The research on which this paper is based has been supported by the Conference on Systemic Change and International Security in Russia and the New States of Eurasia sponsored by the Paul H. Nitze School for Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University, at which an earlier version was presented. I also wish to acknowledge the support of the National Science Foundation (SBR-9631221) and the National Council for Eurasian and East European Research. Neither bears any responsibility for the ideas or conclusions presented here. Much of the research has been conducted in collaboration with Steven S. Smith and Moshe Haspel, whom I wish to thank for their contributions to the ideas and evidence cited here. I am also grateful for the helpful comments of the anonymous readers of the manuscript.

1. In referring to “consolidation of democracy,” I follow Larry Diamond's definition. Diamond discusses the consolidation of democracy in terms of three challenges: the “deepening” of democracy, meaning that democratic forms become more responsive and accountable; the increase in the regularity of political institutions and procedures; and the improvement in the government's ability to deliver good performance. Diamond, Larry, Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation (Baltimore, 1999), 73–116.Google Scholar

2. For example, Joel Ostrow has argued that the party-dominated governing structure of the Duma has failed at conflict management. In Ostrow's view, Duma procedure is “complete chaos,” “a mess,” “incapable of effecting major policy change…. The Duma as a result is a legislature of 450 split personalities, and outcomes are highly unstable and unpredictable.“ See Ostrow, Joel M., “Procedural Breakdown and Deadlock in the Russian State Duma: The Problems of an Unlinked, Dual-Channel Institutional Design,” Europe-Asia Studies 50, no. 5 (July 1998): 796, 806, 807, 809CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The presidential office, meanwhile, has been characterized as “super-presidential” in its powers and authoritarian in the exercise of those powers. Stephen Holmes argued that “the system established by Yeltsin's constitution, in fact, can most succincdy be described as superpresidentialism” and that “the flip side of superpresidentialism, therefore, is figleaf parliamentarianism.” See Holmes, Stephen, “Superpresidentialism and Its Problems,” EastEuropean Constitutional Review 2, no. 4, and 3, no. 1 (Fall 1993-Winter 1994): 123-24Google Scholar. Gerald M. Easter describes Russia's regime as one in which “a strong authoritarian president coexists with a weak democratic parliament.” Easter, Gerald M., “Preference for Presidentialism: Postcommunist Regime Change in Russia and the NIS,” World Politics 49, no. 2 (January 1997): 209 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Paul Kubicek, assessing the period of confrontation between El'tsin and his parliamentary opposition in 1993, observes that “rule by decree replaced the rule of law” and finds evidence that in the post-1993 period the same pattern recurred: “Recently, Yeltsin has again taken to rule by decree on die issues of ministerial appointments.” He sees Russia's political system as an instance of “delegative democracy,” where the president uses his electoral mandate to legitimate authoritarian rule. Kubicek, Paul, “Delegative Democracy in Russia and Ukraine,” Communist and Post-Communist Studies 27, no. 4 (December 1994): 429 and 430CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Stephen Hanson and Jeffrey Kopstein write: “The Russian Constitution of 1993 also resembled that of Weimar Germany in the potentially authoritarian powers it granted to the executive. However, in the Russian case strong presidentialism was not so much ‘creeping' as overt, since Yel'tsin specifically designed his new constitution to eliminate any renewed direat from parliament to his rule.” Hanson, Stephen E. and Kopstein, jeffrey S., “The Weimar/Russia Comparison,” Post-Soviet Affairs 13, no. 3 (July-September 1997): 271 Google Scholar.

3. On the impeachment effort, see the section entitled “Impeachment” below. Other crises include the passage of a no-confidence vote in the summer of 1995 and the government's demand in response that the Duma vote on a motion of confidence; a protracted crisis in summer and fall 1997 over a government-sponsored package of major economic reform measures, over which die president hinted that he would dissolve the Duma if it failed to pass them, and the Duma's threat in response to vote no confidence in the government; the Duma's initial refusal to confirm Sergei Kirienko's appointment as head of government in March 1998; and the Duma's refusal to accept Viktor Chernomyrdin back as head of government in September 1998.

