The Double Monopoly and Its Technologists: The Russian Preemptive Counterrevolution

Abstract

(ProQuest: ... denotes non-USASCII text omitted.)Ukraine's Orange Revolution captivated Russian elites' attention like few other events in recent decades. A small segment of these elites welcomed Oranges's victory, but a far larger portion cursed it. Neither side would deny, however, that these events have built a new frame of reference for Russian politics. Subsequent events, such as 2006 gas war, which Russian government unsuccessfully launched against Ukraine, added to ambivalent sentiments of hostility and dependency. Frightened by a pro-European revolution in a country that Russian elites historically called Little and perceived as a backward, though culturally similar, colony since eighteenth century, Russian leadership revised and radicalized its policies. The Kremlin's speeches and actions revealed that it desired two monopolies: control over energy and control over application of violence.The rhetorical shift from liberalism and modernization to self-conscious reliance on this double monopoly became prominent only during Russian President Vladimir Putin's second term. In his first term, Putin and his administration maintained a general interest in such issues as democracy, social capital, knowledge economy, support of small businesses, competitiveness, and so on.1 With energy revenue steadily rising, however, Kremlin lost interest. The actual solidification of this new stance emerged because of Ukrainian Orange Revolution. Russian leaders found themselves presiding over processes determined by events beyond their control. In central and eastern European countries, peaceful revolutions in late 1980s and early 1990s were not entirely autonomous. The crises' domestic origins interacted with external models and pressures, which restricted national governments' ability to use force. When one country's revolution causes a chain reaction in other states with similar regimes, scholars typically talk about contagion, the domino effect, or the export of democracy.2 Evidently, exporting and importing regimes is easier when partners are geographically and culturally close. In eastern Europe, Nikita Khrushchev's 1956 secret speech caused Hungarian Revolution. In 1989, Soviet perestroika led to eastern European velvet revolutions. Communism's collapse in eastern Europe consequently influenced struggles in Soviet Union.3 Later, Soviet Union's disintegration served as template used in Balkans. The Serbian electoral revolution influenced similar processes in Georgia and Ukraine. The Georgian Rose Revolution's success was especially important for Ukraine. Currently, Russian debate rarely goes without a reference-hostile, envious, or ambivalent-to Orange Revolution.The Technologists' Democratic DecorationsIn Russia and Ukraine, ruling regimes consolidated their power while holding onto functioning decorations of a democratic order. In Belarus and Central Asian states, these decorations were considered irrelevant, allowing autocrats to gain a stronger grasp on power. As Scott Gates and his coauthors prove, institutionally inconsistent regimes (those exhibiting both democratic and autocratic institutional characteristics) have shorter life spans than democracies and autocracies.4 Putin's uneasy compromise with democracy, which helped Russia establish its position as an international partner, demanded state make serious but dramatically inconsistent investments. It produced a peculiar group of specialists from various backgrounds, which, in absence of special training, evolved into a band of self-selected, autodidactic mercenaries. In Russian, these specialists are called political technologists.5 Another name for them would be political designers or, rather, political decorators.6Democratic decoration is a difficult and risky art. …