Does Managed Democracy Work in Russia?

In the eight years of Vladimir Putin’s term as president of Russia the country has seen dramatic economic growth, a repayment of debts and the creation of a large hard currency reserve.  These are notable achievements and are reflected by the popularity of Mr. Putin domestically.  The Kremlin has argued that the spectacular growth is a direct result of Mr. Putin’s establishment of socioeconomic order through managed democracy.  If a few personal freedoms or democratic institutions were eliminated in the process of managing democracy this was purveyed as a necessary sacrifice in the name of stability and economic growth.

In the new edition of Foreign Affairs, Michael McFaul and Kathryn Stone-Weiss argue that the creeping authoritarianism has hindered, not enabled, economic growth in Russia. The authors note:

“This conventional narrative is wrong, based almost entirely on a spurious correlation between autocracy and growth… Whatever the apparent gains of Russia under Putin, the gains would have been greater if democracy had survived.”

The authors also highlight that Russia’s current social situation is worse off now than they were in the late 1990’s.  Their position is based upon a variety of indicators, including the murder rate, the average age of death and the frequency of terrorist attacks.  The drop in life expectancy and increase in the murder rate have come to pass despite an influx of oil wealth going to medical care and law enforcement programs.  The statistics seem to show that more money being poured into an opaque system of government programs that are not open to public scrutiny results in a gigantic waste of resources.

Mr. McFaul and Ms. Stone-Weiss propose that Mr. Putin inherited an evolving free market democracy and slowly consolidated its growing institutions into a vertical power structure under his direct control.  He sacrificed individual liberties and personal freedoms on the pretense that it was a necessary step to ensure stability and growth, and according to the authors, the result has had the opposite of intended outcomes.