Author: Azamat
Kabdrash
In
March 26 there was a mass protest throughout Russia which covered 85 cities and
involved more than one hundred thousand people (Aljazeer.com, 2017). A couple
of weeks before that event Aleksey Navalniy, the major opposition member and a
founder of a non-governmental organization called “Fund against corruption”,
released his video of investigation about illegal acquisitions (yachts,
mansions, wine yards etc.) of the Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. In the video
Navalniy openly accused Medvedev and the government of corruption. As no
constructive explanation was given by government officials, nor by Medvedev
himself, Navalniy called people to go to anti-corruption meeting demanding
explanations to the charges.
The
protests went in peaceful manner. However, members of the military and police
suppressed the procession from the very beginning, taking people to police
trucks and arresting them. More than one thousand people were arrested
compiling administrative protocol on them. Lately, it was announced that all
arrested people were freed, only a few man being imposed a criminal punishment
because of having hardly injured police officers in the conflict arisen during
the protest. Navalniy himself was arrested immediately after his appearance at
the protest, afterwards jailed for 15 days. Recently, on April 12 he released a
new appealing video claiming that government officials still have not given a
constructive response for accusations, and therefore calling everyone to join a
new anti-corruption protest on June 12, on the national holiday.
I
want to look into this event from the perspective of “civil-military
problematique” proposed by Feaver (2003). One of the aspects of this theory
discusses a mechanism that is created between civilians and military. Ideally
military should serve as a tool of civilians to protect security. But what if
there is a conflict of interests. Feaver claimed that in this case politics
involves a coercive power. In fact, we can see the suppression of the protests
in Russia, and we see the coercive power in terms of military suppressing the
protesters. Of course military performs its duty. But, it was a peaceful
protest, as Navalniy claimed himself. It was citizens expressing their
discontent about the corruption taking place in the government. However, this
mere fact of suppression of citizens undermines civil-military relations.
Because, this is the example of Feaver’s argument on the situation when a
coercive power becomes a threat to those whom it was supposed to protect (p.4).
In addition, we are certainly not sure about what policemen think about going
against the will of people who peacefully went out to the streets. After
Navalniy was released, he told that in 15 days in jail, he had plenty of
conversations with the guards and members of the police, talking about the
protest, explaining the situation with the corruption in the government. He
said that these policemen agreed with and even supported his appeal to fight
against corruption. Of course, it is not an indicator of what the rest of
military think of it. However, the mere fact that such contrast might really exist
even in the military itself points to the aspect of “civil-military
problematique”. Because military should serve as a tool to protect its
citizens. However, if there is a contrast between civil ruling elite and
ordinary citizens it might lead to coercion of the latter, or undermine
civil-military relations between the former.
Citations
Dobrokhotov, R. (2017, March 29). Russia's new
protest generation. Retrieved April 13, 2017, from http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2017/03/russia-protest-generation-170329113346416.html
Feaver, P. (2003). Armed servants: agency,
oversight, and civil-military relations. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
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