In this week’s Russian media highlights, commentator Tatiana Stanovaya argues in Carnegie.ru that Putin released the Ukrainian pilot Nadezhda Savchenko hoping to improve Russia’s relationship with the West, even though the exchange was a bad option for the Kremlin. And political scientist Alexander Rubtsov argues in Vedomosti that the current discussion of reform in Russia lacks a number of crucial components, such as “when” and “how.” In the Western media, professor Timothy Frye in Foreign Affairs offers an explanation for why Western experts tend to misunderstand Russian politics today. And in the Atlantic, Olga Khazan reports on a study that could shed some light on Russians’ dislike of smiling faces.
Photo: Oleksander / TASS
From Russia
Savchenko’s Release: Did the Kremlin Show Mercy, Weakness, or Pragmatism?
Tatiana Stanovaya, Carnegie.ru
The release of Ukrainian pilot Nadezhda Savchenko was an expected move on behalf of the Kremlin, which has recently been trying to establish a dialogue with the West to mitigate political risks for Putin’s regime. Historically, Putin doesn’t grant pardons unless the convicted person appeals for mercy—a gesture the regime interprets as an admission of guilt. Since Savchenko prohibited her lawyers from writing such an appeal, the Russian authorities had to manipulate the situation, publicly basing their decision on the fact that relatives of the TV journalists allegedly killed by Savchenko’s cross-fire appealed for mercy for her. A similar scenario unfolded in Ukraine, where Russian servicemen Alexander Alexandrov and Yevgeny Yerofeyev, convicted of terrorism, were pardoned and sent back to Russia. This symbolic exchange of prisoners was a bad option for the Kremlin, but still an acceptable one. In a better scenario, the Kremlin hoped to exchange Savchenko for two other Russian citizens—Viktor But and Konstantin Yaroshenko—who are serving time in the United States. The author notes that Putin seems to have made the decision about Savchenko personally, based on exclusively pragmatic reasons and disregarding the fact that 51 percent of Russians strongly approved of the Savchenko’s trial and the harsh verdict.
The Choice Without a Choice: Why the Economic Council Will Support Kudrin’s Plan
Oleg Buklemishev, RBC
The Russian government has started a serious discussion on the country’s economic reforms for the first time in the last ten years. The debate can be boiled down to a choice between two paradigms: stimulating the economy through fiscal measures (as proposed by the Stolypin Club) and austerity measures with the goal of achieving macroeconomic stability, which would become a basis for further development (as suggested by former finance minister Alexei Kudrin). But the author observes that the two paradigms are not as contradictory as they first seem: both plans call for structural reforms and liberalization of the business environment. The problem is that the government has gotten so used to doing nothing that today it remains in an “institutional comfort [zone]” and sees no real incentives for reforms, interpreting the current situation as not critical. The author predicts that, as a result, the government is likely to choose Kudrin’s plan, which is essentially close to current policies. In other words, despite the discussion, the time for real economic policy has yet to come. But sooner or later, the moment of truth will arrive.
Reforms Without Time
Alexander Rubtsov, Vedomosti
Deconstructing the current discussion on reform and its language against the background of today’s political challenges, Alexander Rubtsov, head of the Department of the Philosophical Studies of Ideological Processes, concludes that Russia has fallen into a historical trap. Once again, economists offer various scenarios for reform, focusing on policy details and ignoring the crucial questions of “when” and “how.” This brings to light two issues. First, “in these scenarios, [Russia’s] fallback in terms of time is already guaranteed: it’s impossible to live according to the old ways—but people are only planning to start living anew.” Second, it’s pointless to launch a new series of reforms without proper analysis of the errors of previous attempts at reform, i.e., without understanding the problems inherent in the general trajectory. Rubtsov notes that the way reforms are presented to the government is also important, and those who propose them need to integrate a convincing sense of urgency into their proposals. “If ‘horror stories’ don’t scare or persuade the government [to start the reforms now], that may just as well be a result of the [insufficient] quality of the proposals.”
