State and Society in Post-Communist Russia

Abstract

The crisis of the post-communist Russian state is also a crisis of society. The sources of this dual crisis lie in the past, but they are exacerbated by forces generated by post-communism itself. One cannot ‘black box’ the state and assume it to be a unitary actor as in the structuralist or neo-realist tradition. Instead, we will examine how the dynamics of transition have created opportunities for sectional groups and actors with at best an ambivalent relationship to general state and security interests to affect the governmental process. The erosion of state authority and the inability (and indeed reluctance) of President Yeltsin and his governments to exercise leadership have allowed sectoral interests to influence decision-making directly, to the point that they threaten the very operation of the state itself. A distinctive type of regime politics has emerged in which sections of the state bureaucracy and the governing elite have joined with economic groups and elites to take advantage of the opportunities generated by the transition (above all privatization). This regime system has been able to insulate itself to a remarkable degree from popular oversight, parliamentary accountability and legal restraints. It is vulnerable, however, on several counts, including the activization of the democratic institutions on whose legitimacy the regime rested, the threat of a renewed population insurgency, normative pressures exerted by civil society and above all because its parasitic relationship to the state ultimately undermines the very institutions that it needs to survive.