No Collective Action: How Economic Interests Disrupt Bottom-Up Democratization in Russia
Photo by Astemir Almov on Unsplash
Photo par Astemir Almov sur Unsplash
Pengyu Chen
(FR) Cet article étudie la perspective du processus de démocratisation en Russie, en commençant à la base, avec la mobilisation et les mouvements sociaux présents en Russie. J'analyserai cette perspective en étudiant deux agents importants du changement social en Russie: la classe moyenne et la classe ouvrière. En raison de leurs intérêts politiques diffèrent et concurrents, ainsi que les risques encourus par les manifestants dans une Russie de plus en plus autoritaire, je soutiens que les deux groupes n’ont pas les mêmes intérêts à former une coalition visant à démocratiser la Russie.
Analyzing the state-society dynamic and the economic and class interests of the middle class and labour workers in contemporary Russia is crucial for understanding the regime’s durability and the prospect of democratization. Accordingly, this essay will address the possibility of democratization from the bottom through mass mobilization against the incumbent regime. I argue that democratization through collective action, is unlikely due to competing political demands and the social and demographic differences between the urban middle class and industrial labour workers. Further, I argue that the incumbent regime will not cede its monopolistic control of political power—even in times of economic crisis when social protests will intensify—which further impedes the emergence of any viable political alternative to the incumbent party.
The Russian middle class and labour workers are unable to initiate a political change toward meaningful democracy by coming together and forming a coherent and united democratic movement. Two principal reasons can explain this. First, individuals will likely not participate in a protest that could harm their economic interests. In addition, the regime’s monopolistic control over legal and political power changes individuals’ behaviour and calculation by raising the cost and reducing the benefits of political movements. The inherent economic and class differences between the two groups thus give rise to different political outlooks and social demands, which shape their interests, behaviour, and calculation in the face of an increasingly authoritarian Russia.
Residents and labour workers of cities with a population of 20-50 thousand to 250 thousand people make up 25-30 per cent of the Russian population (Zubarevich 2013, 75). This segment of society is not an agent of democratic change because they are economically dependent on the state and politically conservative. Many industrial cities were created during the Soviet era of industrialization, which prioritized extracting natural resources instead of generating efficient economic growth for market competition (Zubarevich 2013, 73-75). As such, unlike larger cities that were deindustrialized and transformed into urban centres of the post-industrial economy, these cities are susceptible to economic risks and are dependent on federal transfer funds to maintain employment rates (Zubarevich 2013, 70-71, 75-76). Furthermore, the major industries in these cities are becoming less competitive in the global market and increasingly inefficient at generating economic growth (Zubarevich 2013, 70-71, 75-76; Crowley 2016, 415). Therefore, with a few exceptions, these cities and their residents are vulnerable to economic downturns (Zubarevich 2013, 75-76). Moreover, most workers and residents have low mobility and skill levels, which means they are not economically competitive in today’s service industries and have low or no entrepreneurial agency due to poorly developed or non-existent small businesses (Zubarevich 2013, 75-77). Therefore, they are less capable of moving to bigger cities and generating more income. For this reason, this segment of society will naturally have a vested interest in the social and political stability of the current regime that is supporting their livelihood.
Furthermore, a study of veteran organizations shows that large-scale civil disobedience is not a preferred nor a common political tactic when representing their constituencies’ concerns to the parliament. In their study, Meri Kulmala and Anna Tarasenko explain that veteran organizations are a critical section of Russian civil society that represents the social interests of diverse groups in both federal cities and industrial cities—from military and labour veterans to pensioners to people with disabilities (Kulmala and Tarasenko 2016, 144, 149). Instead of taking their concerns and grievances to the street, the leaders of these organizations prefer an in-system approach, serving as mediating agents that establish a rapport between their constituency and the state (Kulmala and Tarasenko 2016, 149-151). Many leaders have previously worked with the government and held official posts, and some of these figures were able to exploit their influence within the political system to gain access to financial resources (Kulmala and Tarasenko 2016, 158). One leading member of the Veterans’ Council in Karelia, for example, was the former Minister of Construction of the Republic of Karelia. This member noted that his previous experience in the government was crucial in attracting additional funds for his veteran organizations (Kulmala and Tarasenko 2016, 157). Prominent figures in these veteran organizations with government relations would naturally refrain from challenging the state actor and would work with them to sustain their existing resource exchange. In return for state resources, veteran organizations also help the state by providing political support and constituency information for incumbent politicians (Kulmala and Tarasenko 2016, 158-159). Therefore, veteran organizations, pensioners, residents, and workers of industrial cities are not antithetical to the regime and can often help strengthen its resilience.
