Government of Russia and Politics of Russia


    According to the Constitution, which was adopted by national referendum on 12 December 1993 following the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis, Russia is a federation and formally a semi-presidential republic, wherein the President is the head of state and the Prime Minister is the head of government. The Russian Federation is fundamentally structured as a representative democracy. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in the two chambers of the Federal Assembly. The government is regulated by a system of checks and balances defined by the Constitution of the Russian Federation, which serves as the country's supreme legal document and as a social contract for the people of the Russian Federation.

    The federal government is composed of three branches:
    Legislative: The bicameral Federal Assembly, made up of the State Duma and the Federation Council adopts federal law, declares war, approves treaties, has the power of the purse, and has power of impeachment, by which it can remove the President.
   Executive: The president is the commander-in-chief of the military, can veto legislative bills before they become law, and appoints the Cabinet and other officers, who administer and enforce federal laws and policies.
    Judiciary: The Constitutional Court, Supreme Court, Supreme Court of Arbitration and lower federal courts, whose judges are appointed by the Federation Council on the recommendation of the president, interpret laws and can overturn laws they deem unconstitutional.

    According to the Constitution, constitutional justice in the court is based on the equality of all citizens, judges are independent and subject only to the law, trials are to be open and the accused is guaranteed a defense. Since 1996, Russia has instituted a moratorium on the death penalty in Russia, although capital punishment has not been abolished by law.

    The president is elected by popular vote for a six-year term (eligible for a second term but constitutionally barred for a third consecutive term); election last held on 2 March 2008. Ministries of the government are composed of the premier and his deputies, ministers, and selected other individuals; all are appointed by the president on the recommendation of the Prime Minister (whereas the appointment of the latter requires the consent of the State Duma). The national legislature is the Federal Assembly, which consists of two chambers; the 450-member State Duma and the 176-member Federation Council. Leading political parties in Russia include United Russia, the Communist Party, the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia and Fair Russia.

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Russia.  Government of Russia


     The Russian Federation became an independent state in December 1991 as a result of the collapse of the USSR. During the communist era the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (RSFSR) was the largest of the USSR’s 15 republics. The present Russian Federation occupies the same territory as the former RSFSR. Since independence, Russia has adopted a new constitution and system of government. 

     Russia is a federal and presidential republic governed under a constitution that took effect in 1993, replacing the 1978 constitution of the RSFSR. The central government is composed of three independent branches: the executive (the president and prime minister), legislative (the Federal Assembly), and judicial. The government is responsible to the president, and the executive branch is considerably more powerful than the other two branches. The constitution is largely the creation of Russian president Boris Yeltsin, who dominated Russian politics from independence until his retirement from politics in 1999. Yeltsin was elected the RSFSR’s first president by popular vote in June 1991, and he retained this position in Russia after the Soviet Union dissolved later that year. 

    To some extent presidential decrees can take the place of laws, thereby evading legislative scrutiny. Furthermore, the legislature has only limited rights to investigate government activity. Nevertheless, the legislature can reject the budget, draft legislation, publicize government errors and malpractice, and, at the price of its own dissolution and new parliamentary elections, bring down the government by repeated votes of no confidence.

A. The Constitution: Origins and Development
     During the Soviet period, power was concentrated in Communist Party institutions and was highly centralized. Federal institutions, located in Moscow, were much more powerful than the regional institutions of the 15 republics. Although Russians dominated the central party and government institutions, the RSFSR’s own institutions were even weaker and less autonomous than those of the other 14 republics. Unlike the other Soviet republics, Russia did not have its own separate Communist Party, security police (KGB), or Academy of Sciences for most of the communist era. Although Russia did have its own government (Council of Ministers) and legislature (Supreme Soviet), these institutions did not exercise their full constitutional powers. 

     The RSFSR’s 1978 constitution only became significant when the Soviet Union collapsed. The constitution gave the legislative branch supremacy over the executive branch. However, the legislators’ lack of political experience made government extremely difficult. As a result, increasing power was granted to the newly established state presidency, sometimes on a temporary basis. In 1992 and 1993, when President Yeltsin and the legislature clashed over policy, the absence of clear and realistic constitutional demarcation between executive and legislative power became a major problem. 

