Institute of Modern Russia

In December 2012, at a meeting of Vladimir Putin’s former election proxies as part of a two-day conference held in the Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Vyacheslav Volodin, the Kremlin’s first deputy chief of staff, declared that Russia’s democracy is unmatched by any country: “Our democracy [is] not just the best possible – nothing like it was, and still is, to be found in other countries.” The newly minted Russian citizen Gerard Depardieu, who recently praised Russia as “a country of great democracy,” shares Volodin’s opinion. Such declarations and assessments are by no means new: Lenin argued that the Soviet system was a “million times more democratic than the most democratic bourgeois republic”, while Stalin called the 1936 Soviet constitution “the only thoroughly democratic constitution in the world”. In many respects, the “kingdom of democracy” has already been built in Russia, and everything seems to be just fine, but the foreign enemy has not been sleeping. That is why many political leaders believe that real statist “patriots” must make every effort to ensure that the Russian state is “completely independent” of foreign political and economic influence.

The devious West has been skeptical about the idea that modern Russia is a democracy. Looking at numerous international comparative datasets, it is not difficult to notice that Russia’s current “neighbors” in those rankings are mostly third world countries rather than advanced democracies. For example, the Economist Intelligence Unit's 2011 Democracy Index ranked Russia 117th out of 167 countries, classifying it as an authoritarian regime. Madagascar immediately preceded Russia on this list, in 116th place, while Jordan and Nigeria fell immediately afterward, in 118th and 119th places respectively.

Experts suggest that in its best days, Russia was an “electoral democracy” or “semi-democracy,” a system that combines both democratic and authoritarian features.^{1, 2, 3} In the second half of the 1990s, Russia even embraced some elements of liberal democracy, although it lacked two major components—a developed civil society and commitment to the rule of law.^{2, 4} The “best days,” however, were short-lived. Freedom House's 2006 annual report on political rights and civil liberties designated Russia “not free” and stated that the country “is not an electoral democracy.”¹ The Russian regime was accused of a number of things, with one key charge being its crackdown on nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), especially those that receive funding from foreign sources.

It is not hard to answer the question of whether the situation in Russia has improved over the past six years. One might not even need to read the recent Freedom House report. Last year, the situation became completely transparent when the Russian leadership adopted a law that bestowed “foreign agent” status on “politically active” nonprofit organizations and closed off the major source of these NGOs’ funding—the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

The closure of the USAID mission in Russia on October 1, 2012, is most frequently explained in terms familiar to and widely used by many of modern Russia’s “neighbors” in the international democracy rankings: the agency, leaders say, was meddling in the country's internal affairs. According to Russia’s foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich, USAID’s activities were “attempts to influence political processes, including elections of various types, and institutions of civil society through the distribution of grants.” The domino effect that this produced led to the closure of multiple programs sponsored by USAID, as well as of the Russian offices of the International Republican Institute (IRI) and the National Democratic Institute (NDI). As Lisa Gates, an IRI spokeswoman, explained, "Russian officials informed IRI that since our program was funded by USAID, it had to leave the country like USAID did." Some of NDI’s staff has been moved from Russia to Lithuania.

It is important to note that the Russian authorities are not alone in their aspirations: the extensive experience of such countries as Sudan, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) reflect important similarities in domestic political practices. Unfortunately, because of its political leadership and choices, Russia is frequently lumped together with these countries in international rankings.

 

	The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index, 2011		Freedom in the World 2012, Freedom House
	Regime Type	Rank	Freedom Status	Political Rights	Civil Liberties
Russia	Authoritarian	117	Not Free	6	5
Sudan	Authoritarian	153	Not Free	7	7
Egypt	Hybrid	115	Not Free	6	5
UAE	Authoritarian	149	Not Free	6	6

 

Note: According to the latest Freedom House report, Freedom in the World 2013, Egypt’s rating in the index of political rights improved from 6 to 5, while its status changed to “partly free.” This change was a result of the presidential election that, in many respects, “was close to international standards.” Freedom House believes, however, that harassment of NGOs in Egypt continues.

 

For several years, the Sudanese authorities have been involved in an intensive fight against foreign NGOs. In 2009, after an international arrest warrant was issued for President Omar al-Bashir charging him with war crimes and genocide, the government of Sudan expelled multiple foreign aid organizations from the country. Ostensibly, the reason behind that decision was the belief that these organizations had been passing “fabricated” information to the International Criminal Court (ICC). Thirteen foreign NGOs were forced to leave the country, and the licenses of three domestic organizations were revoked.

In the summer of 2012, Sudan ordered four other organizations out of the country. The authorities claimed that their decision was based on unsatisfactory implementation of the NGOs’ projects. According to the BBC, however, the NGOs were expelled because the government believed that they were working to destabilize the country’s political situation. Typically, Sudanese authorities have claimed that foreign organizations are connected with the ICC and “unnamed foreign powers”.

One of the most recent initiatives of the Sudanese authorities is the establishment of a committee to review the demands of foreign NGOs to conduct operations in the country. It is expected that in addition to authorizing or declining applications, the committee will monitor NGOs’ activities, offer suggestions on developing regulations and submit them to the relevant bodies. The committee will be chaired by a representative from the defense ministry.

