Corruption: the Achilles heel of Russia’s power vertical?

Nowhere is corruption’s corrosive effect on development and democracy more evident than in Russia. 

“It is difficult to overstate the role of corruption in Russia, which in many ways is the glue that holds together the disparate groups dominating Russia’s current political system,” write Dimitri K. Simes and Paul J. Saunders. “Because of corruption, Russia’s political system is simultaneously very resistant to change and remarkably fragile.”

A weak media, compromised judiciary, subservient artificial parties, craven legislature and divided and fractious opposition provide no countervailing power or constraint on the executive. And, despite President Dmitri Medvedev’s occasional calls for reform, the ruling elite has little incentive to clean up its act:

It will not be possible to modernize Russia without a genuine effort to eliminate corruption—and this includes at the top. Corrupt conduct is not simply tolerated, but a way of life with profound political implications. Any opening in the political system that would allow corruption to be exposed could potentially decimate Russia’s elites—and they know it

As president, Vladimir Putin demolished the political power of the oligarchs and governors, but “could not bring himself” to promote civil society, free markets or other alternative centers of influence, they suggest.

“From this perspective, Russia’s current semiauthoritarian system is not entirely the product of a deliberate process but also the result of a vigorous effort to rein in previous abuses unaccompanied by anything else,” they argue. “It is authoritarianism by default.”

“The question now is how long Russia’s current political arrangements can hold,” they write. The status quo will survive “unless the talk of competition between Putin and Medvedev has some real heft,” in which case, a “genuine struggle could tear both the corrupt elite and the power vertical apart, with unpredictable consequences.”

In short, the system could collapse if what Statfor calls the Kremlin Wars between Putin’s siloviki and Medvedev’s civiliki get out of hand:

So long as these two clans scheme against each other, Putin’s position as the ultimate power is not threatened and the state itself remains strong — and not in the hands of one power-hungry clan or another. (ht: Robert Amsterdam)

A Washington Post editorial takes a harsher view of Putin: “Russians also know that Mr. Putin could put a stop to the state-sponsored murders if he chose to; he does not. This is not new, of course. Past Kremlin rulers have used murder to shore up their authority. Not since the time of Joseph Stalin, however, have the political killings been so blatant — or so chillingly common.”