ideology, institutional foundations, value choice”

On Friday, the Civil Society Development Foundation (FORGO; a think tank working with the presidential administration and United Russia) held a round table “The Antifragility of Putin’s State: Ideology, Institutional Foundations, Value Choice.” During it, experts explained why the modern Russian state is stable, and even found elements of flexibility in its political system. Modernization of the latter is possible, but it must take place within the framework of “stiffening ribs”. Then the state is not afraid of “black ducklings”.

“Antifragile” is a concept introduced by the American publicist Nassim Taleb. His idea is that a clearly structured system, in which errors and crises are excluded, in fact turns out to be vulnerable. When it does encounter risks, it is unable to react flexibly to them. In contrast, to become antifragile, a system must learn from its mistakes and be sensitive to variability and uncertainty in outcomes. As it was easy to guess from the topic of the round table, the experts of the Civil Society Development Foundation, in their own opinion, found features of “antifragility” in “Putin’s state”, which they decided to share publicly.

The discussion was started by the head of ForGRO, Konstantin Kostin. According to him, the special military operation and the confrontation with the “collective West” played the role of a “perfect storm” or stress test for the Russian state. “At least today, even critical experts admit that the Russian state, despite all the challenges, remains resilient and successfully adapts to new realities,” the expert convinced the audience. He is confident that for Russia there is no likelihood of shock scenarios in the economy, and in combination with the “consolidation around the flag,” the ratings of government officials and the election results, this allows us to say that “the system is working well and clearly.”

FoRGO expert Vitaly Ivanov decided to complement his colleague and shared his concept of “antifragility.” “The request for “antifragility” was historically formulated in the 90s, when Russia acquired sovereignty. This request was not always articulated or understood, but nevertheless it was there. The 20th century turned out to be very unkind. Two crashes, in 1917 and 1991. Of course, after this, a general political worldview, political and psychological demand could not be formulated to build a state that could not be destroyed, that would not fade away on its own,” the expert said. In his opinion, now it has been fully implemented, including in the relationship between the center and the regions, because the Constitution prescribes a unified system of public power, and the governor’s corps was formed from people “who will not let you down and will not betray you.”

Candidate of Philosophy Boris Mezhuev saw Russian “antifragility” in his realism. “Previous state projects, including, probably, even imperial and monarchical and, obviously, Soviet and post-Soviet, had a utopian component. The first was born from the idea of ​​​​building a super-just society, a heavenly city on earth. And the second was based on the utopian idea of ​​rapprochement with the West and inclusion in the world, which was then called the global civilized community,” explained the philosopher.

Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Center for Current Political Affairs Aleksey Chesnakov outlined as many as 11 functions that the Russian state copes with, and through them acquires “antifragility.” Among them was “sensitive”. As the expert explained, he saw its manifestation in the fact that in December-January the Ministry of Justice registered seven organizing committees of political parties: “This shows that the system is sensitive. New players and actors have appeared, and the system reacts to them.” According to the political scientist, the system, within the framework of the function of representation, also copes with ensuring competition, but “harmonious”, promoting growth (non-systemic groups do not need to create favorable conditions).

The questions of journalists, including the Kommersant correspondent, concerned precisely the internal political structure of Russia. In particular, the question was raised whether it can be called flexible enough to correspond to the original concept of “antifragility”, and whether the limits of this flexibility can be judged from the final list of presidential candidates. “Any structure needs some kind of stiffening ribs, some elements that provide stability,” said Konstantin Kostin, noting that the system is flexible enough to cope with “black swans” (another concept of Nassim Taleb), which so far “ ducklings.” And Alexey Chesnakov said that the system could not be called flexible if representatives of non-parliamentary parties did not participate in the elections, but they exist, although some kind of modernization, according to him, is possible (for example, increasing the terms of the presidential and Duma campaigns and introducing coalitions against them).

During the discussion, Konstantin Kostin announced that ForRGO will continue to develop the topic and will subsequently make a report on the Russian state, its institutions, public administration practices, the political system, economic relations, ideology and values.

Andrey Vinokurov