Alexander Clarkson. Political Insight. Volume 9, Issue 1. February 2018.
As the ongoing conflict between Ukraine and Russia drags on into its fifth year, the one political issue that seems to unite both societies is anger with endemic corruption. Since 2000, opinion polls have put corruption near the top of the list of issues that most concern the public in both countries. Two decades after the fall of the Soviet Union, dysfunctional state institutions and deep social injustice have entrenched corrupt practices throughout its successor states. Public resentment at how graft at the highest levels of government remains largely unpunished, continues to have the potential to fuel popular rejection of an already brittle political status quo in both societies.
Corrupted politics
In Russia, significant levels of public disquiet over the persistence of corruption lingered, even as a political equilibrium put in place by Vladimir Putin’s power vertical limited the socially disruptive effects of graft. As Vladimir Gel’man has pointed out, with memories of the social collapse of the 1990s still strong during the first Putin presidency, much of the Russian population was willing to accept a degree of elite theft in exchange for everyday stability. Yet the fact that Russian security services regularly arrest expendable members of the elite in a spectacular fashion, demonstrates how those ruling Russia still believe public concern over corruption is significant enough to be a potent weapon in their own factional battles.
In Ukraine by contrast, the competitive nature of the political system even survived Leonid Kuchma’s moves to consolidate his position in the early 2000s and Viktor Yanukovych’s attempt to manipulate the 2004 elections. In both cases, a mixture of popular and elite resistance helped sustain a relatively open society in which civil society activists and reformers within state institutions could lay the basis for change. Yet a legislature and executive riven with factional rivalries also made it difficult for reform to make headway in a political economy in which oligarchs battled for survival. While Putin’s control set clear limits on the influence of economic elites, the lack of any equivalent power centre in Ukraine meant that corruption spiralled out of control, in a manner that paved the way for the comeback of Viktor Yanukovych in 2010.
Despite these growing divergences between Ukraine and Russia, the financial crisis of 2008 had an equally destabilising effect on both societies. In Ukraine, the surge in gas and oil prices that followed, strengthened oligarchs closely aligned with Russia and enabled the pro-Kremlin Viktor Yanukovych to consolidate power after 2010. In Russia, this huge leap in commodity prices enabled Vladimir Putin to invest heavily in military reform, while sustaining high spending on projects that could buy off elites as well as the wider population. Yet the financial crisis also put businesses in both societies under heavy pressure in ways that fuelled growing popular discontent. Despite the ideological diversity of those involved in the 2011 mass protests in Moscow, the theme that fostered a degree of unity was deep frustration with the cronyism that helped secure the loyalty of the political elite for Vladimir Putin. While the Moscow protests fizzled in the face of relentless repression, three years later similar fury at systemic corruption sustained mass support for the Maidan protests in Kyiv, that culminated with Viktor Yanukovych’s flight into exile in February 2014.
Crucial to cementing this perception of corruption as the central issue facing Russia and Ukraine, was the Putin regime’s instrumentalisation of power relationships based on systemic corruption to destabilise Crimea and the Donbas region in Ukraine, in the build up to war in the months following the Maidan revolt. For many analysts in Ukraine and NATO member states, the assumption that eliminating corruption is fundamental to national security has become axiomatic. In Russia, the central role systemic corruption plays in entrenching established power structures led opposition leaders to focus on anti-corruption activism as a unifying factor. While individuals with a background in other policy areas such as migration or pensions also play a role in opposition milieus, the most prominent figures campaigning against the Putin system such as Alexei Navalny, have risen to prominence through anti-corruption activism.
Limits of war on corruption
This deep conviction in the intrinsic necessity of a war against corruption, also shapes much academic analysis of Central and East European politics. A considerable amount of Western think tank analysis regularly emphasises the centrality of anti-corruption efforts to any successful reform process in Ukraine and Russia. The winding down of the conflict in Donbas to a state of grim positional warfare, has led to renewed external and domestic focus on the social damage systemic corruption is doing to both societies. Yet it is worth questioning whether an all-out war on corruption in Ukraine as well as Russia, would inevitably lead to a democratic order that provides the basis for the rule of law. The assumption that prominent activists battling corrupt networks are invariably going to act in accordance with democratic principles, could be setting the stage for deep disappointment in the years to come among many who believe in the defence of open societies. For in a moment of crisis, public demands for a crackdown against elites that steal from the people can degenerate into a search for quick authoritarian solutions, rather than the slower processes of democratic consultation.
The risks of treating a war against corruption as an end in itself rather than a means to an end, can be seen in the historical precedents some anti-corruption campaigners have looked to as positive examples. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union opened up space to celebrate the pre-1917 Russian Empire, Pyotr Stolypin has been repeatedly cited by Russian reformers as a model for those trying to restore the rule of law. The apparently progressive nature of the measures Stolypin put in place as Prime Minister, to create a middle class and modernise the state before his assassination in 1911 is seen as source of inspiration, even for some Russian liberals who yearn to bring down the sordid injustices of the Putinist system. Yet Stolypin’s ruthless assault on bureaucratic inefficiency ran in parallel to a reassertion of state power, so brutal that the ‘Stolypin necktie’ became a euphemism for the noose used to execute those considered dangerous to the regime. A latent cult of Stolypin could create the basis for cooperation between angry opposition activists and those in the security services frustrated with the social stagnation of the Putinist status quo. Such an alliance to get swift results would, however, present its own deep risks to any effort to restore the rule of law and build an open society.
