Ruling with decrees: presidential decree making in Russia and Ukraine

Abstract

THERE IS A GENERAL UNDERSTANDING IN THE LITERATURE on post-communist transition of the importance of presidential decree making for explaining the nature of the political process and policy-making outcomes both in Russia and Ukraine. 1 At the same time, there have been very few studies dealing specifically with this aspect of presidential activity. Remington et al. 2 and Parrish 3 analysed how presidential decree-making powers were used in Russia during the first years of democratic transition and Mishler et al. 4 discussed in great detail the patterns of use of one type of presidential decree, defined as normative decrees, during the 1991–98 period in Russia. While these studies examined only certain types of presidential decrees, this article attempts to provide a detailed overview of the total decree output across six presidential terms in Russia and Ukraine between 1991 and 2002. It examines the temporal evolution of decree-making practices over time and analyses differences between countries in the patterns of use of decree powers by the presidents. It also discusses political factors that contributed to differences in the frequency of use of decree-making powers and to variation in the substantive focus of the presidential decrees across countries and over time. It contributes to the existing literature by addressing some of the major issues raised in these studies, such as the policy scope and policy relevance of presidential decrees, the evidence for the existence of a political business cycle in decree use, and the expectation of a gradual decrease in the use of policy-related decrees over time. Expanding the scope of research on presidential decree making both thematically and temporally also allows me to draw attention to some aspects of decree authority use that have been overlooked, such as the effects of differences in presidential leadership style and the level of institutionalisation of the presidency, the increased salience of unpublished decrees in overall decree output that offsets some of the decline in numbers of policy-related decrees, the large magnitude of appointment decrees and their critical importance for maintaining huge patronage systems and securing the presidents’ ability to shape political and policy processes.