Academy of Sciences) spoke of the most general regularities of development of the bodies of government in Russia. Throughout his remarks Professor Kara-Murza concentrated on analyzing the current historic moment reflecting the unusual specific features of the policy pursued by the President of the Russian Federation only to make the domestic political system clearly more simplistic. This trend provides a new challenge to the country and evidently holds a measure of danger. The overall simplification or streamlining approach makes a principal threat to the maintenance of public security, efficient functionality of the political system, and its real manageability. Possible upsides of that approach are only illusory in character. The «vertical of power» notion is defined by Kara-Murza as «total manageability of all political institutions and systems, including the national parliament». Notably, this is applicable not only to the new «interim» Council of Federation but also to the State Council and plenipotentiary presidential representatives in the regions. A.Kara-Murza came out against turning the presidential representatives into a special administrative body. He suggested that this institution's expert and watchdog capacities should be improved and applied in order to support the pressing tasks in the territories. While sticking to the question of presidential representatives in the federal districts, Valentin Stepankov (Deputy Plenipotentiary Representative of the President of the Russian Federation in the Volga Federal District) pointed out that the representatives from the center were not just some figureheads filling out a new management niche: those officials were badly needed to meet the growing challenges. He did not believe that the standing of presidential representatives was overblown, adding that the specified powers and responsibilities were measured to reflect the presidential influence in the regions. The concluding presenter on the topic Vitaly Shlykov (IFIT expert, CFDP member) focused on one of the key problems related to developing an effective mechanism to manage the armed forces of a large country. The problem has to do with the need to specify the head of state's functions in the area of running the country's armed forces, particularly, his powers as commander-in-chief. Given the rapidly growing sophistication of the military matters and their increasing differentiation as compared to the questions of policy, the burden of military leadership proper ought to be placed on the qualified experts and professional military, and not on the head of state. This approach is in line with the world experience. The debate on the current state of health of the Russian law-enforcement system was opened by Mikhail A. Krasnov (Vice-President of «INDEM» Foundation) making his presentation «The Reform of the Legal and Judicial System». Having made an overview of the difficulties encountered in the process of running a judicial reform in the Russian Federation in the early 1990s, the presenter concluded that the country had in fact experienced no real revolutionary shifts over the past decade. Today that deficiency is being made up for through the use of «manual control» exercised by the super-powerful executive structures. Over the reform years in Russia the society has failed to receive truly authoritative and trustworthy courts. In general, no high respect for or full confidence in the justice-administering bodies have been inculcated among the people. In fact, no new judicial system to stand up for human rights has been put in place. However, the unreformed elements (the militia, courts, prosecutor offices, public attorneys) of the Soviet-origin judicial system have been preserved. Given the circumstance, the tasks of reforming the judicial system and creating new mechanisms to defend human rights should in the near term be the key challenges for the Russian government, according to M.Krasnov. Notably, the first-order judicial system reform tasks also include transforming the General Prosecutor's Office and its regional branches, getting them freed from police functions and providing for true independence of judges. Apart from that, another big challenge is to change the legal mindset of the functional judges who now need to operate in line with a totally different sequence of values. The existing priority of state interests ought to be phased out by the priority of personal rights and legal interests. It is only under this kind of condition that Russian courts would be perceived differently by the Russian public. As he proceeded to elaborate on the question of Russian judicial reform, A.Avtonomov pointed out that, unfortunately, regular Russian citizens came to be of no big relevance to the courts and that nobody could feel assured against the risk of arbitrary rulings. A.Avtonomov directly called for a qualified panel of judges to be established and authorized to pass judgments on the judges who happen to have breached the law, for example, by denying the applicant the right to have access to the court. Most of the Seminar participants shared the view expressed by Vladimir M. Platonov (Speaker of the Moscow Duma) that a «big leap» in the Russian judicial system reform had been prepared behind the scenes, with the general public being kept unaware. Meantime, holding that that the General Prosecutor's Office makes no integral part of the judicial authority, V.Platonov suggested that the Constitution of the Russian Federation should carry a special provision on the status of this governing body. As he came to respond to the criticisms targeted at the General Prosecutor's Office, V.Stepankov explained that the Russian arrangement for that Office had a provisional character. He went on to say that the Russian prosecutors over the last years had successfully tackled their tasks, including the jobs related to the general supervision function. While standing in support of an open and fully transparent judicial system reform in Russia, V.Stepankov nonetheless holds that any radical solution would bring more harm than good. The next topic «Federal Districts and Regional Authorities» was covered by Leonid V. Smirniagin (Member of the Scientific Council, Moscow Carnegie Center) who made his presentation to describe the discrepancies in the operation of the institution of plenipotentiary representatives of the President of the Russian Federation. Those glitches mostly have to do with the society and mass media erroneously perceiving the roles played by the presidential agents in the regions. As a matter of fact, people seek to make the presidential representatives engage in unspecified matters and oppose the local governors, the attitude holding a risk of major problems. On the whole, L.Smirniagin made a positive assessment of the effort pursued over the past year by the presidential agents in order to create a general understanding in the country that the federal legislation is preemptive to all regional statutes. Meantime, he came out against the possibility of setting up new regions on the basis of federal districts, while believing that in the conditions of a «loose» country that option could only produce a division of the state. Notably, the presenter also gave his definition of the «vertical of power» notion. He viewed it as «an opportunity for the government to have an administrative move transmitted throughout the power pyramid». However, L.Smirniagin is convinced that an effort to improve the vertical of power essentially amounts to a counter-federalization process within the center-region relationship, while the presidential moves have in fact been intended to build a unitary state in the Russian Federation. As he proceeded to comment on the presentation by Leonid Smirniagin,
Sergei Riabukhin underscored that the efforts of federal districts
could be optimized through the agency of presidential representatives.