By contrast, the middle class – as argued by both classical and recent modernization theory – is a pivotal agent of political change and democratization. According to classical modernization theory, endogenous socioeconomic development will change society’s class structure, producing a class of people with higher education and greater tolerance of liberalism, a market-based economy, religious secularism, and democracy (Rosenfeld 2021, 13-14). Similarly, the recent modernization theory highlights the critical role of value changes as society develops socioeconomically and argues that social values of tolerance and self-expression, respect for the law, and democracy are crucial to the formation of a social base for effective democracy (Rosenfeld 2021, 14).
The Russian middle class is a sizable subset of the inhabitants of Russia’s large urban centres. Inhabitants of cities with a population size between 500,000 to over one million make up one-third of the country’s population (Zubarevich 2013, 70-71). The Russian middle class comprises urban residents with high living and educational standards and easy access to the internet (Zubarevich 2013, 70-71). This social group’s recent activism seems to confirm the two modernization theories. In Russia, the middle class is often at the forefront of political contention, the most notable of which in recent times was the 2011-12 protest cycle against Putin and his United Russia’s fraudulent parliamentary electoral success (Robertson 2018, 86-89). While people of all ages and classes participated, it was mainly the urban middle class that was at the centre of this anti-regime protest cycle. In addition, the 2017-18 anti-corruption protests and the recent anti-war protests against the government in large cities, such as Moscow and St. Petersburg, where most of the middle class live, all seem to corroborate modernization theories (Zubarevich 2013, 70-75; Matthews 2022). Indeed, as Russia’s civil society and the middle class grew exponentially after the country’s recovery from the economic crisis of the 1990s, Putin became increasingly sensitive to contention politics as a part of Russia’s political landscape (Robertson 2018, 86-89).
However, in her book The Autocratic Middle Class, Bryn Rosenfeld provides a more complex picture of the Russian middle class that challenges these two modernization theories. The Russian middle class, Rosenfeld suggests, is not a coherent economic group that naturally upholds democratic values and aspirations (Rosenfeld 2021, 2-3). Instead, the middle class is divided by their source of income. Rosenfeld argues that an independent, entrepreneurial middle class is differentiated from a state-dependent middle class. The latter is a creation of economic growth that results from statist economic policies, and they hold positions in the lucrative white-collar public-sector jobs and are thus much dependent on the state (Rosenfeld 2021, 3-4). This economic structure turns the state-dependent middle class into a conservative political force that contributes to regime durability. For example, Rosenfeld notes that the state-dependent middle class is illiberal and loyal to the regime, and had they participated in the 2011-12 protest cycle, “up to ninety thousand additional protesters would have taken to the streets” (Rosenfeld 2021, 33). Therefore, this difference in economic and political interest impedes the Russian middle class from forming a broad democratic coalition. Another demographic characteristic of the Russian middle class challenges modernization theory’s optimism about a linear, progressive human capital development model. As Zubarevich points out, the middle class in federal cities is experiencing a population decline (2013, 74). The World Bank’s estimation of Russia’s urban demographic changes suggests the same (2022a and 2022b). Zubarevich suggests that this decline will lead to a corresponding decrease in protest activity because as fewer young people enter the job market, employment competition will diminish while the job market stabilizes (2013, 74). Additionally, she notes that the decreasing number of young people, a segment which has been a vital conducive factor for protest sentiments, will lead to fewer protests (Zubarevich 2013, 75). Exit options to Europe and elsewhere are also an attractive alternative for individuals with competitive market skills to escape rather than confront the autocratic regime (Zubarevich 2013, 75; Nemtsova 2022).
The government has become more sensitive to palpable threats of social and political instability from society, and it has become more determined to maintain its monopolistic control of political power by employing state repression and asserting ideological control. After all, macroeconomic and political stability is the priority of Putin’s administration (Åslund 2019, 36). Accordingly, the government has targeted regime oppositions, legalized repression, limited the growth of liberal civil society and NGOs, and employed state censorship – all to maintain its legitimate control of political power and make anti-regime protests costly for any opposition (Robertson 2018, 85-93; Mickiewicz 2018, 94-107). For example, the regime not only harassed and repressed the middle class and people who held liberal values after the 2011-12 protest cycle, but it also smeared them as “anti-Russian, foreign supported, effete and deviant” (Robertson 2018, 89). By reducing an amorphously-defined social group to be perceived as a “threat” to other members of society through stigmatization and isolation, the regime can gain support from those bystanders by demonstrating to them that the state is “tough” and will protect their material interests by employing violence to reduce perceived threats (Krastev and Holmes 2012, 44; Robertson 2018, 89; Lachapelle 2022, 695-698). This was the case with the legalized stigmatization and criminalization of people who identify as LGBTQ+ (Robertson 2018, 90; Stähle 2021, 49). The repression garnered popular support from social groups with traditional and conservative social identities while reinforcing existing tension between groups with competing political and social identities (Robertson 2018, 89, 93).
