Сергей Медведев - The Return of the Russian Leviathan

From the end of the 1980s a new culture of innovation began to grow in Russia. This was based, on the one hand, on the mighty Soviet engineering potential and strong school of physics and mathematics, and, on the other, on private initiative and networks. This produced a string of unique computer programs and home-grown IT leaders with global ambitions, such as the afore-mentioned Eugene Kaspersky. But it failed to create a sphere of technological, intellectual or civil autonomy, or an innovative environment like Silicon Valley in California. All attempts to create such an environment, such as Skolkovo, were closely tied to their state patrons; and in the current conditions of the financial crisis and economic sanctions they are stagnating. [40] In 2009 it was announced that the Russian government was to create a place of technological advancement and innovation at Skolkovo, just to the west of Moscow. And in Putin’s third term, when the authorities set out to clean up and nationalize the information and hi-tech sphere, they simply went back to the bosom of the authoritarian state.

It has become common to describe Putin’s regime in ‘hybrid’ terms, and here we have yet another ‘hybrid’: hi-tech authoritarianism, embedded in the structures of the information society. This phenomenon was described in the anti-utopian works of Vladimir Sorokin ( Day of the Oprichnik ; The Sugary Kremlin ; Telluria ), [41] Oprichnik was the term given to a member of the Oprichnina , an organization established by Tsar Ivan the Terrible to govern a division of Russia from 1565 to 1572. The Telluria of the third title is an imagined republic with large deposits of ‘tellurium’ peacefully snuggled in the Altai Mountains. where a future Russia, having shut itself off from the West by a wall, and having restored the monarchy and the customs of the Middle Ages, uses artificial intelligence devices, mobile video telephones and the advances of bionics and genetics. In this way, Russian traditionalism works hand in hand with the iPhone in exactly the same way as Islamic State: the patriarchal consciousness and archaic social and political institutions blend perfectly with postmodern technologies that have been bought or stolen in the West or developed under the control of the authoritarian state.

We can see, therefore, how in the modern world authoritarianism has adapted to the demands of the information society and uses its infrastructure for its own survival. In their book, How Modern Dictators Survive: Cooptation, Censorship, Propaganda and Repression , economists Sergei Guriyev and Daniel Treisman write about how in the past few decades a new type of authoritarianism has arisen, better adapted to coping with a world of open borders, global media and the knowledge economy. Illiberal regimes, from the Peru of Alberto Fujimori to the Hungary of Victor Orbán have learnt how to concentrate power in their hands while avoiding isolating their countries and engaging in mass killings, and, at the same time, working cleverly with information. Although they may resort to violence from time to time, they hold on to power less through terror then by manipulating society’s consciousness.

The same thing is happening in Russia. On the one hand, the regime controls the flow of information in the traditional media and on the Internet; on the other, it tries to monopolize the hi-tech sector, bringing it under its own interests and preparing structures to possibly shut off the country’s access to information. This is the looking-glass of authoritarianism: namely, those areas where new networks and civil autonomy could be born – this digital frontier which could become the space for freedom – is being used in Russia to create archaic means of authority. Once again in Russian history, technology is working not to free society but to strengthen the state; the axe is once again becoming not the carpenter’s instrument but a weapon of repression. And if Russia in the future shuts itself off from the world with a ‘Kremlin firewall’ created by state-of-the-art technology, then by its very nature this wall will still be that of the Middle Ages.

On 28 July 2017, Russia suffered a diplomatic embarrassment. The Deputy Prime Minister, Dmitry Rogozin – who has been put under sanctions by both the USA and the EU – flew to the Moldovan capital, Chisinau, and planned to go on from there to the region of Transnistria, which no country has recognized as a separate state. But the Romanian authorities would not allow him to fly over their territory; and the aeroplane with the Deputy Prime Minster on board returned to Minsk.

Of itself, this incident is not worthy of attention. Dmitry Rogozin is a comical figure, one moment suggesting building military bases on the Moon, the next, underwater cities in the Arctic; but this latest incident is an example of the wider problem facing modern Russia – it is rapidly losing its sovereignty in foreign policy. How can you describe it otherwise, when the government’s Deputy Prime Minister cannot fulfil his mission in a country in the near abroad because the route goes either through Romania (which is taking part in the sanctions against Russia) or through Ukraine (with whom Russia is at war)?

Now to a far more serious problem: the scandal involving turbines made by Siemens, which were illegally sent to Crimea in contravention of European sanctions. The export to the peninsula of technology and equipment had been banned more than a year earlier, after the EU condemned the occupation of Crimea. What was more, Vladimir Putin had given the company’s senior management his assurances that their goods would not be used in Crimea. Siemens filed a lawsuit with a demand to seize the four turbines, which were supposed to provide all the electricity to the peninsula. As a result, because of the European sanctions and Russia’s clumsy attempt to circumvent them, Russia was unable to provide electricity to a part of its strategic territory; in other words, Russia’s energy sovereignty was undermined.

Finally, the packet of American sanctions signed by Donald Trump on 2 August 2017. The full scale and effect of these sanctions has yet to be seen (including losing one third of exports of Russian gas to Europe); but what can be said is that they have significantly restricted Russia’s foreign policy and foreign trade capabilities. If we assess the overall situation over the past three years, Russia’s room for manoeuvre has been severely restricted and it has suffered political and reputational damage. It is impossible not to see that our country is steadily losing its sovereignty.

One of the recognized theoreticians on sovereignty in political science is the American, Stephen Krasner. In his textbook work from 1999, Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy (which is a clear reference to Max Weber’s definition of the state as ‘organized violence’), he writes that the word ‘sovereignty’ has four meanings: international legal sovereignty (the judicial recognition of a state within its own borders); Westphalian sovereignty (the exclusion of foreign interference on the authorities of a state); domestic sovereignty (the ability of the authorities to exercise control within their own borders); and interdependent sovereignty (the ability to conduct policy regarding transborder flows of information, people, ideas, goods and threats). [42] Stephen D. Krasner, Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy (Princeton University Press, 1999). One glance at the policy of Putin’s Russia makes it clear that, for its sins, it can partially meet only these first two demands of sovereignty: the country is recognized by the United Nations (although without Crimea); and ‘foreign agents’ have been driven out of internal policy. At the same time, the ability of the authorities to exercise control over processes taking place within the country and, what’s more, to play a role in globalization have dramatically weakened.