Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-f46jp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-07T16:44:39.024Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Inside Russia's Imperial Relations: The Social Constitution of Putin-Kadyrov Patronage

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2019

Julie Wilhelmsen
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article analyzes how Moscow has extended its rule over Chechnia since the beginning of this century. Within the larger understanding of this rule as imperial in form, the current distinct contractual relationship between the Russian center and Chechnia is substantiated as one based on kinship. I argue that the Putin-Kadyrov relationship is a generic case of patronage but highlight the local imprint that such relations acquire by tracing how Chechen kinship practices inform this case.

Type
Managing Regional Diversity
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 77 , Issue 4 , Winter 2018 , pp. 919 - 936
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. See for example Ekaterina Sokirianskaia, “Is Chechnya taking over Russia?,” The New York Times, August 17, 2017; Mark Galeotti’s blog, https://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/about/ for example “Kadyrov the Terrible? Is he really going, or is this just a curtain call?,” at https://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/2016/02/27/kadyrov-the-terrible-is-he-really-going-or-is-this-just-a-curtain-call/ (last accessed September 18, 2018); Amy Knight, “Putin’s Monster” New York Review of Books, May 19, 2017, at http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2017/05/19/putins-monster-ramzan-kadyrov/ (last accessed September 18, 2018).

2. Ledeneva, Alena V., Can Russia Modernise? Sistema, Power Networks and Informal Governance (Cambridge, Eng., 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Hale, Henry E., Patronal Politics: Eurasian Regime Dynamics in Comparative Perspective (New York, 2015)Google Scholar, see also Hale, Henry E., “How Nationalism and Machine Politics Mix in Russia,” in Kolstø, Pål and Blakkisrud, Helge, eds., The New Russian Nationalism: Imperialism, Ethnicity and Authoritarianism, 2000-15 (Edinburgh, 2016), 221–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3. Nexon, Daniel B., Wright, and Thomas, “What’s at Stake in the American Empire Debate,” American Political Science Review 101, no. 2 (May 2007): 253–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4. Patron-client relation can be defined, as it is on WebRef, as “a mutually obligatory arrangement between an individual who has authority, social status, wealth, or some other personal resource (the patron) and another person who benefits from his or her support or influence (the client),” at http://www.webref.org/anthropology/p/patron_client_relationship.htm (last accessed September 18, 2018).

5. Neumann, Iver B., Haugevik, Kristin and Lie, Jon Harald Sande, “Kinship in International Relations: Introduction and Framework,” in Haugevik, Kristin and Neumann, Iver B., eds., Kinship in International Relations (Abingdon, Oxon, Eng., 2019)Google Scholar.

6. Patrick Thaddeus Jackson, Civilizing the Enemy: German Reconstruction and the Invention of the West (Ann Arbor, 2006).

7. Helge Blakkisrud, The Governor’s Last Stand: Federal Bargaining in Russia’s Transition to Appointed Regional Heads, 2005–2009 (Oslo, 2015), Paul J. Goode, The Decline of Regionalism in Putin’s Russia: Boundary Issues (Milton Park, 2011), Jeffrey Kahn, Federalism, Democratization, and the Rule of Law in Russia (Oxford, 2002), Cameron Ross, Federalism and Democratisation in Russia (Manchester, 2002).

8. George Steinmetz “Empires and Colonialism,” http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199756384/obo-9780199756384-0090.xml (no longer available); Max Weber, Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology, 2 vols, eds. Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich (Berkeley, 1978); Michael W. Doyle, Empires (Ithaca, 1986); Ronald Grigor Suny, “The Empire Strikes Out: Imperial Russia, “National” Identity, and Theories of Empire,” in Ronald Grigor Suny and Terry Martin, eds., A State of Nations: Empire and Nation-making in the Age of Lenin and Stalin (Oxford, 2001), 23–66.

9. “Empire is a particular form of domination or control between two units set apart in a hierarchical, inequitable relationship, more precisely a composite state in which a metropole dominates a periphery to the disadvantage of the periphery,” in Suny, “The Empire Strikes Out,” 25. Similarly, according to Reus–Smit, empires are authoritarian systems of alien rule grounded in “regimes of unequal entitlements,” in Christian Reus-Smit, Individual Rights and the Making of the International System (Cambridge, Eng., 2013), 12.

