Abstract
The relationship between the autocrat and other elites—such as oligarchs, military strongmen and regional executives—is part and parcel of authoritarian regimes. The autocrats need elite loyalty to survive; in electoral authoritarian regimes, they also need elite support to win elections. The elites, for their part, are interested in long-term access to rents and privileges. This relationship is potentially a zero-sum game: both sides want to maximize their power and are reluctant to share it. Electoral, legislative, and partisan institutions can mitigate the problem of authoritarian power-sharing and contribute to the longevity of authoritarian regimes by ensuring elite cohesion and minimizing instability. Thus, much of the recent literature on autocracies has focused on these institutions. Ora John Reuter’s book adds a crucial piece to the jigsaw puzzle of authoritarian stability by analyzing an important type of authoritarian institutions: the dominant party.
Authoritarian elections are arenas of asymmetric conflict between the dominant party and the opposition parties. Dominant parties exploit state resources to prevent free and fair electoral competition and to remain in power. They also organize the exchanges over policy and patronage between the leader and the elites. Why do dominant parties emerge in some authoritarian regimes, but not in others? According to Reuter, the key is in the intra-elite balance of power. The distribution of political resources between the leader and other elites “affects each side’s incentives to cooperate and invest in an institutional solution to the commitment problem” (p. 22). When leaders are very strong, they lack incentives to restrain themselves by cooperating with other elite actors and are hesitant to invest in a dominant party. Similarly, when elites control autonomous resources, they are less likely to commit to a dominant party. Therefore, dominant parties will emerge when elites hold enough resources that leaders need to co-opt them, but not enough resources to prevent co-optation.
The Origins of Dominant Parties examines the argument above in the context of post-Communist Russia. Russia is especially relevant case because “there is significant variation in the dependent variable over a short span of time” (p. 24). During the 1990s, two attempts to create a dominant party resulted in failures. However, in 2000s, United Russia rose to dominance. Reuter draws on extensive fieldwork in Russia to argue that these outcomes resulted from shifts in the balance of power between major political actors. During Yeltsin’s presidency, the combination of strong regional elites and weak central government prevented the creation of a dominant party. Russia’s regional elites acquired significant autonomy and were reluctant to link their fates to Russia’s Choice (1993) and Our Home is Russia (1995). In turn, Yeltsin himself was hesitant to invest resources in pro-presidential parties; as he could not control the governors, he preferred to keep them divided.
Late in the electoral cycle of 1999–2000, the pro-regime electoral block Unity was created. Less than a month before the 1999 parliamentary elections, the block was endorsed by Putin, at the time a popular prime minister and likely presidential candidate. Unity outperformed earlier pro-regime parties in 1999 elections and Putin won the 2000 presidential elections in a landslide. In 2001, United Russia was formally created, following the merger of Unity with other pro-regime groupings. During Putin’s first term, the growth of the Russian economy and Putin’s high approval rating shifted the balance of resources between the center and the regions in the Kremlin’s favor and enabled significant recentralization. But Putin still needed the collective support of regional elites to govern Russia effectively. Therefore, the Kremlin decided to bet on United Russia as its primary electoral vehicle: Putin endorsed the party again in the 2003 elections and agreed to head a United Russia party list in the 2007 elections. Respectively, the elites had no choice but to cooperate with the Kremlin by joining United Russia to retain their access to rents and some policy influence.
According to Reuter, dominant parties are mutually beneficial to leaders and elites. For the Kremlin, the party ensured the victories of pro-regime candidates and produced stable majorities in the national and regional legislatures. The elites benefited as well. The legislative dominance of United Russia allowed its members to influence policy and those joining the party received valuable opportunities for career advancement and personal enrichment. Did those expectations affect the decisions of individual elite actors to join United Russia in the first place? Reuter’s results lend support to his argument: the availability of resources affected the calculations of elites. As the balance of power shifted toward the Kremlin, more governors joined United Russia. However, those with autonomous political resources (clientelist networks, control over the economy, the ability to mobilize ethnic sentiments, and so on) were the last to join. Similarly, deputies with autonomous economic resources were less likely to join United Russia factions in regional legislatures, compared with deputies that were employed in state-dependent enterprises.
Reuter’s ability to explore the individual-level mechanisms behind his macro-level argument is among the book’s strongest features. The cross-national test of the argument is another impressive achievement. Using binary time-series-cross-section analysis, Reuter examines the emergence of dominant parties in non-democracies between 1946 and 2008. The results show that dominant parties are more likely to form when political resources are balanced between leaders and elites.
One potentially controversial aspect of the study is Reuter’s assessment of United Russia’s role in Russian politics. He rightly notes that the party lacks control over the executive branch. But other reliable accounts suggest that it also lacks control over the legislative branch, as the Kremlin directly sets the parliamentary agenda. Putin continues to endorse United Russia, but he is not a party member and his popularity significantly outstrips the popularity of United Russia. Does United Russia have an autonomous agency or is it merely a branch of Putin’s Presidential Administration? Reuter’s analysis suggests the former, but the jury is still out. Recent developments in Russian politics suggest the possibility of an increase in the de facto powers of the Duma, under its new chairman Vyacheslav Volodin. These developments, together with the presidential elections in 2018, will shed more light on the real role of United Russia within Russia’s authoritarian system.