For her part, Tatiana A. Shtukina (Head of Information and Research,
Office of the Plenipotentiary Representative of the President
of the Russian Federation in the Central Federal District) agreed
that people's expectations with regard to the presidential representatives
came to go beyond the powers which the latter were allowed to
enjoy. She hoped that those perceptions would be adequate and
fully in line with the actual status of those government officials. Pressing questions of financial and economic support for municipal governments were covered by Il'ya V. Lomakin-Rumiantsev (President of the Foundation for Integrated Applied Research Studies), V.Ryzhkov, Ya.Shvyriaev, A.Salmin and Leonid I. Bindar (Member of the Council of Federation). State Duma deputy Andrei A. Klimov maintains that the Russian society lacks a clear understanding of the essence of local governance. To prove his observation, A.Klimov referred to a recently aired viewpoint under which any real local governance can only exist within a community where people know each other and where they «can walk to the local town-hall». In the presentation «Italy's Transition to the Second Republic: Problems and Prospects» Professor Pinelli shared his knowledge on how the Italian municipal governments are functioning. In particular, he described the on-going differences between the developed North and less industrialized South in the areas of politics, economics and culture. Vladimir Platonov made his presentation on «Stable Development of Russia and the Regions as the State Policy and National Idea» to underpin the need to draft and adopt a national concept or scenario for sustainable development, the overriding goal being not only to enable the country to meet its international commitments but also come up with a list of strategic priorities and tasks in order to secure stability in the areas of environmental security, economy and policy. The last featured speaker was State Duma deputy V.Ryzhkov, whose presentation «Political Parties and Electoral Legislation» was based on the research of numerous public survey materials and in-depth analysis of the current status of political parties in the Russian society. He managed to identify the principal stumbling blocks on the path of building a civilized political party structure reflective of the needs put forward by a civil society. However, V.Ryzhkov believes it is hardly possible to put into effect the core objectives held by the presidential draft of the law on political parties (cutting down on the numbers of political parties, growing the size of party organizations, creating massive parties). The reasons for that pessimism lie in the people's perception of political parties, according to V.Ryzhkov. Few are those who really hold that political parties either stand for people's interests or make an essential part of the society's political system. The presenter concluded that the party idea and party system were neither parts of the society's perception of the domestic life nor observable facts of the current realities. At the present time, political parties in Russia evidently fail to perform their primary functions. They fail to draft or offer for implementation any creative and disparate national development programs. What is more, they fail to operate as personnel selection vehicles or play an active role in shaping the executive bodies. Russian parties are positively on the periphery of the country's political system, and they mostly perform as debating clubs for political elites. Should this state of affairs be preserved, the country would continue to be ruled by non-party bureaucrats, with the problems of people's involvement in politics and public oversight to preserve democracy remaining unresolved. Unless things are changed for the better in this particular regard, we will continue to see a virtual democracy of public surveys rather than a participatory democracy in Russia. Viktor I. Alksnis (State Duma deputy) and V.Isakov identified
the executive branch as the principal player particularly interested
in the progress of the political party reform in order to pursue
its own interests. The current political party system in Russia
has been the result of the unbalanced growth of the country's
economy and obvious differentiation of the economic interests,
according to V.Isakov. Unless this state of affairs is resolutely
balanced out and fresh economic «roots» are planted,
Russia is unlikely to be equipped to create anything new in this
field of human endeavor. Most of the Seminar participants (including
L.Smirniagin, State Duma deputy Vladimir E. Koptev-Dvornikov)
came out against the executive power's interference in the party-building
effort through the use of administrative measures. V.Koptev-Dvornikov
believes that the draft law on political parties is mostly deficient
in that it holds tools to put inordinate pressure on the existing
political structures rather than in that it contains the heightened
thresholds for prospective builders of those or other new organizations.
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