10. Jane Burbank and Frederick Cooper, Empires in World History: Power and the Politics of Difference (Princeton, 2010).

11. Daniel B. Nexon, The Struggle for Power in Early Modern Europe: Religious Conflict, Dynastic Empires, and International Change (Princeton, 2009), 253.

12. Ronald Grigor Suny, “Ambiguous Categories: States, Empires and Nations,” Post-Soviet Affairs 11, no. 2 (1995): 193–94.

13. Andrew Phillips, “Making Empires: Hierarchy, Conquest and Customization,” in Ayşe Zarakol, ed., Hierarchies in World Politics (Cambridge, Eng., 2017), 43–65.

14. Nexon, The Struggle of Power in Early Modern Europe, 254. Also, Burbank and Cooper emphasize that modern empires have to exercise “responsive rule” over the populations they seek to govern; see their chapter 10.

15. Phillips, “Making Empires: Hierarchy, Conquest and Customization,” 48–49.

16. Ibid., 50–51.

17. Jeppe Mulich, “Transformation at the Margins: Imperial Expansion and Systemic Change in World Politics,” Review of International Studies 44, no. 4 (October 2018): 694–716.

18. Phillips, “Making Empires: Hierarchy, Conquest and Customization.”

19. For sistema, see Alena V. Ledeneva, Can Russia Modernise? Sistema, Power Networks and Informal Governance (Cambridge, Eng., 2013). For patronal politics, see Henry E. Hale, Patronal Politics: Eurasian Regime Dynamics in Comparative Perspective (New York, 2014).

20. Alexander Baturo and Johan A. Elkink, “Dynamics of Regime Personalization and Patron-Client Networks in Russia, 1999–2014,” Post-Soviet Affairs 32, no. 1, (2016): 75–98; Vladimir Gel΄man, “The Vicious Circle of Post-Soviet Neopatrimonialism in Russia,” Post-Soviet Affairs 32, no. 5 (2016): 455–73.

21. Henry (T.H) Rigby, Political Elites in the USSR: Central Leaders and Local Cadres from Lenin to Gorbachev (Aldershot, Eng., 1990).

22. On legitimation, see Jackson, Civilizing the Enemy.

23. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London, 1983).

24. Hale, “How Nationalism and Machine Politics Mix in Russia.”

25. Ronald R. Krebs and Patrick Thaddeus Jackson, “Twisting Tongues and Twisting Arms: The Power of Political Rhetoric,” European Journal of International Relations 13, no. 1 (2007): 35–66.

26. John F. Baddeley, The Russian Conquest of the Caucasus (London, 1908).

27. A taip is an extended family network that originates and develops from one or several tribal villages, so-called auls, in Anna Zelkina, In Quest for God and Freedom: The Sufi Response to the Russian Advance in the North Caucasus (New York, 2010), 14–20.

28. Miriam Lanskoy, “Chechnya’s Internal Fragmentation, 1996—1999,” The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs 27, no. 2 (Summer-Fall 2003): 185–205.

29. Charles H. Fairbanks, “Weak States and Private Armies,” in Mark R. Beissinger and Crawford Young, eds., Beyond State Crisis? Postcolonial Africa and Post-soviet Eurasia in Comparative Perspective (Washington, D.C., 2002): 139.

30. Julie Wilhelmsen, “Between a Rock and a Hard Place: The Islamisation of the Chechen Separatist Movement,” Europe-Asia Studies 57, no. 1 (January 2005): 35–59.

31. Phillips, “Making Empires,” 12.

32. Nexon, The Struggle for Power in Early Modern Europe, 261.

33. On the precarious standing and status of Akhmad Kadyrov in Chechnia see also Kimberley Zisk Marten, Warlords: Strong-Arm Brokers in Weak States (Ithaca, 2012), 108.

34. “Russia appoints Chechen leader,” BBC News, June 12, 2000, at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/787811.stm (last accessed September 18, 2018).

35. Nivat, Anne, Chienne de Guerre: A Woman Reporter behind the Lines of the War in Chechnya (New York, 2001), 245Google Scholar.