However, labour workers and the pro-government middle class can be a threat to Russia’s social stability as well, although they have a conservative and pro-government outlook. Protests and social unrest can emerge when the government faces an economic downturn and depression and cannot sustain the employment rate of industrial towns (Aron 2008; Crowley 2016, 413). During the economic crisis of the 1990s, thousands of workers participated in strikes and road and railway blockades (Robertson 2018, 83). In 2005, the government’s decision to replace benefits, such as free transportation, with monetary cash payments to social groups such as pensioners and war veterans sparked spontaneous protests throughout several cities in Russia (Robertson 2018, 86). Also, protests may spread in industrial towns, as in Pikalevo during the 2009 economic downturn, when the federal and regional governments’ budgets were depleted and could not sustain local industries (Zubarevich 2013, 76).
The Russian economy is stagnant and vulnerable to an economic crisis and downturn (Zubarevich 2013, 81; Åslund 2019, 36; Gustafson 2021, 208-214). Russia’s GDP growth averaged 0.8 per cent per year from 2009 to 2021 (Sonin 2022). The country’s economy also suffers from Western sanctions resulting from its invasion of Ukraine (Sonin 2022). Ban on critical imports into Russia stifles its key industries (such as cars, high tech, and weapons) from developing (Sonin 2022). Unprofitable and inefficient industrial cities, as mentioned above, are still sustained by the federal government to the detriment of the economy (Crowley 2016, 415). Regional governments also have limited budgets that are strained in supporting declining industries and expanding social safety nets while balancing the trade-offs of ensuring a steady flow of revenue to the centre and reducing tax rates to induce greater economic investment and growth (Remington et al. 2013, 1865; Zubarevich 2013, 76-77). Putin has also set various economic and social targets, such as improving human capital development, known as “May Directives,” for regional governors to complete with foremost priority (Petrov and Slider 2019, 65-66). This has led to the expansion of the already strained regional budgets, and new federal transfer funding can only partially cover Putin’s new targets (Petrov and Slider 2019, 66). In times of economic crisis or depression, the federal and regional governments will thus face financial difficulties in transferring funds to sustain local industries, employment, and demands for social welfare and benefits. In times of economic crisis or depression, protests with greater scope and intensity will likely emerge from labour workers, pensioners, and the state-dependent middle class when the government cannot sustain their existing social benefits and state-sponsored employment. However, while spontaneous socioeconomic protests may morph into a sustained social movement demanding financial assistance, they may not necessarily lead these social groups to demand democracy or lead to democratization itself. The extreme conditions of many industrial cities in Russia’s hinterland and the poorly developed labour unions in these cities make the formation of a broad worker movement challenging (Crowley 2016, 413). The state, which possesses monopolistic political control over the state- and public-sector opportunities and resources, remains the sole source of income for labour workers with low market skills and competitiveness. Furthermore, the apolitical nature of socioeconomic protests would focus more on the “state’s dwindling ability to provide essential services” instead of the country’s lack of meaningful democracy (Dmitriev and Treisman 2012, 61). Thus, socioeconomic dependence and social and political identities de-incentivize these social groups from forming a broad democratic coalition that demands more political participation.
In conclusion, protest-led democratization from below is highly unlikely in Russia. The Russian middle class, which seems like a promising agent of democratization, is divided and reducing in size, challenging modernization theories’ assumptions. The narrow economic interests of the state-dependent middle class and residents of industrial towns make them a conservative and apolitical force, stifling or delaying democratization from below. Even in an economic crisis when the state can hardly sustain employment, these groups may continue to shoulder the country’s economic liabilities in limited acquiescence because their economic interests depend on social stability—a necessary condition for the state to restore macroeconomic stability and growth. However, the extent to which they will continue to support the regime may depend on their belief in the state’s capacity to restore that macroeconomic stability and growth.