Tomorrow, Dmitry Medvedev will be inaugurated as the president of Russia. There will be a ceremony, during which Mr. Medvedev will take an oath of office. Afterward, he will be driven home in a presidential motorcade, presumably to a presidential dacha. Yet despite these official appearances, no one knows whether Mr. Medvedev will then wield the powers of the Russian president. Will he be a figurehead? Will he take orders from his predecessor, Vladimir Putin? Or will he actually give orders, take decisions, and run the Kremlin?

Even though Mr. Medvedev’s inauguration takes place this week, we still don’t know the answer to these questions — a fact that is, if you think about it, very disturbing. In most democracies, voters and observers may not know who will win the election, but they have a sense of what the winner’s powers and responsibilities will be after the election is over.

Although Russia sometimes looks like a democracy, it is not a democracy. Elections aren’t merely rigged, they are carefully programmed in advance. Voters aren’t just coerced, they are never given any real choice at all.

Political parties are fictitious, many so-called “civil society organizations” are phony, and the press does what the politicians tell it to do. Just last month, the government closed down a tabloid that had dared to publish the (quite possibly true) news that the former president, Vladimir Putin, was having an affair with a gymnast half his age. No one knows if the tabloid will reopen, for the rules of the Russian political game are not determined by an open, constitutional process, but rather by a secretive elite, many of whose names are not known to the public at all.

The same is true of Russia’s economic system. Though sometimes mistakenly described as an example of “wild” free-market capitalism, Russia has never, in fact, experienced anything that resembles real capitalism at all. The country’s largest companies are controlled by the Kremlin’s inner circle. Their CEOs base their investment decisions on political considerations as much as economic ones.

When Gazprom does a foreign deal — in Germany, in Austria, in Portugal — the company is not merely trying to make profits, but attempting to win political influence for the Russian state. At the same time, basic components of capitalism — small businesss, independent banks — simply don’t exist in much of the country at all. Political and mafia control on all sectors of the Russian economy makes “normal” entrepreneurship impossible in most places.

Nevertheless, this Russian system has its admirers: If nothing else, many argue, at least Russia is now “stable.” As evidence of this “stability,” they point to the continuity between Messrs. Putin and Medvedev: The former chose the latter, after all, though through a process that remains opaque. They also note that — thanks to high oil and gas prices — the Russian government is, at the moment, able to pay its debts, cover its budget obligations, and spend money more freely than was possible in the 1990s.

Don’t be fooled: in fact, Mr. Medvedev’s inauguration this week is evidence of Russia’s profound instability. As I say, we don’t really know why he was selected, we don’t know what powers he will have, we don’t know how long he will remain in office. When, in the future, we are negotiating with him, we will not know whether we are talking to the Russian government or to an unimportant functionary. But the economic instability his presidency could bring might be even worse. After all, Mr. Medvedev’s inauguration gives Western businesses in Russia no guarantees whatsoever either. Just as his presidential powers depend upon the whim of the Kremlin’s inner circle, so too do Western investments depend upon the whim of the Kremlin.

Though many businesses may believe their situation in Russia to be secure because they have good personal relationships with the ruling elite, they could lose their security if the ruling elite changes. In a country where there is no rule of law, then there is no guarantee that contracts will be respected, or that legal ownership will be recognized, if the country’s leadership should suddenly change its priorities.

None of which is to say that Mr. Medvedev is not a nice man, or at least a man with good intentions. He might well be in favor of liberalizing his country, as some have suggested; He might admire the West. Perhaps he even drinks whiskey instead of vodka. But the mechanisms which bring him to power this week — mechanisms which we do not understand — could bring him down next month, too.

As long as Russia is governed by the whims of individuals, and not by rule of law, we have no reason to feel any certainty or any security about any of Russia’s leaders.

Ms. Applebaum is a columnist for the Washington Post.