36. Marten, Warlords: Strong-Arm Brokers in Weak States, and Ledeneva, Can Russia Modernise: Sistema, Power Networks and Informal Governance.

37. Nivat, Chienne de Guerre, 246.

38. Derluguian, Georgi M., Bourdieu’s Secret Admirer in the Caucasus: A World-System Biography (Chicago, 2005), 255Google Scholar.

39. James Hughes, Chechnya: From Nationalism to Jihad (Philadelphia, 2007), 121.

40. Lawrence Uzzell, “Kadyrov Orchestrates Personnel Shakeup in Grozny,” Chechnya Weekly 4 (21), June 12, 2003.

41. Tomáš Šmid and Miroslav Mareš , “‘Kadyrovtsy:’ Russia’s Counterinsurgency Strategy and the Wars of Paramilitary Clans,” Journal of Strategic Studies 38, no. 5 (2015): 650–77.

42. “Strana Spetsnaz [Spetsnaz country],” Novaya Gazeta, July 25, 2011, at http://www.novayagazeta.ru/society/47063.html (last accessed January 24, 2017.)

43. Sophie Lambrochini, “Chechnya: After Kadyrov’s Inauguration, Doubts Remain,” RFE/RL, October 20, 2003, at http://www.rferl.org/a/1104725.html (last accessed January 30, 2017).

44. “Рамзан Кадыров рассказал журналу GQ, что такое военный стиль, что и дальше будет убивать и что Путин—красавчик [Ramzan Kadyrov told the journal GQ what martial style is, that he will continue to kill and that Putin is a beauty],” Novosti NEWSru.com, October 5, 2005, at http://www.newsru.com/russia/05oct2005/kadyrov.html (last accessed January 24, 2017.) Author’s translation.

45. “Kadyrov about the first meeting with Putin,” Ukrainian News, September 18, 2014, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xz3cXoohS7E (last accessed May 5, 2016). Author’s translation.

46. Answering the question on Putin’s role in the Chechen crises in 2005 Ramzan answers: “Putin is the man. He cares more for Chechnia than any other republic. When my father died, he came in person to the graveyard . . . Putin ended the war.” Novosti NEWSru.com, October 5, 2005, at http://www.newsru.com/russia/05oct2005/kadyrov.html (last accessed September 18, 2018). Author’s own translation.

47. Vladimir Putin, “Владимир Путин—Рамзан Кадыров мне как сын [Vladimir Putin—Ramzan Kadyrov is like a son to me],” interview by Chechen State Television, August 2, 2016, YouTube video, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEl4Mt1CtkQ (last accessed May 30, 2018). Author’s translation.

48. It is impossible to know how much money was spent rebuilding Chechnia, particularly Grozny, and how much of this sum was allocated through the Russian federal budget to Chechnia. By various estimates Grozny City cost half a billion dollars to build (“The Family. A Film about Ramzan Kadyrov, Whom Putin Calls a Son,” Open Russia, May 25, 2015, YouTube video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krXLTNNeNZs (last accessed January 24, 2017).

49. Liz Fuller, “The Unstoppable Rise of Ramzan Kadyrov,” Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty, January 19, 2015, at http://www.rferl.org/content/profile-ramzan-kadyrov-chechnya-russia-putin/26802368.html (last ccessed January 24, 2017).

50. Open Russia, “The Family.”

51. International Crisis Group (ICG), “Chechnya: The Inner Abroad,” Europe Report No. 236, (June 30, 2015), 4, at http://www.refworld.org/docid/559294054.html (last accessed January 24, 2017).

52. Marten, Warlords: Strong-Arm Brokers in Weak States, 110.

53. Julie Wilhelmsen, Russia’s Securitization of Chechnya: How War Became Acceptable (London, 2017).

54. ICG, “Chechnya, the Inner Abroad.”

55. Jaimoukha, Amjad M., The Chechens: A Handbook (London, 2004), 134CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

56. Stacy Closson, “The North Caucasus after the Georgia-Russia Conflict,” Russian Analytical Digest 51 (December 5, 2008), 2–5.

