Sergei Guriev did not want to talk about Vladimir Zelensky. At an event last week at the Wheeler Institute at the London Business School, after speaking with his colleague and friend, LBS professor Ilias Papaioannou, a prominent Russian economist was asked a question critical of the Ukrainian president. “I can’t criticize” Zelensky, he said, as a citizen of a country that has invaded Ukraine. He limited himself to praising the Ukrainian leader for the second time for the courage he had left in Kyiv.

Guryev, an economics professor at Sciences Po, a former chief economist at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (2016-2019) and a low-key anti-Kremlin alternative, found time the next day, back in Paris, to speak with K. The discussion began with the question whether he sees hope for the political future of his country, post-war or post-Putin. “Russia will remain a dictatorship of fear for the foreseeable future,” Guriev replies. “The question is how long. After Putin, there must be some kind of perestroika, some kind of dialogue with the West, because they will need to lift at least part of the sanctions. At that moment, they may lose control – as happened in the last years of existence Soviet Union”.

The term “dictatorship of fear” is taken from his widely acclaimed book, co-authored with Daniel Treisman, Spin Dictators: The Changing Face of Tyranny in the 21st Century (Princeton University Press, 2022). The central thesis of the book is that the dominant form of dictatorships in the 21st century are “communicative dictatorships” whose leaders velvet-muzzle the opposition and the media and pretend to be democrats. The new paradigm is opposed to dictatorships of fear dominated by military rhetoric, violence and the projection of violence, totalitarian propaganda (rather than effective disinformation).

When was the choice made in favor of a more traditional type of hardline dictatorship in Russia? Why did it happen; “Because Putin is faced with the dilemma that we describe in the book. In today’s society, the creative class needed to be given a certain degree of freedom. But many have used that freedom to spread discontent and challenge official propaganda, as Alexei Navalny did with his YouTube channel. It was dangerous for the regime, and Putin felt he had to stop it. He poisoned and imprisoned Navalny, but that was not enough. And when his attempt to replicate a quick Crimean victory failed, days after the invasion, he turned to repression: shutting down all independent media, imposing a draconian censorship regime, blocking Facebook, Instagram, etc.”

After Putin, there must be some kind of restructuring. There they can lose control, as happened in the last years of the USSR.

Guryev himself felt the cold wind of the tightening of the regime on his skin, already at the beginning of Putin’s third presidential term, in 2012. The reason was a report in which he was Mikhail Khodorkovsky, one of the most powerful oligarchs in Russia during the Yeltsin years. The 2010 verdict caused a backlash and prompted then-President Dmitry Medvedev to ask the Presidential Human Rights Council to investigate the case. According to a June 2013 New York Times article by Guriev, each of the nine experts who reviewed the case concluded that there was insufficient evidence against Khodorkovsky. He recalled that Putin’s agents began to persecute all the experts involved in the preparation of the report.

“I realized that it was my turn. Indeed, interrogations began in February 2013. But back in the fall of 2012, our mutual friend told me that Putin was particularly dissatisfied with me and wanted to expel me from the boards of directors of various companies.” At the end of April 2013, law enforcement officers visited his office with a warrant, which, without any reason, requested access to his email for five years. He left for France a month later and has not returned to his country since. Before leaving, according to David Remnick in The New Yorker, he wrote to a friend: “Better Paris than Krasnokamensk (the notorious Russian prison).”

“I decided to leave for three reasons,” he explains to K. “First, because of the Khodorkovsky case. Secondly, because my wife and I (i.e., no less prominent economist Ekaterina Zurafskaya) publicly supported Navalny. We were among the first 16 donors to his anti-corruption fund in May 2012. And third, and this, I was told, was Putin’s biggest concern, because I talked too much. I talked about the need for liberalization, the rule of law, etc.”

Prior to this, Guryev belonged to the political and economic elite of Putin’s Russia. He was dean of the New Economic School, Russia’s leading economic university, which was chosen by President Obama in 2009 to speak during his visit to Moscow. He was a correspondent for Medvedev, participated in a number of advisory committees and was a member of the board of directors. Sberbank (the largest Russian bank) and other state-owned enterprises.

