The Modern Russian Administration in the Time of Transition: New Challenges versus Old Nomenclature Legacy

Date01 December 1999
DOI10.1177/0020852399654005
Published date01 December 1999
Subject MatterArticles
The modern Russian administration in the time of
transition: new challenges versus old nomenclature
legacy
Alexander V. Obolonsky
The modern Russian state apparatus may only conventionally be considered
separately from its direct predecessors — that of the Russian Empire and the
Soviet Union. In a number of aspects the degree of continuity is not merely great
— it is greater than that in societies which did not undergo, in the 20th century,
such seismic sociopolitical cataclysms as our country did. Possibly, the integrat-
ing aspect of this continuity consists in the fact that the present Russian official-
dom, like its predecessors, does not reach the quality of bureaucracy in the classi-
cal, Weberian meaning of the word. It is not quite impersonal and bound by the
norms of the law. The very officials are short of impartiality and mere compe-
tence in fulfilling their duties because they, contrary to Weber’s bureaucrats,
were selected and promoted not so much on the basis of their professional
abilities as on the basis of ‘political qualities’ and/or patronage. Hence, Russian
officialdom is still a sort of quasi-bureaucracy.
Apart from other roles, the national officialdom, especially in soviet times,
played the part of a ‘bad boy’ who was always guilty; politicians liked to criticize
‘unskillful’ and ‘unscrupulous’ bureaucrats to disguise their own part in unpopu-
lar actions and demonstrate in such a simple way their ‘solidarity with the
people’. (To be fair, this trick, known in its Russian variant as ‘the tsar is good but
the boyars are bad’, is as old as the world; the rulers of diverse civilizations,
epochs and countries have resorted to it, not excluding today’s democratic politi-
cians of the West and East.)
The problem with the part played by officialdom in the time of troubles and
political transformation is one of the key problems for science and practice. It
tends to be underestimated frequently. However, the consequences of such
neglect prove to be inappropriately negative, as we can observe in post-Soviet
Russia, in spite of temporary and inconsistent moves towards public service
reform.
Alexander V. Obolonsky is Doctor of Law and Politics, Institute of State and Law, Russian
Academy of Sciences, Moscow. (CDU: 338.5.01 (470).
International Review of Administrative Sciences [0020–8523(199912)65:4]
Copyright © 1999 IIAS. SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New
Delhi), Vol.65 (1999), 569–577; 010608
03_IRAS65/4articles 11/11/99 11:05 am Page 569

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