Grigoriev Ivan

Strategic Approach to Judicial Politics and Ratio of External and Internal Judicial Institutions in Organization of Judicial Power

The article presents an overview of the main theoretical approaches to judicial politics revealing the impact of institutional and non-institutional factors. On the basis of the analysis of the existing theoretical models of judicial politics and the relationships between the court and key political players, the author hypothesizes that, despite common theoretical grounds, there is an important distinction between constitutional courts in authoritarian and democratic regimes. Under authoritarianism, judges possess fundamentally different expectations about the prospects for a regime change and therefore are guided by a different yardstick when building internal judicial institutions. While under democracies courts have to succumb to government needs only in some ad hoc cases, such as at times of highly consolidated power, under autocracies this has to be a stable institutional solution.

DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2017-84-1-159-174

Inverse Authoritarian Modernization Impact of 2000–2001 Labor Reform on Political Regime in Russia

The paper investigates the relationship between labor law reform carried out in Russia in 2000–2001 and the subsequent transformation of the Russian political regime. Based on the detailed analysis of prerequisites, course and consequences of the adoption of a new Labor Code in 2001, I.Grigoriev shows that the relationship between authoritarianism and reforms postulated by the concept of authoritarian modernization might be in fact inverse because tactical steps that the government has to undertake under relatively democratic conditions in order to implement unpopular reforms alter the political landscape, thereby creating potential for increasing authoritarian tendencies.

DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2015-76-1-7-140-152

REASONS FOR FIRST CONSTITUTIONAL JUSTICE PROJECT FAILURE IN POST-SOVIET RUSSIA

The article is devoted to the analysis of the first constitutional justice project in the post-Soviet Russia. Resting upon the theory that links institutional characteristics of the Constitutional Court and its relationship with the government, with the configuration of elites initiating the formation of this body and the prospects of them holding grip onto power, I.Grigoryev considers a set of hypothetical scenarios of constitutional justice formation and shows that Russia failed to implement any of them. According to his assessment, such a turn of events can be explained by the fact that the Russian Constitutional Court was established even before the emergence of the political landscape of a new Russia. Its creation was driven by the desire to strengthen the national as opposed to the Union level of government rather than an aspiration to introduce an impartial arbiter into politics, which provoked the elites’ suboptimal moves that reached catastrophic proportions resulting in the collapse of the whole project.

DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2013-69-2-39-49