How does he remember the Medvedev period? Was there any real momentum for democratization? “There was a lot of uncertainty,” he says. “The 2011 protests were attended by people who believed that modernization, freedom, the rule of law would benefit Russia. I believed then that there was a possibility of liberalization and that by speaking out I would contribute to the public debate. My argument was that if Russia follows the path of reform and respects the rule of law, its economy will grow and modernize, and if not, then the economy will stagnate. That is exactly what happened.”

When asked under what conditions he could return to his country, he answered suffices: “I’m almost sure that as long as Putin remains in power, I can’t return.”

Russian resistance to sanctions and the European awakening

How does he assess the economic situation in Russia almost a year after the start of the war? Initial expectations in the West of the collapse of the Russian economy did not come true. “Russia was able to withstand the sanctions pressure quite well,” he notes. “If economic and monetary policy were led by different people, the situation would be much more complicated.” Regarding Putin’s financial headquarters, he confirms that “they are unhappy with the choice of war.” He avoids commenting on his discussions with them.

Why do you think the transition to a market economy failed in Russia, especially when compared to the countries of Eastern Europe? Guryev cites a 2016 European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) study that found Russia to be among the countries where transition benefits were concentrated in a small minority (Ukraine was another tail in this regard). It also mentions corruption scandals that “undermined the credibility of the reforms”, inadequate macroeconomic management and the fact that Russia recognized the debts of the USSR. Finally, Russia was “unfortunate” in the 1990s, as oil prices were low and “Putin benefited from high prices for several years.”

The authors of Spin Dictators emphasize the need for the West to be vigilant and repel attempts to infiltrate and undermine its democratic institutions with interests associated with new type of dictators. I ask him how well the EU does this, especially against internal enemies like Viktor Orban, and if his performance has improved since the Russian invasion. “The Russian invasion was a wake-up call, but the EU has already woken up,” he replies, referring to the creation of a mechanism linking the provision of Community funds to the rule of law. He notes that the failure to allocate Hungarian-appropriate resources from the Recovery Fund damages the image of a competent administrator, which is cultivated by “communication dictators” such as Orban, weakening them. However, he describes the Hungarian prime minister as a “genius politician”, highlighting how he maneuvered to avoid being hurt by his close relationship with Putin and was re-elected last year. Otherwise, Guriev believes, the tendency of Western countries to repatriate the production of essential goods will continue.
oppression and alliances to reduce dependence on unfriendly regimes. “The most important thing is that the West remains united,” he stresses, referring to the cracks that have arisen between the US and the EU. on industrial policy and international trade.

The conversation turns to Erdogan’s Turkey, another case of post-2016 evolution from a “dictatorship of communication” to a “dictatorship of fear.” Guryev acknowledges that this is a “special case” because even today Erdogan does not have exclusively the characteristics of an old-fashioned dictator, while in the early years of his rule, his government had pronounced democratic features. As for the US, whose democratic institutions have been tested but endured in 2020-21, he cautions against complacency. He notes that Trump could run again or be replaced by someone even more effective at undermining democratic institutions: “Trump communicated well with the party base, but was incompetent and corrupt. We have a lot to worry about as we head into 2024.”

Oppression algorithm

In the past 15 years, the intensity of discussions about the impact of modern digital technologies on politics has been growing. Guriev argues that in authoritarian countries where official media is censored, social media is still an important communication platform for dissidents and activists. However, in democratic countries in Europe, according to his research, the spread of mobile Internet use accounts for 50% of the growth in the electoral influence of populist parties between 2007 and 2018.

His big concern is with artificial intelligence. “According to conventional wisdom, dictatorships do not welcome innovations that require open dialogue, freedom and competition. However, artificial intelligence is something else. Its development depends on the access of algorithms to a huge amount of data. Democracies respect privacy, which is why they place limits on the flow of such personal data. There are no such restrictions in China. The state allows companies using artificial intelligence to collect data without verification. Thus, company algorithms are evolving faster and security authorities are benefiting from better monitoring and behavioral prediction technologies. It’s a symbiosis that makes the Chinese dictatorship stronger and its tech companies more productive. This is what should scare us.”