In 2011, the Egyptian authorities launched a large-scale crackdown on NGOs. In the summer of 2011, shortly after the fall of Hosni Mubarak’s regime, Social Solidarity Minister Gouda Abdel Khaliq warned civil society organizations against applying for foreign grants and called “direct U.S. funding to Egyptian NGOs a violation of Egyptian sovereignty.” Additionally, the minister outlined a plan to form a committee that would monitor the activities of civil society organizations and NGOs, and to explore options for tightening legislative control over foreign funding.

 

Repressive policies did not save Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's regime when hundreds of thousands of people went to the streets of Belgrade in October 2000 to protest against the rigged election.

 

At the end of 2011, following a carefully planned media campaign, the Egyptian authorities raided and confiscated equipment in the offices of 11 local and international NGOs (mostly human rights organizations), including Freedom House, NDI, and IRI. Forty-three employees were arrested. The NGOs themselves were charged with operating in Egypt without a license and receiving illegal foreign funding. International Cooperation Minister Fayza Abul Naga explained the principal reason for the arrests when he accused the U.S. of attempting to establish a political direction that would serve the interests of America and Israel after Mubarak’s fall.

Thomas Carothers, an expert at the Carnegie Endowment, asserted that “never before has a government attacked democracy programs in such a pointed, harsh way”. Freedom House concludes that despite the regime change and hopes for a democratic transition, the situation in Egypt has not changed, and that familiar rhetoric dominates the political discourse, with all the blame placed on “foreign meddling.”

Events have developed in a similar way in the UAE. In spring 2012, the NDI and Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, a German think tank associated with Angela Merkel’s ruling Christian Democratic Union, were ordered out of the country. According to Les Campbell, NDI’s regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, “authorities visited the office and said the license had been canceled, but did not say why”. A branch of the U.S. research firm Gallup was also forced to close its doors in the UAE. In December 2012, the RAND Corporation, an American global policy think tank, was added to the list of expellees.

The official explanation for these closures was failure to follow the agreed-upon license requirements. The real reason, however, appears to be related to the authorities’ concern about potential protest activity. Samer Muscati, an expert at Human Rights Watch, suggests that "the [UAE] government is still frightened by the events transpiring in the Middle East and is trying to do what it takes to keep the Arab Spring from reaching its shore, regardless of how small that possibility might be."

In his first post-inauguration interview with Russia Today television channel, President Vladimir Putin said that the events of the Arab Spring had “a historic logic.” According to Putin, “the leaders of these countries have obviously overlooked the need for change and missed ongoing trends at home and abroad, so they failed to produce the reforms which would have saved the day.” Following this line of argument, one might conclude that the expanded protest activity is not due to evil “foreign powers” but rather is rooted in an increased public recognition of the importance of change at a time when the authorities are incapable of addressing (or are unwilling to address) the problems facing society. However, there is a wide gap between political rhetoric and government practice in Russia. The Kremlin’s efforts to crack down on NGOs—an initiative that gained additional force with the passage of the “Anti-Magnitsky Law” – serve as adequate evidence of this gap.

Worst of all, it is the ordinary citizens who suffer most from these political games and saber rattling. It is worth remembering that the USAID programs in Russia were aimed both at supporting civil society and at addressing complex social issues. Among the key USAID objectives in Russia were providing support in the fights against HIV and tuberculosis, protecting the rights of people with disabilities, and protecting the environment. The eviction of “evil” foreign organizations from Sudan led to significant problems for what was once the world’s largest humanitarian mission, which provided the population with safe drinking water, food, and medical care. In Egypt and the UAE, multiple NGOs were forced to cancel a whole range of significant projects in such areas as humanitarian relief, trade, culture, and education.

Perhaps the “kingdom of democracy” and its “neighbors” in the international rankings consider such “minor things” unimportant. It is likely that the Russian regime will continue with the chosen course. Hidden beneath the rhetoric of preventing foreign meddling and destabilization and protecting national sovereignty is the authorities’ desire to protect their own political interests, including that of retaining power by any means necessary. It is, however, worth asking if the eviction or decapitation of the “foreign enemy” will help Russia solve its significant internal problems and contradictions. One might recall the example of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, who also blamed foreign powers for “interfering.” The root causes of the protests in Yugoslavia, however, were very different (and domestic); and the closure of NGOs and limitations on foreign funding did not, in the end, help Milosevic save his regime.

 

References

1. Freedom House. (2007). Freedom in the World 2007: Russia. Retrieved from http://www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2007/russia.

2. Schedler, A. (1998). What is democratic consolidation? Journal of Democracy 9 (2): 91–107.

3. Busygina, I. M., & Zakharov, A. A. (2009). Obschestvenno-politicheskiy lexicon [Social and political lexicon], Institute of International Studies. Moscow: Moscow State Institute of International Relations.

4. Taylor, B. D. (2011). State building in Putin’s Russia: Policing and coercion after communism. Cambridge University Press.