4. Stephen White, “Russia: Presidential Leadership under Yeltsin,” in Ray Taras, ed., Postcommunist Presidents (Cambridge, Eng., 1997), 57-61. These points are reinforced by the extensive literature on the “perils of presidentialism” generally and die risks of “presidential- parliamentary” systems in particular. The latter category has been suggested by Matdiew Shugart and John Carey for regimes in which the president and parliament are separately elected; a government has executive responsibility and is dependent both upon die confidence of parliament and the president's appointment; and the president has legislative powers including the rights of veto and decree. See Shugart, Matthew S. and Carey, John M., Presidents and Assemblies: Constitutional Design and Electoral Dynamics (Cambridge, Eng., 1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Linz, Juan, “Presidential or Parliamentary Democracy: Does It Make a Difference?” in Linz, Juan J. and Valenzuela, A., eds., The Failure of Presidential Democracy: Comparative Perspectives (Baltimore, 1994), 3–90 Google Scholar; Lijphart, Arend, ed., Parliamentary versus Presidential Government (Oxford, 1992).Google Scholar

5. Shugart and Carey, Presidents and Assemblies. In his review of the powers of presidents in twenty-four postcommunist countries, Timothy Frye observes that Russia's president has the largest number of formal and residual powers of all of them. Frye, Timothy, “A Politics of Institutional Choice: Post-Communist Presidencies,” Comparative Political Studies 30, no. 5 (October 1997): 523-52CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6. Cf. Silvia von Steinsdorff, “Kalkulierter Konflikt und begrenzte Kooperation: Zum Verhaltnis von President, Regierung und Parlament in RuBland,” Osteuropa 1 (1999): 16-34. Steinsdorff emphasizes the element of posturing in president-Duma relations, where each side frequently finds it politically expedient to accentuate differences in their public stances but to seek negotiated agreements when they prefer legislative action to the status quo.

7. For example, see Segodnia, 13 August 1999, which reviews several current proposals for restricting presidential power through constitutional amendment circulated from the pro-reform camp. Among proponents of such changes are Sergei Shakhrai, who was instrumental in drafting the 1993 constitution; Georgii Satarov, director of INDEM and a longtime political adviser to President El'tsin; and Sergei Kirienko, the former prime minister, who was one of the prime ministers abruptly replaced. Centrist figures such as Egor Stroev, chairman of the Federation Council and governor of Orel, have made similar proposals. Needless to say, the left has long since demanded constitutional reform reducing the president's power and expanding parliament's powers to control government. El'tsin's decisions to remove his prime ministers without warning or consultation—Viktor Chernomyrdin in March 1998, then Sergei Kirienko in August 1998, then Evgenii Primakov in May 1999, then Sergei Stepashin in August 1999—created a near-consensus among the political elite that the president's arbitrary and capricious use of his power to dismiss the government required a constitutional remedy. On the other hand, the presidential administration has been nurturing an alternative constitutional reform, which if adopted would lengthen the president's term of office. See Segodnia, 29 January 2000.

8. Bunce, Valerie and Csanadi, Maria, “Uncertainty in the Transition: Post-Communism in Hungary,” East European Politics and Societies 7, no. 2 (Spring 1993): 240-75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9. For instance, see Lijphart, Arend, “Democratization and Constitutional Choices in Czecho-Slovakia, Hungary and Poland, 1989-91,” Journal of Theoretical Politics 4, no. 2 (1992): 207-23CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Frye, “A Politics of Institutional Choice“; and Barbara Geddes, “Initiation of New Democratic Institutions in Eastern Europe and Latin America,” in Lijphart, Arend and Waisman, Carlos H., eds., Institutional Design in New Democracies: Eastern Europe and Latin America (Boulder, Colo, 1996), 15–42 Google Scholar.