Ukrainian authoritarianism
While a very different relationship to the legacies of Tsarism limited the appeal of the Stolypin myth to Ukrainian activists, an authoritarian undercurrent could also be found in the historical figures anti-corruption campaigners have pointed to as examples worthy of emulation. Despite his unflinching contempt for human rights concerns, Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew still exerts a fascination on some Ukrainian anti-corruption activists looking for a model of how strong action from a dedicated elite can quickly transform a society. The potential for such an authoritarian turn among particular strands of Ukrainian civil society, was reinforced by the paramilitarisation of the Maidan movement in response to escalating state repression in January 2014. The volunteer regiments are now a crucial component of the Ukrainian military’s ongoing battle to contain Russian expansionism, deepening links between civil society activists, nationalist activists and the security services.
A prominent example of such interaction between anti-corruption activists and nationalist volunteer regiments, is the former journalist Tetyana Chornovol, who is now an MP in the Verkhovna Rada. Chornovol herself rose to prominence through her relentless investigation of the Yanukovych family’s illegal assets. In the months after Yanukovych’s fall, her husband joined the far-right Azov regiment and was killed in action near Ilovaisk. After this loss, Chornovol herself became an Azov fighter and saw combat against Russian forces on the frontline near Mariupol in August 2014 and has at times sided with proposals in parliament that reflect a more authoritarian approach. Such links between particular civil society activists and authoritarian networks brought together in an atmosphere of war mobilisation, indicates how a deep commitment to fighting corruption can be based as much on an authoritarian outlook as it can be based on a belief in an open society.
Though a worrying trend, such political alliances between radical nationalists and some anti-corruption campaigners have not yet come close to displacing oligarch power networks or democratically oriented civil society movements. As long as the EU provides the prospect of even partial integration in European institutions, strong political and economic incentives will continue to ensure that Ukrainian activists and politicians frame their clashes over how to confront corruption in democratic terms. That the ongoing struggle to reform the Ukrainian state is played out openly (if often chaotically) in the media and parliament, also strengthens public understanding that corruption is a symptom rather than a cause of deeply entrenched social injustice. Mikhail Minakov and Vitaly Portnikov have pointed out the potential risks of EU impatience with a society in which there are no simple solutions to structural dysfunction. A scenario in which the European Union unwisely backs away at a moment at which Ukrainian civilian elites are in a state of flux and the prestige of the military is on the rise, increases risks that popular frustration with the inevitably slow pace of reform in a democracy could reinforce authoritarian rather than democratic trends in Ukrainian society.
Russian reforms?
While a broad consensus in favour of European integration in Ukraine can sustain pressure to integrate anti-corruption efforts into a wider process of institutional reform, there are no comparable external pressures on Russian activists and reformers to respect the rule of law if they come into a position from which to impose an anti-corruption agenda. Undoubtedly, there are many key figures within the system and non-system Russian opposition who make great sacrifices in the hope of building a more open society. But the assassination of Boris Nemtsov removed a leading figure who still had the authority to sustain a commitment towards democratic goals among those frustrated with the status quo. With Nemtsov gone, enormous pressure now rests on Alexei Navalny to ensure that the Russian non-system opposition remains committed to pursuing the battle against corruption and social injustice in a way that reasserts the rule of law.
In his role as an anti-corruption activist, Navalny has proven to be skilled at using investigative journalism to uncover dubious dealings by members of the state elite. In the run up to his campaign challenging Vladimir Putin’s presidential election campaign, Navalny has also ferociously attacked the ruling elite’s disrespect for the rule of law and basic liberties. This is in contrast to an earlier period in his career, during which he courted the support of Russian radical nationalists and even attended a notorious annual gathering of the far right in Moscow in 2011. While his commitment to the rule of law has become more robust over time, the need to assemble as wide a range of ideological allies as possible in a future crisis could tempt Navalny or a successor into indulging in such opportunistic populism again.
Democracy is not an inevitable outcome of any revolutionary moment that may unfold if the Russian state fails to provide stability for its citizens. The kleptocratic rapacity of the security services and business elites underpinning Vladimir Putin’s power, make both highly exposed to any public backlash. But there are other state institutions that still enjoy high levels of public support. Over the last 20 years the Russian military has become increasingly central to national life, enjoying expanding budgets and even playing a role in shaping cultural institutions and school curricula. Putin is set to win another landslide presidential election in the spring. As the personalised nature of a system built around Vladimir Putin’s authority hollows out political institutions, the military may be one of the few national institutions able to act as a force for unity.
Russian activists fighting a war against corruption could end up grappling with a difficult choices. A democratic transition that restores the rule of law is likely to require complex deals with powerbrokers who have prospered under the current system. Yet in a politically volatile environment, reformers could face pressure to work with army officers and radical nationalists willing to crush oligarch and security service networks that have stolen Russia’s future for the last twenty years. The current penchant among many Russian activists and European analysts to focus on corruption as the primary cause of Russia’s crisis, rather than as a symptom of deeper structural dysfunction, could contribute to authoritarian outcomes most would deplore.
Just as the EU can use the promise of extensive European integration to encourage Ukrainians to respect democratic norms, it could therefore hold out an offer to Russia of deeper cooperation, on the condition that any post-Putin elite respects the rule of law at home as well as on the international stage. Though a war on corruption is crucial to any successful reform process, embedding it into a wider programme to foster democratic institutions and social justice, could ensure that it helps build the foundations for a stable and open society. If instead, it becomes the basis for new forms of authoritarianism, then rather than helping a Muscovite Vaclav Havel defend Russian democracy, a war on corruption may end up opening the way for a new Stolypin to take Russia towards another political dead end.