
Russian Federation

Russia performs in the low range across all Global State of Democracy (GSoD) categories of democracy. It falls in the bottom 25 per cent of the world with regard to several factors of Representation, Rights, Rule of Law and Participation. In the last five years, it has experienced notable declines in Effective Parliament, Civil Liberties, Freedom of Expression, Freedom of the Press, as well as Freedom of Movement and Freedom of Association and Assembly. Russia is an upper middle income country, heavily dependent on hydrocarbon and mineral exports. The early 2000s commodities boom funded the country’s recovery from the catastrophic post-Soviet transition to a market economy in the 1990s. The rapid economic growth of the early 2000s provided President Vladimir Putin with sufficient public legitimacy to entrench his hold on power, and his increasingly authoritarian rule has been marked by the concentration of powers in the executive branch, emasculation of institutions of representative democracy, electoral manipulation, and pressure on independent media.
In 2014, Russia responded to the Ukrainian Revolution of Dignity by launching a proxy war in the country’s east and illegally annexing Crimea. In February 2022, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Western nations responded with wide-ranging sanctions that seriously damaged the Russian economy, and Russia responded by cracking down on any and all independent civil society activity, antiwar protest, and remaining media freedom.
Russia is the largest country on earth by land area and a complex multi-confessional and multi-ethnic society, composing roughly four broad socioeconomic groups: Westernized and wealthy urban centers, mid-sized towns and cities dependent on state or major industrial employment, isolated and economically precarious villages, and “ethnic republics” that are a mix of the previous two groupings. In President Putin’s two decades in power, these “four Russias” were controlled through what the Kremlin euphemistically referred to as “managed democracy,” which in turn produced an increasingly personalized leadership system and the progressive depoliticization of various parts of Russian society. The persistence of the current political system lies in its ability to provide sufficient economic spoils to loyal elites while alternatively rewarding and disciplining various parts of Russian society through the provision of adequate economic stability, the stoking of nationalist-conservative sentiment, the maintenance of an encompassing propaganda apparatus, and repressive and deadly violence. In recent years, the sticks of repression and more overt control and censorship of the media and internet have crowded out the carrots of economic growth and personal autonomy as the main tools of governance, culminating in the wide-ranging crackdown on activism and even mild dissent in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
While the GSoD Indices data show that Russia’s performance on gender quality has been static (at mid-range) for the past several decades, the increasing repression has likely impacted the state of equality. Despite equality guaranteed by law, studies indicate an increase in gender inequality in recent years due to lack of a clear state policy and propaganda that reinforces patriarchal attitudes, making women more vulnerable to violence, discrimination, and lack of political opportunities.
Russia’s political trajectory in the years to come will be determined by the progress of its war on Ukraine. The country is currently undertaking a defensive authoritarian consolidation, but potential elite fractures and the slowly increasing cost of international sanctions may lead to a chaotic breakdown of the current government system. However, the closing-off of public information spaces makes ascertaining the course of public opinion nearly impossible. All feasible outcomes point towards significant declines across measures of democracy as the country continues to depart further from the rule of law in order to maintain its war effort.
Monthly Event Reports
August 2023 | Record number of treason cases filed
Russia is set to open more treason cases in 2023 than over the past twenty years combined, the independent Russian media outlet Kholod reported on 7 August. Kholod’s calculations were based on media reports, which it says necessarily undercounts ongoing cases as not all are made public, and reports of historical cases compiled by the legal advocacy group Team 29 (which was closed under state pressure in 2021). The overwhelming majority of the 82 current cases are against individuals accused of conspiring to support Ukraine, with the rest suspected of working for China, the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Each case carries a maximum prison sentence of 20 years. Civil society organizations argue that suspects charged with espionage are at high risk of torture in custody.
July 2023 | Russia clamps down on trans rights
Russia outlawed both legal and surgical sex changes and gender-affirming care on 25 July. Transgender Russians will now also be banned from adopting children and marriages where at least one partner is transgender will be annulled. The law was sharply criticized by human rights advocates, and many trans Russians say they have no choice but to flee the country.
April 2023 | New laws expand toolbox of repression
Several bills signed into law on 28 April raised the maximum sentence for treason to life in prison, and allowed for depriving naturalized citizens of their citizenship for “discrediting” the armed forces. A decree signed by President Vladimir Putin on 27 April legalized the deportation of residents of illegally occupied Ukrainian territory who decline to take up Russian citizenship. The laws and decree are interpreted as providing the Russian state with more tools to punish and discourage dissent.
March 2023 | Forced deportation of children a war crime, UN says
A report by the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine published on 15 March found that the hundreds of illegal transfers of children from occupied Ukraine to Russia constituted a war crime. The report also included evidence of other war crimes, including torture, rape, attacks on healthcare facilities, and summary executions. The International Criminal Court had previously issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Children’s Rights Ombudsman Maria Lvova-Belova on 24 February for the removal of children from Ukraine.
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GSoD Indices Data 2013-2022
Basic Information
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Global State of Democracy Indices
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Factors of Democratic Performance Over Time
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