10. On the creation of the Russian presidency, see Frye, “A Politics of Institutional Choice“; Easter, “Preference for Presidentialism“; Holmes, “Superpresidentialism“; and Kubicek, “Delegative Democracy in Russia and Ukraine.“

11. Remington, Thomas F. and Smith, Steven S., “Political Goals, Institutional Context, and the Choice of an Electoral System: The Russian Parliamentary Law,” American Journal of Political Science 40 (November 1996): 1253-79CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Steven S. Smith and Thomas F. Remington, ThePolitics of Institutional Choice: Formation of the Russian StateDuma (Princeton, forthcoming), chap. 5, “Choosing an Electoral System.“

12. This information is based on interviews with several of the strategists and participants in these efforts.

13. On the conflicting advice El'tsin received concerning the bill on deputy status, see Eugene Huskey, “The State-Legal Administration and the Politics of Redundancy,“ Post-Soviet Affairs 11, no. 2 (April-June 1995): 129.

14. This is the major theme of Ivan Rybkin's book, Gosudarstvennaia Duma: Piataia Popytka (Moscow, 1994). Rybkin emphasizes the urgent need for conciliation, harmony, and cooperation among all the political actors, particularly following the debacle of October 1993. He portrays his own role as chairman as an instrument for achieving constructive agreement within the Duma, and between the Duma and die president. Rybkin, Gosudarstvennaia Duma, esp. 105-6.

15. Carey, John M. and Shugart, Matthew Soberg, eds., Executive Decree Authority (Cambridge, Eng., 1998).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16. Scott Parrish, “Presidential Decree Authority in Russia, 1991-95,” in Carey and Shugart, Executive Decree Authority, 72.

17. Western advisers found it expedient that Anatolii Chubais and Egor Gaidar were able to implement major decisions quickly by obtaining a presidential decree. As Maxim Boycko, Andrei Shleifer, and Robert Vishny wrote, once the parliament passed the initial privatization program, “every subsequent major regulation of privatization was introduced by presidential decree rather than parliamentary action.” Boycko, Maxim, Shleifer, Andrei, and Vishny, Robert, Privatizing Russia (Cambridge, Mass., 1995), 5.Google Scholar

18. Note that there is a loophole in this limitation, however. Under a ruling by the Constitutional Court in April 1996, the president may use this decree power to “fill a gap“ in existing legislation, even in cases where the constitution requires a law. See Sobranie zakonodatel'stva RossiiskoiFederatsii, no. 19(6 May 1996), item 2320, ruling of 30 April 1996, p. 4953. The majority of the court held that: “The president is made the guarantor of the Constitution of the Russian Federation and ensures the coordinated functioning and cooperation of the organs of state power. As a result, the president's issuing of ukazy that fill gaps in the legal regulation of questions demanding a legislative solution does not contradict the Constitution of the Russian Federation so long as such ukazy do not contradict the Constitution of the Russian Federation and federal laws, and their action is limited in time until such time as corresponding legislative acts are adopted.“

19. In 1999,40 percent of normative presidential decrees rescinded or amended previous decrees, some affecting dozens of earlier decrees at once. In many cases, the changes are required because a law has been passed that supersedes the prior decrees.

20. Remington, Thomas F., Smith, Steven S., and Haspel, Moshe, “Decrees, Laws, and Inter-Branch Relations in the Russian Federation,” Post-Soviet Affairs 14, no. 4 (October-December 1998): 287–322.Google Scholar

21. Both Charles de Gaulle and his successor Georges Pompidou ignored the French constitutional requirement that when the president submits a matter to the populace for a referendum, either the government or one of the two chambers of parliament must propose it as well. Their successors have not dared to follow their example. See Shugart and Carey, Presidents and Assemblies, 59.

22. But, if both chambers of parliament approve a proposal to amend chapters 1, 2, or 9 of the constitution, they convene a Constitutional Assembly, which may in turn choose to hold a national referendum to ratify the change (Article 135, paragraphs 2 and 3).

