ABSTRACT
When legislative power is united with executive power in a single person or in a single body of the magistracy, there is not liberty, because one can fear that the same monarch or senate that makes tyrannical laws will execute them tyrannically. In all major realms of politics—in state-society relations, sociopolitical life, state-building, and the performance of state agencies—the overweening presidency has exerted pernicious effects. This chapter outlines the multifarious and profoundly negative effects of the superpresidential system on Russian politics. There are many possible explanations for the weakness of societal organization in Russia. Superpresidentialism has thwarted progress in every major sphere of political life in Russia. The devastating influence of superexecutive authority is compounded by the mutually reinforcing effects that its various pathologies exert on each other. Decrepit and under institutionalized state structures reduce incentives for citizens to become involved in the parties, groups, and movements that seek to influence those state agencies.