     A new constitution, ratified by referendum in December 1993, solved this difficulty. Although it greatly increased the power of the presidency, it also established basic democratic guidelines, such as fixed terms of office, electoral procedures, and universal suffrage for all citizens aged 18 or older. In principle, the constitution also guarantees civil rights and the rule of law. Yeltsin’s opponents regarded the constitution as illegitimate, and they disputed whether a majority of voters had in fact endorsed it in the referendum. After a few years, however, hostility to the constitution decreased somewhat.

B. Executive
     Power is concentrated in the executive branch, which is headed by a president. He or she is directly elected by the people to a four-year term and cannot serve more than two consecutive terms. The president serves as the commander in chief of the armed forces and chairs the Security Council, which is the central decision-making body for matters of defense. With the defense minister, the president has control over Russia’s nuclear weapons. The president appoints the prime minister, who is second in command. The appointment is subject to ratification by the State Duma, the lower house of parliament; if the State Duma rejects the candidate for prime minister three times, the president can dissolve the legislature and call for new elections. The president has the right to dissolve the legislature under certain other conditions as well. In the event of the president’s death or permanent incapacitation, the prime minister temporarily takes on the president’s duties, but new presidential elections must be held within three months.

C. Legislature
     The Federal Assembly is Russia’s bicameral national legislature. It is composed of an upper house, called the Federation Council, and a lower house, the State Duma. The Federation Council has 168 members, who are appointed by the executive and legislative bodies of each of the administrative units that make up the Russian Federation. 

     The State Duma has 450 members. Voters elect half of the Duma members by casting a vote for a specific party listed on the ballot; these 225 seats are divided among the qualifying parties by proportional representation. The other 225 Duma members are elected individually from electoral districts throughout the country. Each of Russia’s 83 constituent units has at least one electoral district; some densely populated units have more than one. Legislators are elected to four-year terms.

D. Judiciary
     The highest judicial body is the Constitutional Court, composed of 19 judges who are appointed by the president and approved by the Council of the Federation. The Constitutional Court’s mandate is to rule on the constitutionality of legislative and executive actions. In the early 1990s the Constitutional Court tried unsuccessfully to mediate the conflict between the legislature and the president. With the adoption of the 1993 constitution, the Constitutional Court’s powers were reduced and its membership was changed. 

     Below the Constitutional Court are the Supreme Court and the Supreme Arbitration Court. The Supreme Court rules on civil, criminal, and administrative law, and the Supreme Arbitration Court handles economic suits. As with the Constitutional Court, judges for these high courts are appointed by the president and approved by the upper house of the legislature. The 1978 constitution had established life terms for judges, but the 1993 constitution changed appointments of high court judges to 12-year terms. By law, all judges in Russia are independent and cannot be removed from office. Although the judiciary has been freed from the direct political control that existed in the communist era, it remains financially weak. They are also very vulnerable to threats and pressures from the criminal world and from officials who are in league with organized crime.

E. Political Parties
     Beginning in the late 1980s Russia changed from a single-party, totalitarian state led by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) to a chaotic, factious, multiparty democracy. Hundreds of political groups, factions, movements, and parties emerged, spanning a wide political spectrum. Russia’s political parties can be divided into five general categories: communist, Russian nationalist, reformist, centrist, and special interest parties. The parties range in size from a few members to more than half a million members. Some of the smaller political groups have lasted only a brief time. Alliances between groups are generally unstable, and coalitions shift frequently. Individual personalities influence political formations to a large degree, and the political agendas of many parties are vague and poorly documented. The CPSU was replaced by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF), which continued to be a political force in the legislature. Centrist parties, notably United Russia, have risen in prominence in recent years.

F. Local Government
     Russia is divided into 83 administrative units: 21 nominally autonomous republics, 9 territories known as krays, 4 autonomous national areas called okrugs, 46 regions known as oblasts, 1 autonomous oblast, and the cities of Moscow and Saint Petersburg, which have federal status. 