23. Remington, Smith, and Haspel, “Decrees, Laws, and Inter-Branch Relations,” 319.

24. Presidential decrees are classified into “normative” and “implementing” categories. In addition to decrees, the president also issues orders (rasporiazheniia) that are binding but of lower legal status. Normative decrees are considered rule-making; implementing decrees concern individuals and other cases of limited application. Examples are appointments of individuals to particular posts, and the granting of state prizes to specific individuals. In any given year, there are likely to be 8 or 9 times as many implementing as normative decrees.

Note that many normative decrees are extremely narrow in scope. A decree in September 1999 retroactively revised a number of previous decrees to bring their wording into conformity with the renaming of the “head of the state heraldry administration of the president—the state heraldmeister into the State Heraldric Council.”

The figures must be interpreted with caution, however. It is clear from examining the numbers of the published decrees, both normative and implementing, that a large proportion of decrees are not published. Presumably the reason is that they are classified. For instance, in 1999, the administration took the unprecedented step of publishing four decrees from previous years that had been classified “for official use only” (they concerned the status of Kaliningrad, the status of a closed city, on the use of wiretapping of criminal suspects, and social benefits for certain categories of state employees). Thus it is difficult to determine the number or significance of the unpublished ukazy. It is likely that many of them are implementing, because the missing numbers often fall in lists of implementing decrees, such as appointments. Many others undoubtedly concern sensitive details of the administration of the “power structures.” The numbers are significant. For the period from 1994 through October 1996, Scott Parrish counts a total of 953 published normative decrees, 2,575 published implementing decrees, and 1,544 missing or “secret” decrees. Parrish, “Presidential Decree Authority,” 82.

25. Exceptions include occasional decrees suspending actions of presidents of constituent republics or other lower officials. These are rare, however. There were only two in 1999.

26. In 1999, when El'tsin appointed Stepashin as prime minister, and again later when he appointed Putin, he followed these actions by issuing decrees laying out new governmental organization charts, specifying the number of ministries, state committees, other agencies, and the numbers of deputy chairs and first deputy chairs of the government. Presumably he did so at die behest of the new prime minister, since in each case the actions followed rather than preceded the change in government. Many of the decrees concern minor changes in the designation of particular state agencies, as when the State Committee on Physical Education and Tourism was elevated to the status of Ministry for Physical Education and Tourism (Ukaz no. 724 of 8June 1999).

27. Since 1993, the parliament has been called the Federal Assembly and consists of two chambers: the State Duma (the lower house) and the Federation Council (the upper house).

28. Note that majority thresholds are set high: even if seats are vacant, majorities are calculated using the full complement of constitutionally mandated seats in each chamber: 450 in the State Duma, 178 in the Federation Council.

29. Postanovlenie Konstitutsionnogo suda Rossiiskoi Federatsii, “Po delu o razreshenii spora mezhdu Sovetom Federatsii i Prezidentom Rossiiskoi Federatsii, mezhdu Gosudarstvennoi Dumoi i Prezidentom Rossiiskoi Federatsii ob obiazannosti Prezidenta Rossiiskoi Federatsii podpisat’ priniatyi Federal'nyi zakon ‘O kul'turnykh tsennostiakh, peremeshchennykh v Soiuz SSR v rezul'tate Vtoroi mirovoi voiny i nakhodiashchikhsia na territorii Rossiiskoi Federatsii,'” Sobranie zakonodatel'stva Rossiiskoi Federatsii, no. 16 (20 April 1998), item 1879, ruling of 6 April 1998, pp. 3624-30. In May 1999 the court ruled on the president's petition to strike down the law both on substantive and procedural grounds. The court held that the law was not unconstitutional itself, although parts of it were unconstitutional and therefore invalid. As to the use of irregular voting procedures, the court in effect decided to wink at the practice, holding that it would not rule on the constitutionality of past legislation that may have been passed through the use of voting for absent colleagues, but warned the Duma that if it wished to use this practice in the future, it would need to establish a procedure for doing so.

