Suchergebnisse

A number of policy reforms in post-Soviet Russia have been conducted within the framework of the technocratic model. Policy proposals have been developed and to some extent implemented by certain teams of professionals appointed by legitimate political leaders. The leaders, in turn, have tended to monopolize policy adoption and evaluation and to insulate the substance of reforms from public opinion. This article is devoted to a critical reassessment of the technocratic model of policy-making in the context of changes of the 1990s–2010s. The main focus of the analysis is on the political and institutional constraints of policy-making resulting from the influence of interest groups and mechanisms of governance within the state apparatus. Poor quality of governance and rent-seeking aspirations of major actors create significant barriers for reforms, while insulation of policy-making, although beneficial for technocratic reformers themselves, has resulted in an increase to the social costs of reforms and distorted their substantive outcomes. In the conclusion, possible alternatives to the technocratic model are discussed.

This article analyses post-Soviet reforms in Russia, and treats them as an example of 'authoritarian modernization', which were implemented to achieve a high level of socioeconomic development by focusing on rapid economic growth while neglecting political democratization. It discusses the arguments in favour of authoritarian modernization as such, and the dilemmas, challenges, and constraints in its implementation which became evident during the period of 1990-2010s. A special emphasis is made on the poor quality of the Russian state against the background of its relatively low international integration. The rent-seeking nature of the state together with the formation and further entrenchment of an electorally authoritarian regime provide negative incentives for the implementation of authoritarian modernization. The article considers a number of contradictions associated with such a project in Russia, including some unintended consequences of the economic growth, including the growth of the demands for democratization, the disjuncture between ambitious policy reforms and their inept implementation by the state apparatus, and the 'mediocrity syndrome' resulting from unjustified claims of Russia's unique influence on the global scale. The article concludes that the features of Russia's current political and economic order impose insurmountably high barriers for the implementation of authoritarian modernization in terms of ideas, institutions, and policies, thereby exhausting the very potential of this project. ; Peer reviewed

This article attempts to analyze the mechanisms of political control used by the Kremlin vis-à-vis its rivals. Russian authorities had opted the politics of fear, which include overt intimidation and public discrediting of the regime's critics, and selective persecution and open harassment of opposition activists and/or supporters. This approach to political control to some degree reproduced similar mechanisms that had enabled regime survival in the late Soviet period, and fit general trends of repressive policies in a number of contemporary authoritarian regimes. The article discusses causes and mechanisms of the politics of fear in contemporary Russia, its roots in comparative and historical contexts, and strengths and weaknesses of repressive policy in Russia from the viewpoints of the regime, the opposition, and Russian society.

Published online: 10 Aug 2015, journal issue (vol.32, N5) appeared in 2016 ; Since the collapse of Communism, Russia and some other post-Soviet states have attempted to pursue socio-economic reforms while relying upon the political institutions of neopatrimonialism. This politico-economic order was established to serve the interests of ruling groups and establish the major features of states, political regimes, and market economies. It provided numerous negative incentives for governing the economy and the state due to the unconstrained rent seeking behavior of major actors. Policy reform programs discovered these institutions to be incompatible with the priorities of modernization, and efforts to resolve these contradictions through a number of partial and compromise solutions often worsened the situation vis-à-vis preservation of the status quo. The ruling groups lack incentives for institutional changes, which could undermine their political and economic dominance, and are caught in a vicious circle: reforms often result in minor returns or cause unintended and undesired consequences. What are the possible domestic and international incentives to reject the political institutions of neopatrimonialism in post-Soviet states and replace them with inclusive economic and political ones? ; Peer reviewed