     The 21 republics are Adygea, Alania (North Ossetia), Altay, Bashkortostan, Buryatia, Chechnya, Chuvashia, Dagestan, Ingushetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, Kalmykia, Karachay-Cherkessia, Karelia, Khakassia, Komi, Mari El, Mordovia, Sakha (Yakutia), Tatarstan, Tuva, and Udmurtia. They vary considerably in size: The republic of Sakha has a total area of more than 3 million sq km (1 million sq mi), while Ingushetia, the smallest unit (excluding Moscow and Saint Petersburg), has an area of only about 4,300 sq km (about 1,660 sq mi). 

     The republics, okrugs, and autonomous oblast are direct successors to ethnic units established during the Soviet period, with the exception of Chechnya and Ingushetia, which previously had been a single unit, the Chechen-Ingush autonomous republic. The Soviet government established the ethnic units to appease indigenous, non-Russian nationalities, but political and economic factors caused migration into and out of the regions. Russians now make up the majority of the population in most areas. 

     The 1993 constitution grants the republics a greater degree of autonomy than the other administrative areas. The republics have special rights, such as the right to adopt their own anthems, flags, and limited constitutions. In general, republics pay fewer taxes to the central government, which has caused great indignation among the leaders of the oblasts and krays. All of the republics and some of the other administrative units have separate treaties with the central government. Therefore, the extent to which an administrative unit controls its own economic resources, receives subsidies, and retains locally raised taxes differs from area to area. Political and economic realities also influence an area’s relationship with the federal government. Powerful regional leaders are sometimes able to secure favorable deals from the central government. Regions that have important economic resources also sometimes receive special treatment. Moscow, for example, has frequently secured exemption from rules that the federal government has imposed on other regions. 

     In general, the power of administrative area leaders increased greatly after the collapse of the USSR. By late 1997 all local chief executive officers were democratically elected and therefore had independent sources of power and legitimacy. Furthermore, because they served as their area representatives in the Federation Council, all had a direct role in the central government. They also controlled considerable wealth and resources in alliance with local economic interests. 

     However, in 2000 President Vladimir Putin introduced significant changes to regional governance that strengthened the power of the central government. Through a presidential decree, Putin created seven federal okrugs and divided Russia’s administrative units among them. Each federal okrug is headed by an appointed presidential envoy who is responsible for overseeing local regions’ compliance with federal legislation and for determining their eligibility for federal funds. The regional governors are now answerable to the presidential envoys, most of whom are senior officers of the security services or the military. 

     The relationship between the central government and the administrative units remains a source of conflict and uncertainty. Until this relationship is stabilized and clarified, it will be impossible to establish an effective fiscal and legal system that is uniform throughout Russia. This makes economic recovery difficult. On the other hand, the threat that the ethnically based republics might secede and cause the Russian Federation to disintegrate has decreased since 1991. Only Chechnya insisted on independence, and in the early 2000s it lay in ruins under military occupation after a devastating war with the central government.

G. Defense
     The USSR was a military superpower with a massive nuclear arsenal and millions of troops; in the 1980s the armed forces had more than 5 million members. Immediately after the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, the armed forces came under the military command of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), an organization comprising most of the former Soviet republics. In May 1992 Russia created its own military structure in response to the formation of separate armies by several CIS states, notably Ukraine. The CIS military command continued to function for another year, although its power was greatly reduced. It was finally abolished in June 1993 and most of its functions were transferred to the Russian military command. Under the new Russian military structure, an executive body known as the Security Council formulates defense policy. The Russian president appoints and dismisses members of the council and dominates its proceedings. 

     In 2006 Russia had 1,027,000 troops in the army, navy, air force, air defense force, and strategic rocket force (which controls the country’s nuclear weapons). Paramilitary forces, including border troops, numbered an additional 220,000. However, Russia’s conventional forces were generally unprepared for combat. The disastrous performance of the army during the 1995 and 1996 campaign in Chechnya revealed immense deficiencies in command, logistics, training, and morale. Until these problems are solved, Russia will not regain its position as a world military power. 