30. On the implications of restrictive procedures in France, see Huber, John D., Rationalizing Parliament: Legislative Institutions and Party Politics in France (Cambridge, Eng., 1996).CrossRefGoogle Scholar The absence of “blocked” or package votes in Russia, like the president's inability to call referenda, is another instance in which Russia's executive branch is weaker in relation to the legislative branch than is the case in France. There has been speculation that the government in Russia might pledge its confidence on a particular legislative package and force the Duma to pass it on the pain of facing dissolution and early election. The constitution does not prevent such a procedure but does not explicitly provide for it.

31. The constitutional assembly convened by El'tsin in summer 1993 weakened the powers that El'tsin's previous draft had assigned the president. In the assembly's draft, the president could issue edicts, but these were not to contradict federal law or the constitution; the president would not have the broad power to dissolve the parliament if it was unable to overcome a crisis in state power; and the president could no longer be the “arbiter“ of disputes in relations between the central government and lower governments or among lower governments. Instead, the president was now to use “conciliation procedures” to settle such disputes, and, if the dispute could not be settled by mediation, was to refer the issue to the courts. The assembly's version gave the president the right to dissolve the Duma under only two circumstances: its refusal to confirm, on the third attempt, the president's nominee for head of government, and after a second vote of no confidence by the Duma in the government within three months. With slight modifications, these provisions survived into the December draft that was approved in the referendum. Still other major issues, such as the president's power to call a referendum, were finessed by being referred to future legislation. All of these weakened powers survived into the draft that was ratified by the December vote. See Konstitutsiia (Osnovnoi zakon) RossiiskoiFederatsii: Proekt (Moscow, 1993), article 74.

Note that the 1993 constitution distinguishes between optional and automatic dissolution triggers. If the Duma denies the government its confidence twice within three months, the president chooses between dissolving the Duma and dismissing the government. If the Duma fails to carry a motion of confidence put by the government, the dissolution trigger is automatically invoked. The confirmation procedure contains a similar automatic trigger. In this case, if the Duma fails to confirm the president's candidate for prime minister three times, the president dissolves the Duma and calls new elections.

The Duma, however, has attempted to protect itself against the automatic dissolution mechanism in the event it fails to approve a motion of confidence in the government. Clearly the Duma deputies would much prefer to allow a no-confidence motion to fail than a confidence motion to pass—electorally the latter is far more painful than the former even if the constitutional consequences are identical. Accordingly, in November 1995 the deputies amended the rules so that if the government demands a vote on a confidence motion, the Council of the Duma must immediately respond by organizing an expert evaluation of the legal and substantive basis for the demand. Meanwhile, if it should happen that “during the period” when the government proposes a confidence vote, the Duma itself decides to consider a vote of no confidence, the confidence vote is postponed until the no confidence vote is held. If the no confidence vote passes, then the confidence vote demanded by the government is put off for three months. Moreover, if a confidence vote is held and fails to pass, then the Duma votes on no confidence. If that vote fails, then the entire matter is dropped. In short, the Duma has effectively protected itself against the government's constitutional right to demand a vote of confidence. Reglament Gosudarstvennoi Dumy Federal'nogo Sobraniia Rossiiskoi Federatsii, Article 153, in Sobranie zakonodatel'stva Rossiiskoi Federatsii, no. 7 (16 February 1998), item 801, adopted 22 January 1998, p. 1675.

32. The law on the government, which came into force at the beginning of 1998, detailed the respective powers of president, parliament, and government further. It limits slightly the president's powers to appoint and dismiss the government and expands slightly the parliament's rights to determine the structure of the government. Under the law, the president appoints the prime minister but may dismiss him or her only if the prime minister asks to resign or is unable to perform his or her duties. Clearly President El'tsin has flagrandy ignored this provision, since he has repeatedly dismissed his prime ministers without warning, let alone consultation. “O pravitel'stve Rossiiskoi Federatsii,” Rossiiskaia gazeta, 23 December 1997.

