Graeme Gill has written a concise, readable, yet remarkably detailed account of the construction of contemporary Russia's particular brand of authoritarianism, the linchpin of which is its charismatic and powerful president. Gill explains contemporary Russia not as the result of failed democratization, but as the result of elite-driven state-building in the absence of an ideological template with which to coordinate competing interests and centers of power in Russia's massive federal system. Starting with Boris El΄tsin but accomplished mostly by his successor, Vladimir Putin, Russia's presidents have used the power of their office to reconstruct the Russian state in the wake of institutional and economic collapse.
In Chapters 2 and 3, Gill describes state-society relations and electoral politics. Like other scholars of Russia's post-communist transition, in his discussion of the weakness of Russian civil society, Gill emphasizes El΄tsin's and Putin's efforts to limit and discredit the political opposition. In addition to his treatment of presidential efforts to control sources of opposition support, such as media, trade unions, and NGOs, Gill adds an element often overlooked by others; that is, Putin has done what El΄tsin failed to do: he has articulated a vision for Russia capable of captivating an audience outside Moscow. Putin's ideology, which emphasizes the history and traditions of Russia, is unabashedly nationalistic, conservative, and anti-west, and it provides an ideological justification for a governmental system that has become increasingly undemocratic yet receives wide popular support.
Gill's discussion of Russia's party system is particularly insightful. El΄tsin never joined or endorsed his ostensible party of power (Russia's Choice followed by Our Home is Russia); therefore, a key mechanism that has enabled the Russian president to control most other powerful political elites did not develop until the Putin presidency. The Putin-era party of power, United Russia, is part of the president's successful strategy to centralize power in the executive branch. With a platform that reflects Putin's ideology of cultural nationalism and presidential competence, United Russia appeals to a wide base and is popular, and it provides politicians' vital connection to the presidential administration. For Putin, United Russia attracts all relevant political elites and facilitates communication between the president and other centers of political power, especially Russia's regions. Yet, as Gill makes clear, United Russia is not the foundation of a single party state. As an institution it is subordinate to the president, and its electoral message has always centered on the leadership ability of Putin himself.
In Chapters 4 and 5, Gill tackles the complex institutional structure of the post-Soviet regime as well as the network of personal relationships that animate it. Certainly, the office of the president has constitutional or legal control over many of Russia's most powerful institutions, including the security agencies, the Security Council, the Federation Council, and the judiciary. Yet it has been United Russia, serving as a recruitment tool, which has ensured that Putin loyalists have dominated the directly elected lower chamber, the State Duma, as well as the regional governorships. Putin has created a hierarchical institutional structure in which all paths lead to the president, and the glue that holds the structure together is United Russia. According to Gill, Russia is a “hybrid personalist/party regime, a regime in which the primary dynamic has been the will of the leader rather than any institutional imperative (158).”
Given the many excellent books on post-Soviet Russia, including many on the Putin period, to what extent does Building an Authoritarian Polity add to our understanding of Russia today? I would argue that Gill has made at least three important contributions to existing literature. First, Gill has described the bewildering complexity of Putin's institutional personalism. Second, Gill's discussion of the role that United Russia plays in Putin's Russia breaks new ground in the understanding of the role of single and dominant parties in authoritarian regimes. Finally, Gill presents the evolution of the Russia's current political system as the result of rational solutions to discrete and important problems of state-building, highlighting differences in style and strategy between Russia's two most important post-Soviet presidents, El΄tsin and Putin, a much-needed addition to our current understanding of Russia today.
