Professor Partlett’s forthcoming book challenges the conventional view that Russia’s Constitution is a sham. It will show instead that this constitution is a critical foundation of Russian authoritarianism today that carries important broader lessons for the world.
In the ruins of the Soviet Union, President Boris Yeltsin—with the full backing of the West—dabbled in the ‘dark arts’ of constitutional law by centralising vast constitutional power in the office of the president in the 1993 Russian Constitution. This presidential centralisation was justified as necessary to ensure stability while being limited by extensive constitutional rights guarantees. President Vladimir Putin has since disregarded these rights provisions and fully exploited this centralised authority to rebuild Russian authoritarianism.
The Russian experience helps us better understand the dark arts of constitutional law, an understudied practice in which written constitutions are used to build a centralised state. This practice is grounded on a long normative tradition—dating back to Thomas Hobbes—arguing that centralisation is the best way to overcome civil war and achieve the common good. This practice underpins the rise of authoritarian populism around the world today. It also is increasingly infiltrating established democracies, posing a critical internal threat to democratic governance.
William Partlett is an Associate Professor at Melbourne Law School. He writes and teaches in the field of public law.
It’s interestingly academic, look at paper power and how the west “missed” the Russian centralisation with Putin.
Brought in 1993 by Yeltsin (well more like his burocrats) and used later.
The Q&A reveals #mainstreaming and likely #dogma. This is a gathering of “our” technocrats talking about their “technocrats”. “Sadly” some of the west pushed this mess “we trust him”
Does the mess create the mess or the mess create the mess is an under text of the event is as far as the technocrats get.
The leading liberal, agency is to ask people in power to change.