33. Segodnia, 1 July 1998.

34. Segodnia, 23 September 1999.

35. Shugart and Carey, Presidents and Assemblies, 68-71.

36. The only limitation on the German president's right to dissolve parliament was that he could not do it more than once “for any one reason.” Needless to say, the president could always find a new reason to dissolve parliament.

37. Shugart and Carey, Presidents and Assemblies, 70.

38. Laws are classified as either federal laws or constitutional laws; the latter are considered to complete the constitution, which specifies a set of matters that are to be enacted by constitutional laws. Among these are laws on states of emergency, martial law, the human rights commissioner, the structure of the judicial system, and how a constitutional assembly is to be convened; depending on how one reads the constitution's language, there are around a dozen categories in all. The constitution requires that a constitutional law pass by a qualified majority of two-thirds of the members of the Duma and three-quarters of the members of the Federation Council.

39. Note that although there is a formal parallel between the division of labor between House and Senate in the United States, and Duma and Federation Council in Russia, the Russian usage of the term impeachment comprehends both the “indictment” and the “removal” stages, whereas the U.S. procedure applies the term only to the decision by the House to approve the charges. In the United States, the House considers and presents the charges, while the Senate determines whether the charges warrant the president's removal from office; in Russia, the Duma decides whether to approve the bringing of the charges, and the Federation Council decides whether to remove the president.

40. RFE/RL Newsline, 19 May 1999; Segodnia, 20 May 1999. State Duma, Report of Session, Biulleten', no. 261 (403), (15 May 1999): 48.

41. For reports on “council of four” or “big four” talks, see RFE/RL Newsline, 7, 20, and 21 October, 18 and 19 November, and 10 December 1997, and 31 March, 1, 2, 3, and 7 April, and 15 July 1998.

42. For accounts of the negotiations, see Segodnia, 31 August 1998; RFE/RL Newsline, 25 and 28 August 1998, and 27 January 1999; Segodnia, 3 and 6 March 1999; and RFE/RL Newsline, 17 and 22 March and 8 April 1999.

43. Shugart and Carey characterize the French system as “premier-presidential“: the president is popularly elected and has broad powers, although the president's legislative powers are limited and he or she may not remove cabinet ministers; the cabinet depends on the confidence of the parliamentary majority. They show that such a system can be stable. Shugart and Carey, Presidents and Assemblies, 23-26.

44. In his concluding statement to the Duma on 24 December 1999, reviewing the four-year term of the Duma of the second convocation, Chairman Gennadii Seleznev reported that the Duma had passed 1,036 laws, of which 715 had come into force (that is, been signed by the president). State Duma, Report of Session, Biulleten', no. 306 (448) (24 December 1999): 1-2.

45. Data for 1994-95 are taken from Remington, Smith, and Haspel, “Decrees, Laws, and Inter-Branch Relations,” 301. Data for the period between January 1996 and June 1999 are taken from calculations by the Duma's internal research unit, published in Federal'noe Sobranie—parlament Rossiiskoi Federatsii, Gosudarstvennaia Duma, Analiticheskoe upravlenie, Gosudarstvennaia Duma vtorogo sozyva v vesenniuiu sessiiu 1999 goda. Informatsionno-analiticheskii biulleten', no. 6 (Moscow, 1999), 4.

46. Examples include legislation on mortgage debt, commercial bankruptcy, privatization of state enterprises, regulation of production-sharing agreements, principles of taxation, the court system, and a full range of electoral laws.

47. A. M. Biriukov et al., eds., “Problemy organizatsii zakonodatel'nogo protsessa v svete statisticheskikh dannykh (po itogam 1996 g.-l kvartala 1997 g.),” Analiticheskii vestnik, no. 14 (Moscow, 1997).

48. Of bills taken up for consideration by the Duma in the same period, 53 percent were submitted by deputies, 7 percent by the president, 23 percent by the government, 6 percent by the Federation Council, and 11 percent by regions.