著者
溝口 修平
出版者
東京大学大学院総合文化研究科国際社会科学専攻
巻号頁・発行日
2012-01-11

報告番号: 甲27632 ; 学位授与年月日: 2012-01-11 ; 学位の種別: 課程博士 ; 学位の種類: 博士(学術) ; 学位記番号: 博総合第1115号 ; 研究科・専攻: 総合文化研究科国際社会科学専攻
著者
溝口 修平
出版者
ロシア・東欧学会
雑誌
ロシア・東欧研究 (ISSN:13486497)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.2012, no.41, pp.61-75, 2012 (Released:2014-05-27)
参考文献数
29

Russia’s federalism in the 1990s had two different characteristics: the legal equality of federal subjects and bilateralism. While the constitution, which was adopted in December 1993, regards all the federal subjects (regions) as “legally equal”, it also allowed the center and regions to sign bilateral treaties to transfer some of their powers to each other. These treaties forged the asymmetry of Russia’s federal system and undermined the central government’s capacity in the 1990s. This paper aims at explaining the reason why such complex institutional settings were introduced in the constitution. Previous studies have argued that after the constitutional crisis in October 1993, President Yeltsin pursued the concentration of power on the center-regional axis by emphasizing the legal equality of all the federal subjects. At the same time, the concept of bilateralism was also brought in the federal system. In this manner, the constitution has different orientations in itself, but it remains unclear why such ambiguous institutional settings were made in Russia. In the course of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia started drafting a new constitution. While Yeltsin intended to grant himself strong power in the constitution, he couldn’t get enough support from the parliament on this point. Thus, he tried to win over regional leaders to his side in order to gain support for his own constitutional draft. In June 1993, he convened the Constitutional Conference, where a lot of regional leaders took part and played a great role in working on a new draft. Although the provisions of strong presidential power were approved in the Constitutional Conference, there were some disputes over the center-regional relations. One of them was whether the draft would include “the special status of republics” or “the legal equality of all the subjects.” Faced with such a state of confrontation, Yeltsin arranged a compromise between the two by both giving the republics “sovereign state” status and proposing that all the federal subjects should be “legally equal among themselves in relations with the Federal bodies of state power.” Another issue was the relations between the central government and the Republic of Tatarstan. As Tatarstan started negotiating with Moscow over a bilateral agreement in the late Perestroika period, it refused to sign the Federal Treaty in March 1992 and kept on the negotiation. In the Constitutional Conference, Tatarstan demanded that such a peculiar position should be taken into consideration in the constitutional draft, and this demand was accepted. In July 1993, the Constitutional Conference adopted the draft, which acknowledged such bilateral treaties as one of the ways to determine the scopes of authority and powers between the center and the federal subjects. This clause remained in the final draft, in spite of the fact that Yeltsin pursued the concentration of power after the crisis in October 1993. In this way, while he partly centralized the state structure at the last stage of making the constitution, he left the concept of bilateralism in the constitution. This bilateralism subverted the ability of the federal government, and exacerbated political and economic turmoil in the 1990s.
著者
溝口 修平
出版者
一般財団法人 日本国際政治学会
雑誌
国際政治 (ISSN:04542215)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.2020, no.201, pp.201_114-201_129, 2020-09-15 (Released:2022-03-31)
参考文献数
42

In a highly patronalistic society, such as one in post-Soviet Eurasia, a popularly elected president is generally the most dominant political figure in the country. As he or she not only has great formal power prescribed by the constitution but also exercises a high degree of informal power through patron-client relationships, the president can control the political elites by giving rewards and delivering punishments. The more immense power the president has, however, the more uncertain presidential term limits will make the problem of succession. In fact, some presidents in the post-Soviet states managed to extend their stay in office beyond their mandated periods, but others failed to do so. This article explores what causes such a difference.The existing literature adopts a rationalistic approach to this problem: presidents decide whether to extend their tenure or to step down by calculating the costs and benefits to remain in power. These studies argue that presidents will succeed in the extension of their tenure, when they hold great power and resources to co-opt and threaten the elites. There have been some instances of tenure prolongation, however, where power and resources were equally distributed between the president and the opposition leader. In these cases, the rationalistic explanations have limitations.This article argues that presidents would succeed in extending their tenure by justifying their rule beyond their mandated periods and obtaining the public endorsement for it, even when they have difficulty in gaining its approval from the elites. This is because public support would affect the elites’ expectations about who would be the dominant political figure. Thus, referendums are useful tools for presidents who want to evade their term-limits.With the above in mind, this article conducts three case studies. First, in Central Asian states where presidents acquired enormous power just after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the constitutional provisions of presidential term limits have been “gutted” because presidents have felt no constraint to distort the term-limit rules. Second, Belarusian President Aliaksandr Lukashenka, making use of his populist rhetoric and holding referendums, was successful in expanding his power and prolonging his tenure. Third, Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma also used referendums for the sake of his own interests, but the defections from the ruling elites interrupted him from achieving his goals. As Kuchma lost public support due to the “Cassette Scandal,” the elites changed their expectations about who would be their strongest patron. In sum, in a hybrid regime where a certain degree of political competition exists, the success or failure of a president to extend his or her tenure depends on the endorsement from the public, because it will influence the elites’ behavior.