     According to Russian law, men 18 years of age and older must serve two years in the armed forces, but massive exemptions and evasion greatly reduce the recruitment pool. There has been considerable debate about shifting to an all-volunteer force, which in theory would be more efficient and less unpopular. Volunteer forces are usually more expensive, however, because better pay and conditions are needed to entice people to join. Russia’s budgetary constraints make the creation of volunteer armed forces unthinkable in the near future. The defense establishment is beset by a host of problems, including grossly inadequate revenues, corruption, recruitment shortfalls, inadequate housing, and aging equipment. 

     Since the collapse of the USSR all nuclear weapons of the former Soviet forces have been concentrated in Russia. Some have been destroyed, but most remain intact. The USSR had established agreements with Western nations to limit armaments, and Russia inherited both the START I (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty), which was signed in 1991, and the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) agreements. The START II treaty, an additional agreement between the United States and Russia to significantly reduce nuclear arms, was signed in 1993 but was never ratified by Russia. In 2002 the two countries agreed to a new arms-reduction treaty requiring both to reduce their nuclear-weapons arsenals by two-thirds over a period of ten years. In the early and mid-1990s there was significant decline in the export of Russian arms and military advisers to developing countries, but arms exports had begun to rise by the late 1990s. The increase reflected a desire for commercial gain, however, rather than a strategy to gain political influence in support of a global struggle against the United States, as had been the case during the Soviet period.

H. State Security
     In Soviet times the KGB (Komitet gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti; Russian for "State Security Committee”) and its predecessors were large and powerful organizations. The KGB’s role included intelligence work abroad, counterespionage, and the repression of domestic dissent. The KGB also provided the top Soviet leadership with information about public moods and international developments that could not be gained from the USSR’s censored press. KGB officers were members of the Soviet elite and were often very intelligent and well educated. In 1991 public outcry erupted after the agency participated in a failed coup, and President Yeltsin subsequently split the agency into five bodies. The main heirs to the KGB are the FSB (Federal Security Services), which concentrates on domestic affairs, and the SVR (Foreign Intelligence Service), which inherited the KGB’s foreign agents and activities. Although the major successor agencies are still large bodies with pervasive influence, Russians are now far freer to express their opinions and engage in independent political activity than they were under the KGB in the Soviet Union.

I. International Organizations
     After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia assumed the USSR’s place in the United Nations (UN). Consequently, Russia also gained a permanent position on the United Nations Security Council, the UN organ responsible for maintaining international peace and security. Also in 1991 Russia became a founding member of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), which includes most of the former Soviet republics. The Russians initially hoped that the CIS would coordinate shared military, foreign policy, and economic goals of member states, but by the mid-1990s the republics had abandoned the common currency and the CIS had abolished its joint military command. Russia is also a member of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE); Partnership for Peace, a program intended to strengthen relations between member countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and central and Eastern European countries; and the Council of Europe (CE). Russia became a limited partner in NATO in May 2002 under a landmark accord allowing the country to help set joint policy on a limited range of issues, such as nonproliferation and counterterrorism. Although it widened Russia’s role in NATO affairs, the accord stopped short of giving Russia a veto over NATO decisions or a vote in the expansion of the military alliance’s membership; nor did it include Russia in NATO’s collective defense pact.

J. Foreign Policy
    After World War II (1939-1945) the Cold War dominated Soviet foreign policy. All issues were seen from the perspective of a global ideological and political struggle with the United States and its allies. Under Mikhail Gorbachev, who led the country from 1985 to 1991, the USSR sought to end the Cold War. Relations with the West improved dramatically. 

     After independence in 1991 Foreign Minister Andrey Kozyrev and President Boris Yeltsin at first maintained a strongly pro-American foreign policy. Yeltsin and Kozyrev initially had a relaxed attitude toward the eastward expansion of NATO, which had been the main military alliance of Western nations during the Cold War. 

