When the Soviet Union was at its height, “Kremlinology” was the art of interpreting indirect clues to try to understand what was happening in a secretive political system. Kremlinology is now back again. Observers are asking whether the sudden disappearance of Russia’s defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, from public view suggested discord within Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle — or whether Putin’s speech on March 16, in which he demonized “national traitors,” suggest that he will ramp up oppression.
My new book with Jos Elkink, “The New Kremlinology,” explains how we can better understand how Putin rules by interpreting the subtle clues given by appointments, dismissals, reshuffles, personal affiliations, media coverage, and speeches. Putin’s management style stabilized his regime for 20 years, countering possible threats from elites and the general public. His aggression in Ukraine was foreshadowed by a decade of aggressive rhetoric.
But his strengths may be turning into weaknesses. His reliance on personal power rather than institutions may make it hard to rule Russia under unprecedented economic sanctions.
Putin’s regime rests on his personal power
In the later Soviet Union, leaders had to reach compromises with members of the Communist Party’s principal committee, the Politburo. Today, by contrast, Russian politics revolves around one central figure: Vladimir Putin. In political science jargon, it is a “personalist” regime, in which politics are shaped by personal ties to one key individual. However, there are different kinds of personalism. Putin’s version is notable because of his skill as a human resources manager.
From 1999, he has secured power by drawing on a small number of his friends, associates, colleagues and subordinates. These are Putin’s “clients,” in political science terms: They depend on him for their wealth and power. They, too, have their own clients, who, therefore, also depend on Putin. In our research, we have mapped the network of client relationships spread out from Putin.
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At first, Putin slowly and incrementally appointed people in his network to powerful positions. He avoided dismissing them and rewarded their loyalty with remunerative contracts for such things the 2014 Sochi Olympics. This allowed Putin to take control of the government. We also assessed the policy influence of hundreds of the most important offices within Russia’s institutions, including in the FSB (the organization that replaced the KGB), the cabinet, the legislature and state-owned companies. These institutions got weaker and weaker as Putin’s network became stronger. Their weakness makes Putin — who in contrast appears strong and decisive — look indispensable. However, because weaker institutions are less effective, it also makes Putin less capable of implementing his policy decisions and getting things done.
The influence of Putin’s network reached its peak in 2012. That’s when he returned to the presidency, after having briefly served as prime minister while his “understudy” Dmitry Medvedev held the presidency. This led other officials to view him as the permanent ruler, increasing his power and making it easier for him to shuffle his officials into various positions as he liked and to replace old-time loyalists with new technocrats as seemed convenient. By 2012, Putin and his regime had partly fused together. In a now well-known quote, Vyacheslav Volodin, then deputy chief of the presidential administration, said, “There is no Russia today if there is no Putin …. any attack on Putin is an attack on Russia.”
Russian officials became increasingly sycophantic and their rhetoric came more and more to resemble Putin’s own speeches, we found. Even if their praise for Putin and his policies was perhaps insincere, they clearly became unwilling to express alternative opinions. That, in turn, helps explain why Putin thought that Ukraine would fall easily; his officials apparently weren’t willing to contradict him.
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Putin’s approach to rule is now a liability
Until a month ago, Putin seemed to have a strong grip on the leadership, thanks to his careful management of key subordinates and his surprising ability to attract and keep talent in his economic team. Research suggests that if he hadn’t overreached, he might have further consolidated power by dismantling government institutions, reshuffling elites, and pursuing further constitutional changes. Now, he himself has stirred up a hornet’s nest.
Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine wasn’t surprising, if you look at his past rhetoric. His televised addresses on Feb. 21 and 24 in which he explained further aggression against Ukraine focused almost exclusively on Russia’s history and historical grievances, and drew strong condemnation from all corners. When we examined thousands of Putin’s speeches over time, we found that he has long turned to such historical justifications to explain and legitimate his policy. He has also emphasized international security and military affairs strongly, while frequently talking about the Russian challenge to the global liberal order.
But invading Ukraine was risky for a personalist leader. Putin is the first Russian leader since Stalin to abandon collective leadership. In the desperate time of late June 1941 following the Nazi invasion, with the Red Army in full retreat, Stalin, who had destroyed his army leadership in a bloody purge and then ignored warnings of a Nazi invasion, left Moscow to contemplate his catastrophic policy blunders alone. When officials in his inner circle arrived to see him, Stalin was apparently convinced that they had come to arrest him. Instead, they begged him to return, because his hold on the political elite was absolute and they were deeply invested in Stalin as a symbol of their party regime.
Putin’s hold on Russia’s top officials is strong — but not as strong as Stalin’s. He has partly isolated himself by replacing loyalists from his own network with technocrats from outside his circle. Despite his underlings’ sycophancy, he does not have the strong cult of personality that Stalin had throughout the country. Over his rule, news media have only modestly increased coverage of the Russian leader, both overall and in relation to other officials. And he lacks strong institutions that he could turn to in order to manage Russia’s new economic crisis and perhaps blame if things do not turn out well.
As in the past, we have to rely on Kremlinology to make educated guesses as to what is actually happening in Moscow. But from what we know, it is plausible that Putin is in a riskier political situation than he has been in for at least a decade.
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Alexander Baturo is associate professor of government in Dublin City University. He is co-author of “The New Kremlinology: Understanding Regime Personalization in Russia” (Oxford, 2021).