Political succession is a perennial dilemma for authoritarian regimes. How to transfer power, preferably within the ruling elite, and with at least a semblance of accountability and legitimacy, without risky elections?
One option is simply to keep it in the family: dynastic succession appears to be catching on, especially in such ‘progressive’ regimes as Cuba, Syria and Azerbaijan. But that is not an option in Russia, writes Simon Sebag Montefiore in today’s New York Times, which, like China, is one of those “authoritarian systems ruled by tiny cabals that decide the succession of political power through mysterious, invisible and almost magical rites.”
While Beijing’s political transitions are shamelessly undemocratic and secretive – but firm and orderly,” he notes, in Russia “the absence of working mechanisms for succession are [sic] a real threat to the international order.”
Declining oil revenues may generate domestic unrest, Montefiore suggests, presenting real challenge to Russia’s “peculiar semi-modern, semi-medieval system.” He cites Uri Ra’anan’s observation in Flawed Succession that democracy, rule of law or civil society cannot be sustainably rooted in “the absence of a transparent, consistently implemented, non-arbitrary transfer of power mechanism.”
We can only hope that the Putin-Medvedev tandemocracy avoids the painful excesses of earlier power struggles:
Catherine [the Great], a German with no claim to the throne, in 1762 overthrew her own husband, Peter III, who was subsequently strangled by two courtiers, Aleksei Orlov and his brother Grigory (who was also Catherine’s lover) in a drunken frenzy. The official announcement was that he had died of piles – prompting the French philosopher d’Alembert to joke, when invited by Catherine to visit, that he couldn’t go since he suffered from hemorrhoids, potentially fatal in Russia.
Do we really want to invite this kind of comparison? In 1762 Americans were over a century away from mitigating the atrocity of slavery by adopting the mere “indignity” of proto-aparthied. But, by all means, talk to us about 18th century Russia.