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Preference for Presidentialism: Postcommunist Regime Change in Russia and the NIS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

Gerald M. Easter
Affiliation:
Miami University
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Abstract

The recent wave of democratic transitions has stimulated scholarly interest in a previously undeveloped area of study: comparative presidentialism. Comparative presidentialism seeks to define variant types of presidentialism that have emerged from transition processes, to identify the conditions that shape institutional choice and to understand more clearly the causal relationship between institutional choice and democratic regime outcomes. Using the postcommunist transitions, this paper contributes to the emerging comparative presidentialism literature by suggesting a revision to the argument that presidentialism leads to failed democratic transitions. The paper focuses attention away from the institutional rules of the game and toward the actors who actually make the institutional choice. Three postcommunist cases, distinguished by their different regime outcomes, are compared: Russia, Uzbekistan, and Estonia.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1997

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References

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4 Higley and Gunther (fn. 3), 3.

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15 Institutional choice is determined by employing Shugart and Carey’s two defining criteria: (1) the government’s survival is more dependent on the president or parliament; and, (2) the president or the parliament is the principal authority over the government. The two criteria are measured as a continuum ranging from “maximum” to “none.” A mixed system exists if neither the president nor parliament is able to dominate both criteria. Shugart and Carey (fn. 8), 26.

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17 Gorbachev’s approach, however, did not quite fit the Spanish or Brazilian versions of “pacta transition” or “transition by transaction.” In these cases, regime leaders engaged preexisting and organized sociopolitical groups in a gradual process of negotiation and compromise. See Share, D., “Transitions to Democracy and Transition through Transaction,” Comparative Political Studies 19 (January 1987)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. By contrast, Soviet leaders attempted to give form and content to a within-system reform campaign that unintentionally gave rise to radicalized movement politics. See Fish, M. S., Democracy from Scratch (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993)Google Scholar.

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35 The referendum required a minimum 50 percent approval from a minimum 50 percent of the electorate for ratification. The official figures listed 54.8 percent of the electorate participating, with 58.4 percent voting in favor of the new constitution. Rossiiskaia gazeta, December 25, 1993, p. 1. It was later suggested that the turnout figures were inflated to assure the ratification of the constitution. Izvestiia, May 4, 1994, p. 1.

36 The impeachment process requires: (1) one-third of the lower house voting to charge the president with treason or serious criminal conduct; (2) a Constitutional Court ruling on the procedural correctness of the lower house’s action; (3) a Supreme Court ruling on the substance of the lower house’s charge; (4) an additional ruling on the substance of the charge by a special commission of lower house members; (5) two-thirds of the lower house voting in favor of impeachment; and (6) two-thirds of the upper house voting in favor of impeachment. If this process is not concluded within three months, the charge against the president is automatically dropped.

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40 ibid.

41 Tatarstan was the first region to sign a special treaty with the president and the central government in February 1994. As of March 1996, eleven additional regions had negotiated similar ad hoc treaties. Nezavisimaia gazeta, February 25, 1994, p. 1.

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49 Komsomol’skaia pravda, February 14, 1990, p. 1.

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53 Ibid.

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56 FBIS: Soviet Union, March 28, 1990.

57 Pravda vostoka, December 30, 1991, p. 1.

58 FBIS: Central Eurasia, September 28, 1992.

59 Pravda vostoka, December 9, 1992, p. 1.

60 Ibid., May 14, 1993, p. 33.

61 The Fatherland Progressive Party is headed by one of the president’s counselors. Segodnia, December 14, 1993, p. 5.

62 FSIS: Central Eurasia, June 17, 1995.

63 Rossiiskaia gazeta, June 18, 1995, p. 6.

64 Pravda vostoka, February 25, 1995, p. 1.

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66 The division of state spoils at the local level has in some places led to clan-based conflicts. Rossiiskaia gazeta, April 30, 1993, p. 6.

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75 Ibid., January 30, 1992; January 31, 1992.

76 Ibid., February 25, 1992; May 28, 1993.

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78 Officials of Russia’s State Property Committee, in fact, helped to organize and train employees in Uzbekistan’s State Property Committee. Narodnoe slovo, September 27, 1994, p. 1.

79 See remarks of privatization head, Viktor Chzhen, Pravda vostoka, August 8, 1995, p. 2.

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102 Ibid., January 28, 1994; September 2, 1994; November 10, 1994.

103 Ibid., July 21 1995.

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107 Alimov, K., “Are Central Asian Clans Still Playing a Political Role?” Central Asia Monitor, no. 4 (1994), 16Google Scholar. Six regionally based clans exist in postcommunist Uzbekistan (Western, Eastern, Southern, Tashkent, Bukhara, and Khorezm).

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