     Domestic pressure prompted a foreign policy shift. In particular, strong support for the ultranationalist candidate Vladimir Zhirinovsky in the December 1993 parliamentary elections convinced the government that the public demanded a more nationalistic, less pro-Western approach to foreign policy. As a result, Russia resumed sales of arms and civil nuclear technology to developing countries, including Iran, which elicited disapproval from the United States. More importantly, Russia began expressing loud support for Russians in the "near abroad” (as Russians call the outlying areas of the former USSR) and strong opposition to NATO expansion, and was at odds with NATO countries over how to resolve the ethnic turmoil in the former Yugoslavia. NATO’s support for Muslims and Croats drew disapproval from Russia, which had historical ties to the competing ethnic Serbs. 

     Much of this shift in policy was more a question of rhetoric than one of practice, however. By 1997 Russia’s support for Russian-speaking secessionists in the Trans-Dniester region of Moldova had become more moderate. The Russian government never encouraged Russian secessionists in Crimea; their strength in 1993 and 1994 threatened both political stability in Ukraine and Ukraine’s territorial integrity. In 1997 Russia signed a friendship treaty with Ukraine, settling the long-standing dispute over the Soviet Black Sea Fleet and confirming its recognition of Ukraine’s postindependence borders. 

     There were multiple reasons for Russia’s restraint. The country was conscious of its economic and military weakness, and it was also aware of the potential for conflict within the former USSR if national borders were challenged or ethnic conflicts encouraged. Furthermore, Yeltsin recognized that Russia needed to integrate itself into the world economy and Western-dominated institutions, such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), if it was to regain economic prosperity and effective global influence. Russia’s long-running dispute with Japan over the Kuril Islands also reduced the country’s room to maneuver in international affairs. 

     In 1999 Russia’s relations with Western nations suddenly worsened as NATO admitted the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland, thus expanding into central and eastern Europe, and also attacked Yugoslavia to compel the Yugoslav government to halt military operations against Albanian separatists in that country’s Kosovo province. Russia denounced NATO as aggressive and expansionist and drew closer to China. However, Russian policymakers understood their own country’s weakness and its need to attract Western investment. The government’s rhetoric at times reflected the increasingly nationalist mood in Russian society, but its foreign policy remained cautious. 

     Russia’s leaders were, in fact, anxious to maintain good relations with the Western powers. President Vladimir Putin pursued a foreign policy of closer cooperation with the West. Following terrorist attacks in the United States in September 2001, Russia became a key ally in the U.S.-led war on terrorism (see September 11 Attacks). In May 2002 Russia and the United States reached their first arms-reduction treaty in more than a decade. Also that month, Russia became a limited partner in NATO. In November 2002 Russia did not object when NATO announced a further expansion to include several more nations in Eastern Europe, among them the former Soviet republics of Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia.      However, Russia was critical of the United States over its invasion of Iraq in 2003. Russia joined with Germany and France in the United Nations (UN) Security Council in proposing that UN weapons inspectors be given more time to search for alleged weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. It refused to join the invasion force that the United States and Britain assembled. See also U.S.-Iraq War. Dominic Lieven contributed the Government section of this article. Contributed By:Kurt E. Engelmann, B.A., M.A., Ph.D.Assistant Director, Russian, East European, Central Asian Studies Center of the Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington.W. Bruce Lincoln, B.A., Ph.D.Late Distinguished Research Professor of History, Northern Illinois University. Author of Between Heaven and Hell: The Story of a Thousand Years of Artistic Life in Russia and other books.Dominic LievenProfessor of Russian Government, London School of Economics. Author of Russia’s Rulers Under the Old Regime and Nicholas II: Twilight of the Empire.Bruce Parrott, Ph.D.Professor and Director of Russian Area and East European Studies, Johns Hopkins University. Coauthor of Russia and the New States of Eurasia: The Politics of Upheaval and coeditor of Democratic Changes and Authoritarian Reactions in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova."Russia," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2009http://encarta.msn.com © 1997-2009 Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

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