Ex-presidents of the post-Soviet states. Legal status and political practice
https://doi.org/10.28995/2073-6339-2022-3-60-92
Abstract
Despite the extensive political and legal practice of regulating the status of a president who has ceased to perform his duties, that institution still remains insufficiently studied. On the basis of the author’s methodology the article solves the problem of the correlation between the formal status and informal influence of post-Soviet ex-presidents, and identifies ex-presidency models. It considers 33 ex-presidency cases in 12 post-Soviet states in the period from 1992 to 2022 and gives a quantitative assessment for each case according to two criteria (the level of institutionalization and the level of subjectivity). The author comes to the conclusion that out of 33 cases, only 30% are characterized by staying of the ex-president in politics, and of these, only in four cases, that staying did not lead to political persecution of the former president. Legal guarantees of maintaining the ex-president’s high role in the political process in practice do not guarantee the ex-president’s safety, since as a result of a change in the balance of power within the elite; they may be revised or canceled by the new president. At the same time, the degree of political regime competitiveness also does not affect the ex-president’s protection from prosecution. Weak legislative regulation of the ex-president’s status or its absence in competitive political regimes does not exclude that presidents whose term of office is coming to an end will try to extend them in other ways. Currently, only in Russia andTurkmenistan elites have been able to ensure staying of ex-presidents in the political process without subjecting them to persecution. In all other states, the ex-presidency experience is either still absent or has an extremely negative character associated with the persecution of former leaders for political reasons. That is due to the fact that in most post-Soviet states, irrespective to the type of political regime, stable institutional practices of political competition, dialogue with opponents and guarantees of former presidents activities have not appeared.
About the Author
N. A. Borisov
Russian State University for the Humanities
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
Nikolai A. Borisov, Dr. of Sci. (Political Science), associate professor
125047
bld. 6, Miusskaya Sq.
Moscow
References
1. Anderson, L. (2010), “The ex-presidents”, Journal of Democracy, vol. 21, no. 2, pp. 64–78.
2. Belenky, I. (1999), “The making of the ex-presidents, 1797–1993. Six recurrent models, Presidential Studies Quarterly, no. 29, pp. 150–165.
3. Borisov, N. A. (2017), “Institutionalization personalism. Institute of the Nation’s Leader in the post-Soviet space”, Central Asia and The Caucasus, vol. 18, no. 2, pp. 66–78.
4. Borisov, N. A. (2018), Prezidentstvo na postsovetskom prostranstve: protsessy genezisa i transformatsii [Presidency in the post-Soviet space. Genesis and transformations processes], RGGU, Moscow, Russia.
5. Borisov, N. A. (2019), “Early termination of the president powers in the post-Soviet space. Constitutional rules and political reality”, Political Science (Ru), no. 4, pp. 68–104.
6. Chambers II, J. W. (1998), “Jimmy Carter’s public policy ex-presidency”, Political Science Quarterly, vol. 113, no. 3, pp. 405–425.
7. Corrales, J. (2018), “Latin America’s neocaudillismo. Ex-presidents and newcomers running for president... and winning”, Latin American Politics and Society, vol. 50, no. 3, pp. 1–352.
8. Dmitruk, S. V. (2010), Fenomen eks-liderstva: sravnitel’no-politologicheskii rakurs [The phenomenon of ex-leadership. A comparative political science perspective], Ph. D. Thesis .(Polytology), Kuban University, Krasnodar, Russia.
9. Dzidzoev, R. M. (2021), “Legal immunity of the President of Russia, who has ceased to exercise his powers. Theory and legislation”, Vlast’ Zakona, no. 1, pp. 72–80.
10. Jacobs, N. (2018), “After the White House. The politics of the postpresidency”, Presidential Studies Quarterly, vol. 48, no. 4, pp. 711–740.
11. Jones, J., and Rowland, R. (2005), “A covenant-affirming jeremiad. The post-presidential ideological appeals of Ronald Wilson Reagan”, International Journal of Phytoremediation, vol. 56, no. 2, pp. 157–174.
12. Khanova, I. (2020), “Presidential form of government in Kazakhstan. Scientific analysis of the constitutional basis for the institution of the Presidency and its development mechanisms”, RSUH / RGGU Bulletin, “Political Science. History. International Relations” Series, no. 3, pp. 130–139.
13. Lipset, S. M. (1998), “George Washington and the founding of democracy”, Journal of Democracy, vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 24–38.
14. Markedonov, S. M. (2017), “The post-Soviet space. Dissolution or continuation?”, RSUH / RGGU Bulletin, “Political Science. History. International Relations. Area Studies. Oriental Studies” Series, no. 2, pp. 9–16.
15. Norton Smith, R. and Walch, T. (1990), Farewell to the chief. Former presidents in American public life, Worland, Wyo., USA.
16. Roht-Arriaza, N. (2009), “Prosecutions of Heads of State in Latin America, in Lutz, E., and Reiger, C. (eds.), Prosecuting Heads of State, Cambridge University Press, New York, USA.
17. Samarkina, I. V. and Dmitruk, S. V. (2011), “Heads of State after the peak of their political careers. Factors and professional trajectories”, Polis. Political Studies, no. 1, pp. 153–164.
18. Sopel’tseva, N. S. (2005), “Immunity of the President of the Russian Federation who has terminated the exercise of his powers”, Constitutional and Municipal Law, no. 5, pp. 22–26.
19. Winger, G. and Jain, A. (2016), “Mr. Worldwide. International affairs and the American post-presidency”, Congress and the Presidency, vol. 43, no. 1, pp. 1–542.
20. Zaznaev, O. I. and Sidorov, V. V. (2018), “Presidential systems in the post-Soviet space. Is Juan Linz’s hypothesis correct?”, RSUH/RGGU Bulletin, “Political Science. History. International Relations” Series, no. 4, pp. 24–35.
21. Zaznaev, O. I. and Sidorov, V. V. (2019), “Models of controlled transfer of presidential power”, Political Science (Ru), no. 4, pp. 16–37.
Review
For citations:
Borisov N.A. Ex-presidents of the post-Soviet states. Legal status and political practice. RSUH/RGGU Bulletin Series "Political Science. History. International Relations". 2022;(3):60-92. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.28995/2073-6339-2022-3-60-92
Views:
432
Email this article 