Grem Robertson - The Politics of Protest in Hybrid Regimes: Managing Dissent in Post-Communist Russia

The Politics of Protest in Hybrid Regimes Since the end of the Cold War, more and more countries feature political regimes that are neither liberal democracies nor closed authoritarian systems. Most research on these hybrid regimes focuses on how elites manipulate elections to stay in offi ce, but in places as diverse as Bolivia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Serbia, Thailand, Ukraine, and Venezuela, protest in the streets has been at least as important as elections in determining the fate of governments. The Politics of Protest in Hybrid Regimes builds on previously unpublished data and extensive fi eldwork in Russia to show how one high-profi le hybrid regime manages political competition in the workplace and in the streets. More generally, the book develops a theory of how the nature of organizations in society, state strategies for mobilizing supporters, and elite competition shape political protest in hybrid regimes.

Graeme B. Robertson is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research focuses on labor, social movements, political protest, and the problems of governance in authoritarian regimes. He has published articles in the American Political Science Review ,

Comparative Politics , the

Slavic

Review , Communist and Post-Communist Studies , Pro et Contra , and the Journal of Democracy .

The Politics of Protest in Hybrid Regimes

Managing Dissent in Post-Communist Russia

GRAEME B. ROBERTSON

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

cambridge university press

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Cambridge University Press

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Graeme B. Robertson 2011

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2011

Printed in the United States of America

A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication data Robertson, Graeme B., 1969

The politics of protest in hybrid regimes : managing dissent in post-communist Russia / Graeme B. Robertson.

p. cm.

isbn 978-0-521-11875-0 (hardback)

1. Dissenters Russia (Federation) 2. Protest movements Russia (Federation) 3. Russia (Federation) Politics and government 1991 I. Title.

dk510.763.r63 2010

322.40947dc22 2010031357

isbn 978-0-521-11875-0 Hardback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls for external or third-party Internet Web sites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Web sites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

To George and Ena Robertson,

for their example, encouragement, and unconditional love.

[a scholar] begins timidly, moderately, he begins by asking a most modest question: is it not from here? Does not a certain country derive its name from that particular place? He immediately quotes such and such ancient writers, and as soon as he detects some kind of a hint, or something that he believes to be a hint, he at once becomes emboldened and self-confi dent, talks to the writers of antiquity like an old friend, puts questions to them and supplies the answers himself, forgetting completely that he has begun with a timid supposition; he already believes that he can see it all, that everything is clear and his argument is concluded with the words: So that is how it was . Then he proclaims it ex cathedra , for all to hear, and the newly discovered truth is sent traveling all over the world, gathering followers and disciples.

Nikolai Gogol, Dead Souls

Contents

List of Tables

page xi

List of Figures

xiii

Acknowledgments

xv

Introduction

1

Hybrid Regimes

4

Russian Lessons and a Theory of Protest in Hybrids

6

Theoretical Implications

8

Literature on Contentious Politics and SocialMovements

8

Industrial Confl ict

11

Hybrid Regimes and Repression

11

Politics in Russia through the Lens of Protest

13

Structure of the Book

16

1

Protest and Regimes: Organizational Ecology, Mobilization Strategies, and Elite Competition

18

How Regimes Affect Contention

19

Protest in Democracies

19

Protest in Closed Autocracies

20

Protest in Hybrid Regimes

22

Organizational Ecology

24

State Mobilizing Strategies

30

Elite Competition

34

Summary of Regime Effects on Contention

35

How Contention Affects Regimes

38

2

Protest and Regime in Russia

40

Post-Communism and Protest

42

Data on Protest

44

What, Who, and Why

49

Protest Repertoires

51

vii

viii

Contents

Protest Participants

55

Nature of the Demands Made

59

Conclusion: Protests without Movements

62

3

The Geography of Strikes

67

Strike Patterns

69

The Ecology of Organizations and Protest

72

Labor: Trading Cooperation for Survival

73

Social Partnership at the Regional Level

75

Mobilization Strategies, Elite Competition,

and

Strike

Patterns

79

Hypotheses and Measures

81

Political Power

81

Other Resources

82

Capacity

83

Alternative Explanations: Business Cycles, Information,and

Hardship

84

Strike Data

87

Models and Results

88

Other Forms of Protest

94

Organizational Realities and Hybrid Regimes

97

4

A Time for Trouble

100

Protest and Time

101

Demonetization, Wage Arrears, and Protest

105

Center-Periphery Confl ict Over Rules and Resources

109

Primakovs Appointment and Protest Dynamics

112

Conclusion

123

5

Elections and the Decline of Protest

124

Political Protest and the Paradox of the 1999 Elections

126

Theories of Protest Decline

130

Putins Political Strategy and Protest Decline

132

Parallel Elections and the Separation of the Nationaland

the

Local

137

Denationalizing Protest

141

Conclusion: Bandwagons, Protest, and Regime

145

6

Vladimir Putin and Defeat-Proofi ng the System

147

Incorporating Labor into the Vertical

149

Enlisting the Regional Political Machines

151

Defeat-Proofi ng the Electoral System

155

A New Electoral Party of Power

156

Political Product Differentiation: Sponsored Parties