57. Ramzan Kadyrov, “20,000 of Kadyrov’s Soldiers Are Ready to Kill Ukrainians if Putin Will Give the Order,” Live News, December 29, 2014, Youtube video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwZ1yWkhh_s (last accessed June 1, 2016).

58. “В Чечне празднование Дня России проходит при повышенных мерах безопасности [In Chechnia the Celebration of Russia Day Takes Place in Conditions of Enhanced Security],” Kavkazskii Uzel, June 12, 2013 at http://www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/225547/ (last accessed January 24, 2017).

59. “В Чечне отмечается День памяти и скорби [The Day of Memory and Grief is Celebrated in Chechnia],” Kavkazskii Uzel, May 10, 2013, at http://www.kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/223996/ (last accessed May 30, 2018).

60. Uwe Halbach, “Chechnya’s Status within the Russian Federation: Ramzan Kadyrov’s Private State and Vladimir Putin’s Federal “Power Vertical,” SWP Research Paper No. 2 (May 2018): 16–18, at https://www.swp-berlin.org/en/publication/chechnyas-status-within-the-russian-federation/ (last accessed May 30, 2018).

61. Marten, Warlords: Strong-Arm Brokers in Weak States, 117.

62. Mairbek Vatchagaev, “FSB Assigned Control Over Operations in Chechnya and the North Caucasus,” Eurasia Daily Monitor, October 19, 2009 at http://www.jamestown.org/programs/edm/single/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=35621&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=485&no_cache=1#.VdxbyXkw-JA (last accessed January 30, 2017).

63. Paul Sonne, “Chechen president Ramzan Kadyrov gives shoot-to-kill order on outside forces,” The Wall Street Journal, April 23, 2015, at https://www.wsj.com/articles/chechen-president-ramzan-kadyrov-gives-shoot-to-kill-order-on-outside-forces-1429812489 (last accessed May 30, 2018).

64. Sergei Bobrov, “Bastrykhin’s Humiliation,” The Interpreter, December 18, 2013 (originally published by Novaya Gazeta, December 7, 2013), at http://www.interpretermag.com/bastrykins-humiliation/ (last accessed January 24, 2017).

65. Sasha Sulim, “Human rights defenders from “Memorial” in Caucasus are abducted, imprisoned, killed,” Meduza, January 17, 2018, at https://meduza.io/slides/pravozaschitnikov-iz-memoriala-na-kavkaze-pohischayut-sazhayut-v-tyurmu-ubivayut-pochemu-ih-tak-zhestoko-presleduyut (last accessed May 30, 2018).

66. Ivan Nechepurenko, “FSB Officers Go on Strike after Release of Chechen Cops, Report Says,” The Moscow Times, March 24, 2013, at http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/fsb-officers-go-on-strike-after-release-of-chechen-cops-report-says/477488.html (last accessed January 24, 2017).

67. Ivan Nechepurenko, “Daughter Challenges Refusal to Question Chechen Leader over Nemtsov Death,” TASS, August 19, 2015 at http://tass.com/russia/815184 (last accessed January 24, 2017).

68. Snetkov, Aglaya, Russia’s Security Policy under Putin: A Critical Perspective (Abingdon, Oxon, Eng., 2014), 177CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

69. Thomas Ambrosio, “Russia,” in Donnacha Ó. Beacháinis and Abel Polese, eds., The Colour Revolutions in the Former Soviet Republics: Successes and Failures (London, 2010), 136–56.

70. Nechepurenko, “FSB Officers Go on Strike.”

71. Valery Dzutsati, “Creation of Russian National Guard Could Affect Kremlin Policies in the North Caucasus,” Eurasia Daily Monitor 13, no. 75, April 18, 2016, at http://www.refworld.org/docid/5724db074.html (last accessed January 24, 2017).

72. Vladimir Putin, “Direct Line with Vladimir Putin,” April 14, 2016, Video at http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/51716 (last accessed June 1, 2017).

73. Baddeley, The Russian Conquest of the Caucasus, 10–11.

74. Soldatov, Andrei and Borogan, Irina, The New Nobility: The Restoration of Russia’s Security State and the Enduring Legacy of the KGB (New York, 2010)Google Scholar.

75. Putin, “Direct Line with Vladimir Putin.”