United Russia looks East

The “China model” has garnered attention as an alternative for liberal development, but comparisons are largely drawn on the experiences of economic liberalization taking place under one-party dictatorships in Southeast Asia. Outside these regional comparisons, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) seemed to have little applicability to political organization in the rest of the world. Now, according to this New York Times piece, Putin’s United Russia party believes the CCP deserving of study. The article describes a special meeting held earlier this month that featured senior Communist Party officials describing their ruling methodology and quotes from various United Russia leaders on the value and success of the CCP template.

China itself has a similar history of sending its officials abroad to learn techniques of governance they believed suitable for China’s future. Since the 1980s the CCP has demonstrated interest in the People’s Action Party (PAP) in Singapore. David Shambaugh’s book, China’s Communist Party: Atrophy and Adaptation, reveals that the CCP values the PAP model for “guided democracy” in which the PAP sustains itself through successful policies and co-optation of the opposition”.

Each of these cases is evidence of oft assumed authoritarian cooperation, but what the implications of this learning between authoritarians are for democracy advocates and practitioners is unclear. The ability of democracy assistance or democracy/reform advocates to exert any kind of pressure on authoritarian regimes is minimal. However, a regime’s selection and analysis of case studies is perhaps indicative of direction. In China, corruption could potentially undermine the ability of the CCP to claim itself an efficient manager and capable steward of economic expansion. Singapore is the logical choice for the CCP to study given its economic success and the PAP’s ability to retain control of the state during and after economic modernization. Shambaugh believes the interest of the CCP in semi-authoritarian regimes is one example of the CCP undergoing renovation in order to retain power. If similar direction can be assumed from United Russia’s choice of China as a model then the implications are less positive. That direction might best be summed up by Sergei Mitrokhin, leader of the liberal pro-Western Yabloko party, who is quoted in the NY Times article as saying “the China meeting demonstrated that United Russia wants to establish a single-party dictatorship in Russia, for all time”.

Authoritarian cooperation

Best friends forever?

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is taking a tour of the world’s autocracies.  Over the past 11 days, he has visited Russia, Iran, Syria, Belarus, Turkmenistan, Libya, and Algeria.  While Venezuela is still nominally (barely?) a democracy, Chavez seems intent on building his authoritarian bona fides. His trip to Russia was particularly productive as he secured a $2.2 billion line of credit for weapons purchases and an agreement to jointly develop oil fields and nuclear energy.