Electoral political machine in tatarstan
MASATOMO TORIKAI, Graduate Schools for Law and Politics, the University of Tokyo, Japan
Supervisor KIMITAKA MATSUZATO, PhD in Law, Professor in the Graduate School for Law and Politics, The University of Tokyo
In stark contrast to 1990s, when Russian regions enjoyed a considerable degree of autonomy to the central government, the history of the Russian regional electoral politics after President Putin appeared in political arena is equivalent to the history of rapid centralization (Golosov 2011). Nowa-days, a handful of regions which maintained the strong regional political machines in 1990s, such as Bashkortostan, can exert only marginal influence on Russian politics. However, there is one exception; Tatarstan.
How can Tatarstan continue to be maintain autonomy toward the center? The answer is that the political machine in Tatarstan performs well enough in elections to prevent the central government from intervening in the regional politics. Some scholarly literature reveal that the central government have continued to rely on the regional political machines to win elections, even if the process of centralization have rapidly proceeded [1, 2].
In this analysis, the author focuses on the rayon level elites. As Matsuzato [3] indicates, the rayon level elites are the key actors for the strong political machine. The evidence presented here suggests that under President Minnikhanov the political machine in Tatarstan have been more consolidated gradually. This study introduces two interesting aspects.
First, the new appointment or rotation pattern of rayon level elites was installed. After President Minnnikhanov was inaugurated in office in 2010, 47 new rayon level governors were appointed to date. Given the fact that only 33 new rayon level governors were installed from 2000 to 2009, this is surprisingly rapid pace. In addition, 10 of 47 new governors have previous working experiences as rayon level governors in other rayons. These numbers indicate that the republic government no longer depends on rayon level ‘bosses’, who control entire rayons, to mobilize voters in elections. In practice, support for United Russia in the 2016 parliamentary elections was 85.27 % in Tatarstan, which was the third highest number after Chechnya and Dagestan. In other words, the political machine in Tatarstan functioned well even under the leaders from other rayons [4].
Second, these appointment patterns are intertwined with the electoral results in rayons. The good examples to examine this new pattern are the dismissals of governors between the 2011 parliamentary election (held in December 4th, 2011) and the 2012 presidential election (held in March 4th, 2012). In the aftermath of the 2011 parliamentary election, 4 rayon governors (Aznakaevskii, Mendeleevskii, Tetyushskii, Yutazinskii) were dismissed. Therefore, the former Yutazinskii rayon governor, Marsel’ Shaisullin, was subsequently appointed as the governor of Aznakaevskii rayon. Whereas, of course, there were other factors explaining the reasons of these dismissals, such as the failure of economic governance, it is difficult to doubt that they were fired due to poor performance of electoral mobilization, since the spans between the election and the dismissals were less than one month [5].
The conclusions of this study leave much room for future research. Since what this study analyzes is mainly based on quantitative data of rayon level governors, it is necessary to explain the reason of the robustness of political machine in Tatarstan with more detailed qualitative information. In particular, the next urgent task is to assess the historical path of consolidation of the regional political machine in 2000s after socalled «Altynbaev’s putsch» and the reasons why this consolidation could be achieved.
References
1. Golosov, Grigorii V. 2011. “The Regional Roots of Electoral Authoritarianism in Russia.” Europe-Asia Studies 63 (4): 623–639.
2. Golosov, Grigorii V. 2013. “Machine Politics: The Concept and Its Implications for Post -Soviet Studies.” Demokra-tizatsiya 21 (4): 459–480.
3. Matsuzato, Kimitaka. 2001. “From Ethno-Bonapartism to Centralized Caciquismo: Characteristics and Origins of the Tatarstan Political Regime, 1900-2000.” Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics 17, no. 4 (December): 43–77.
4. Reuter, Ora John, and Graeme B. Robertson. 2012. “Subnational Appointments in Authoritarian Regimes: Evidence from Russian Gubernatorial Appointments.” Journal of Politics 74 (4): 1023– 1037.
5. Бизнес Online, 21 декабря, 2011. – URL: https://www.business-gazeta.ru/article/51494.
УДК 378