| Since the beginning of the 1990s, Western engagement in
Russia has been framed by a single paradigm: Support the efforts of the
westernized elite in Russia to reform the country into a full-fledged member
of Europe and the West. If Western donors and partners simply provided
enough human, financial, political and technical resources to the "right"
liberal reformers, they would create a broader base of support for liberal
values among the general population. This, in turn, would help anchor democratic
and market principles in Russia.
The paradigm, based on similar transitions in Eastern Europe, became
known as the Liberal Project, and it had a lot going for it. After all,
it was a fundamentally optimistic paradigm and it suggested that the West
could have a major guiding role in transforming Russia. Many, both in
Russia and the West, accepted the tenets of the Liberal Project almost
without question. Its logic has underpinned almost all Western engagement
and assistance in Russia for more than a decade.
The problem is that the Liberal Project never took root in Russia. The
catastrophic drop in living standards that accompanied economic liberalization
in the early '90s eroded much of the optimism that ordinary Russians had
for the reform process. Liberal reformers were thus discredited in the
eyes of the general public almost from the beginning. The war in Chechnya
and the chaotic kleptocracy of the Yeltsin years served to further undermine
legitimacy at the popular level. Still, throughout the late '90s, Russia's
political elite continued to pay lip service to the Liberal Project even
as it was searching for a new paradigm. Thus, the West continued to believe
that though it might face some significant challenges in Russia, the project
would ultimately succeed.
A new model emerged in 2001-02 with the consolidation of the Putin administration.
While initially mouthing the rhetoric of the Liberal Project, President
Vladimir Putin and his supporters developed and set forth a new paradigm
for Russia's development that named the state as the central organizing
force of political and economic life in the country.
The statist paradigm itself is quite simple: The state will annul many
basic rights of citizens in return for economic growth, restoring Russia's
dignity abroad and bringing order to society. It will allow free enterprise
so long as it serves the defined interests of the state. In historical
terms, there is very little new to the statist paradigm; indeed, it is
merely the latest iteration of a model that has guided Russia's development
for several centuries.
Though it was clear to those living in Russia that the Liberal Project
had been dead for some time, it took the recent round of elections for
obituaries to appear in newspapers in Western capitals. Since December,
there has been much hand-wringing and finger-pointing among politicians
and pundits alike. The tired questions of "Who lost Russia?"
and "What is to be done?" are again being rehashed. Yet despite
the obituaries, the debate on Russia is still largely framed in Liberal
Project terms.
Western and Russian pundits blame the reformist Yabloko and SPS parties
for their failures and are now looking for a way to reanimate them as
some form of liberal Frankenstein. Similarly, foundations and Western
assistance agencies are looking for ways to help NGO activists engage
the new rubber-stamp parliament, even though it is abundantly clear that
all legislative questions will be resolved long before a bill is introduced
to the State Duma.
As Will Rogers once said, "When riding a dead horse it is usually
best to dismount." Clearly, it is time to dismount the Liberal Project
and to take a hard look at the new agenda. Whether we agree with its tenets
or not, it is time that policymakers in Western capitals recognize the
new statist paradigm. Rather than assuming that Russia is progressing
toward the Liberal Project pantheon of democracy and free markets, we
need to recognize that it is settling in for a long and perhaps difficult
authoritarian period, where the state will dominate economic and political
life.
Under the new paradigm, Western foreign policy toward Russia will need
to shift considerably. The rhetoric will have to shift to reflect the
fact that Russia is unlikely to join the Western family of nations anytime
soon. While Russia and the West may periodically cooperate on international
issues, it is unlikely that there will be any stimulus to forge a deeper
political relationship. Indeed, because many of the tenets of the statist
paradigm stand in contradiction to the Western canon about political pluralism,
Russia's domestic policies are likely to chafe against Western values.
On the economic front, Putin's budding economic nationalism suggests that
foreign economic involvement will probably be limited during this period,
with the state retaining direct or indirect control of the "commanding
heights" of the economy.
Should the demise of the Liberal Project spell the end for Western assistance
to Russia? I would argue that it should not for two reasons: the first
moral and the second practical.
The moral argument for continuing to provide assistance to Russia is
that the West has an obligation to continue to provide support to those
in civil society it helped foster under the Liberal Project. To abandon
these people now just as a new authoritarianism is emerging would be wrong.
On a more practical level, Russia's strategic geography and nuclear arsenal
mean that the country will remain an important player internationally.
In the absence of deep economic, political or social ties with the West,
cooperation assistance is one of the few vehicles for maintaining significant
engagement.
While foreign assistance to Russia should not end, it will need to adapt
to the statist paradigm if it is to be effective.
We must abandon the reformist model that underpins U.S. and EU assistance
programs in Russia. We must focus much more on maintaining those civil
society institutions that remain and building horizontal networks of groups
and associations. Rather than focusing on reform, we should encourage
civil society to build a larger constituency within the population. In
doing so, these institutions and networks can serve as incubators for
civil society leaders who cannot have a significant impact in the present
environment, but could serve as important catalysts for change in the
future.
Such a strategy is not new. Indeed, it was used to considerable effect
by German foundations in their assistance to civil society actors in Spain
and Portugal in the '60s and '70s. By supporting small "lifeboats"
of civil society, the Germans helped incubate an entire generation of
liberal political leaders, who came to the fore after the fall of the
dictatorships in Spain and Portugal at the end of the '70s.
The emergence of the statist paradigm in Russia will undoubtedly cause
strains in its relations with Europe and the United States. However, it
is important for policymakers to recognize that those strains should not
result in disengagement from Russia. It is crucial that the West continue
to try to expand and deepen its relationship with Russia.
Although Russia's hopes of joining the family of Western democracies
in the near future may be dead, we should also recognize that the statist
paradigm may well be the subject of a political obituary itself one day.
Stephen Schmida, Moscow regional director of the Eurasia Foundation,
contributed this comment to The Moscow Times.
See also:
the original at
www.themoscowtimes.com
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