the new russian nationalismand Roman Abramovich. Another is what may be called ‘regional
political machines’, or networks that usually have their roots in
regional executive power structures and that are regionally limited
in scope but tend to have particularly thoroughgoing control
over a wide range of economic, political and social resources in
that territory. Classic examples from post- Soviet Russia’s history
include Iurii Luzhkov’s Moscow political machine, and excellent
contemporary examples include Ramzan Kadyrov’s Chechnya
machine and Mintimer Shaimiev’s Tatarstan machine. Finally,
some of Russia’s most powerful networks have essentially oper-
ated out of different branches of the central Russian state, with
the most prominent of course being the personal networks of
Vladimir Putin himself. Putin’s networks have tended to draw on
people who became associated with him through his service in the
KGB (such as Igor Sechin and Sergei Ivanov), through his time as
a top figure in the St Petersburg mayor’s administration (such as
Dmitrii Medvedev), and others connected to him through more
random personal ties (such as the Kovalchuk brothers). These net-
works include not only Putin’s direct subordinates in the execu-
tive branch, but a wide range of figures placed in the worlds of
business, party politics and civil society.
In highly patronalistic societies like Russia, whoever controls
these sets of networks controls the country. The most important
challenge for a president, then, is getting all of these different net-
works to work together in his or her support instead of working
against him or her. The challenge is serious. If a society’s most
important networks refuse to obey the leader, that leader is in
serious trouble. But when they are working together in support
of a leader, that leader can be powerful indeed. In the latter situ-
ation, if the leader happens to hold the presidency under a con-
stitution that gives the president a great deal of power, this leader
wields not only this formal power but also the ability to influence
politics in many other ways through his or her networks. For
example, political parties he or she does not like can be starved of
resources through the president’s business networks. Politicians
who challenge the president can find themselves subjected to all
kinds of difficulties in their home districts, including harassing
inspections or even prosecution at the hands of regional political