From the West
Why IR Theory Gets Russia Wrong
Timothy Frye, Foreign Affairs
Tymothy Frye, professor of post-Soviet foreign policy and the former director of the Harriman Institute at Columbia University, discusses why Western experts so often get Russia wrong. The problem, he suggests, is that the “two most prominent arguments about political change make precisely opposite predictions about Russia.” The first theory is based on studies of political transitions from various types of authoritarianism to democracy. Research of the period from 1948 to 2008 shows that personalistic authoritarian regimes such as Russia tend to experience “rocky political transitions,” as change is more “likely to occur via non-constitutional means, such as coups or revolts, than through constitutional means.” Frye also points out that 80 percent of personalistic rulers “ended in exile, jail, or below ground,” which makes such regimes the least prone to change. The second theory provides a more optimistic outlook by drawing upon the correlation between higher levels of income and education and more democratic forms of rule. According to this argument, Russia is too rich and educated to remain non-democratic. Today, the consensus of Western experts is that Russia is unlikely to change soon, but Frye argues that predicting Russia’s future is particularly challenging if one blindly follows one of these theories. “Instead, observers need to keep an open mind about Russia’s political future,” he says.
Ukraine Defeated Russia — at Eurovision. Here’s Why that Matters
Robert Seely, The Washington Post
Robert W. H. Seely, a research associate at the University of Oxford’s Changing Character of War Program, reviews Eurovision, the recent song contest, as a juxtaposition of Russia and Ukraine’s use of soft power. Early this May, he writes, Russia “pulled off a media masterstroke” by arranging a concert in the Syrian city of Palmyra, thus demonstrating to the world its military and cultural power and its triumphant defeat over the barbarism of ISIS. However, a few weeks later, Russia lost in a different competition—to Ukraine—at a “kitchy Europe-wide TV talent show.” Seely argues that the Palmyra concert could be “the most successful soft-power event that Russia has orchestrated in recent years,” because it reached wide audiences around the globe and touched people’s emotions. But at Eurovision, Ukrainian singer Jamala presented her song “1944” on the deportation of the Crimean Tatars under Stalin—a song that was charged with symbolism and suggested parallels with the 2014 annexation of Crimea. Despite the fact that Russia has a wide arsenal of soft-power tools, it lost at Eurovision because Jamala’s political message was delivered to “hundreds of millions in Europe and globally.” “Winning Eurovision put Crimea’s Tatars back on the map, and Russia, softly, in the dock,” concludes Seely.
Why Some Cultures Frown on Smiling
Olga Khazan, The Atlantic
Atlantic journalist Olga Khazan grew up in the United States but was born to Russian parents, and, like many people in the West, she has long wondered why Russian people, including her family members, almost never smile in photographs. A possible explanation is given in a recent research study conducted by Kuba Krys, a psychologist at the Polish Academy of Sciences. Krys analyzed a cultural phenomenon called “uncertainty avoidance.” According to his theory, cultures that are “low on this scale tend to have social systems—courts, health-care systems, safety nets, and so forth—that are unstable. Therefore, people there view the future as unpredictable and uncontrollable.” As a result, smiling, which is usually interpreted as a sign of certainty and confidence, may seem odd or stupid to people from those countries. Krys conducted an experiment: a series of eight pictures showing smiling and non-smiling faces was shown to thousands of people in 44 different countries. Participants were asked to judge the faces on a scale of honesty and intelligence. It turned out that in countries like Germany, Switzerland, China, and Malaysia, “smiling faces were rated as significantly more intelligent than non-smiling people.” But in Japan, India, Iran, South Korea, and Russia interpretations were quite the opposite. Meanwhile, in India, Argentina, and the Maldives, “smiling was associated with dishonesty,” a fact that could be attributed to their high levels of corruption.
