ABSTRACT

There is general agreement that both the Security Council and State Council are significant institutions in Putin’s Russia, but less clarity as to what this means, beyond that each provides opportunities for consultation with specific segments of the elite. Even this modest consensus was confounded in 2020, when both councils seemed to offer potential post-presidential roles for Putin himself, and underwent significant changes. This article describes the legal and administrative evolutions of both bodies, assesses their roles, and considers them from the perspective of a limited access order. It tackles the problem of institutions in undemocratic systems and the thin line between the decorative elements of the political system, and the bodies in which real administrative power is vested. We argue that they have a significant informal role as sites for the negotiation of power and resources and remain potential actors in the ongoing power transformation of the Russian political system.

摘要

人们普遍认为，安理会和国务院都是普京领导下的俄罗斯的重要机构，但对于这意味着什么不太清楚，除此之外，它们都提供了与特定精英阶层进行磋商的机会。即使是这种温和的共识在 2020 年也被混淆了，当时两个委员会似乎都为普京本人提供了潜在的后总统职位，并发生了重大变化。本文描述了这两个机构的法律和行政演变，评估了它们的作用，并从有限访问令的角度考虑了它们。它解决了非民主制度中的制度问题，以及政治制度的装饰元素与真正行政权力被授予的机构之间的细线问题。