Cognition, cultural practices, and the working of political institutions: An adult developmental perspective on corruption in Russian history.

Abstract

Corruption is one of the typical problems facing societies that aim at making transitions toward modern, Western-type democracies. Even though corruption also exists inside most developed democracies, the scope and quality of corrupt practices, as well as the way they are evaluated and dealt with by politics, justice, and public discourse, differs substantially, depending on the degree of complexity of the dominant political, legal, and economic cultures in the respective country. This article looks at how a developmental perspective can provide deeper insights into the role of patronage, clientelism, and corruption in Russian society. It is based on an earlier in-depth discussion on the relation between adult development and phenomena of corruption (Fein & Weibler, 2014), and draws on the metatheoretical framework for analyzing corruption, discourses on corruption (and anticorruption), and action taken against corruption developed there. By looking at how these phenomena have changed in Russia over the past 150 years, it shows that developmental perspectives provide a considerable surplus value for analyzing and understanding culture and society, as well as the functioning of political institutions. Both can be interpreted in relation to the dominant level of complexity of Russia's political culture as it has changed over time.

Vladimir Putin as a political leader: Challenges to an adult developmentally-informed analysis of politics and political culture.

“…To him, this was an insult and betrayal of his commitment as a loyal serviceman by the Soviet leadership itself and thus, a threat to his identity. (This reaction is structurally similar to the one reported from provincial clerks in Tsarist Russia after the introduction of a modern legal system, see Fein, 2016) Gessen (2012, pp. 87, 170) argues that this experience of feeling weak and exposed to change beyond his control caused Putin to “hate democracy” and to want to build a system which was “better” than the former KGB and the USSR, meaning that it should not let him down again.…”

Validación de un instrumento para medir el desarrollo moral en el contexto de situaciones relacionadas con la corrupción

“…Por último (Fein, 2017;Chahín-Pinzón, 2015), hay una relación entre el razonamiento y la cognición individual, y las prácticas sociales, los patrones individuales de atribución de sentido, y el carácter y funcionamiento de las instituciones que favorecen la corrupción. Las futuras investigaciones que utilicen este instrumento, podrán aportar a este debate con mayor propiedad.…”

Adult development as a lens: Applications of adult development theories in research.

“…Examples of studies on evaluating public statements and observable actions are those conducted on Vladimir Putin (Fein, 2016), Warren Buffet (Kelly, 2013a, 2013b), and Vaclav Havel (Torbert, 2004), and in systematic evaluations of the writings of people such as Dag Hammarskjold (Stålne, 2011) and Anders Behring Breivik (Billing & Stålne, 2012). Another possibility is self-evaluation through developmental autobiography (Bradbury & Torbert, 2005; Kelly, 2014), in which authors describe their own development through crises and their solutions.…”