The Revitalisation of Nomenklatura Power in the Altai

Abstract

The separation of political power from state property was on the agenda on the eve of radical economic reforms in 1991–2. From a remote, predominantly agrarian region like the AK one would expect, following the conclusions drawn in the previous chapter, that traditional patron-client relations and elitist policies would characterise the political scene, promoting an unequal distribution of economic resources, institutional entanglement and local corporatism between the political leadership, the agrarian lobby, the industrial management and the military. It will be argued that the early stage of political liberalisation in 1989–90, which is scrutinised in the first section, did not provide strong horizontal networks of civic activity, which would be effective enough to deprive the nomenklatura of their capacity to acquire wealth and control its distribution. The second section looks at the regional elite and key political players, while turning the attention in the third section to the institutions in place. Particular features of traditionalist economic policies in the region are the subject of the fourth section, leading to a special focus on the challenge of the national reform agenda in the last section.¹