Legacies and Departures in the Russian State Executive

Huskey, Eugene

doi:10.1017/cbo9781107286191.006

Cited by 6 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 29 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…It came to dominate politics and decision making (Huskey 2009, 216; Sakwa 2010, 188; Gel’man and Starodubtsev 2016; Huskey 2016, 72; Wengle and Evans 2018, 385) and repressive laws and actions against political opposition and nongovernmental organizations involved in human rights promotion were introduced (J. W. Hahn 2004; G. M. Hahn 2004; Gill 2006; McFaul and Stoner-Weiss 2008; Petrone 2011; Smyth 2016; Flikke 2016). “The only institution that claims the mantle of ideological authority is President Putin, whose words are interpreted as the state-supported ideological tenets” (Lipman 2015, 121): vestiges of the “correct line” (Huskey 2014, 121). In lieu of public deliberation and official negotiation there emerged second-guessing of the autocrat’s (hidden) messages (Teper 2016; Sakwa 2021, 237).…”

Section: Russian Governance and The Political Regimementioning

confidence: 99%

“…and C. are needed for the right image ( nuzhny dlia kartinki ); it is bad if they don’t come” (field diary notes, September 23, 2013). Their not attending disconcerted V. because the council session was intended to demonstrate the unity between the state organization and mainstream academia, to impart scientific legitimacy to policy measures, presenting them as technocratic and depoliticized (Oleinik 2008, 179–180; Huskey 2014, 118; Novikov 2015, 102–105).…”

Section: Street-level Bureaucracy Work Routines In the Department Of ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Producing Kartinka: Street-Level Bureaucracy and Implementation of Russia’s Tolerance Policy in St. Petersburg

Sarkisyan

2022

Nationalities Papers

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In 2006, a “tolerance policy” was launched in St. Petersburg to address the growing xenophobia and the need to integrate labor migrants. Applying a bottom–up perspective, this study finds that this policy was symbolic – aimed at changing public attitudes, not at providing material outcomes. The direct implementers (the street-level bureaucracy), operating under governmental constraints, drew on informal mechanisms: behind-the-scenes negotiations, unwritten rules and hierarchies, personalist power, and ideological cues. Formalized dense reporting, often quantitative, was used to keep low-level implementers in check. The combination of these features rendered the tolerance policy shallow and self-locked. Street-level bureaucracy had to interpret vague policy documents, but lacked the necessary discretionary powers. This gave rise to the kartinka (picture, or image) coping technique. The term describes how all work activities were shaped by the need to demonstrate progress with respect to unwritten rules and ideological dynamics. The article concludes with a discussion of the applicability of the author’s findings to the field of nationalities policy in Russia.

show abstract

Section: Russian Governance and The Political Regimementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Street-level Bureaucracy Work Routines In the Department Of ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Producing Kartinka: Street-Level Bureaucracy and Implementation of Russia’s Tolerance Policy in St. Petersburg

Sarkisyan

2022

Nationalities Papers

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…36-7). Among others, the Property Management Department of the Presidential Administration received real estate such as buildings, enterprises and sanatoriums from the Central Committee of the CPSU and the RSFSR as well as those facilities that had belonged to the presidential apparatus of the Soviet Union (Ogushi 2009;Huskey 2014).…”

Section: Adaptabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Institutionalising Authoritarian Presidencies: Polymorphous Power and Russia’s Presidential Administration

Burkhardt¹

2020

Europe-Asia Studies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article attempts to open up the 'black box' of the Russian Presidential Administration ('the Kremlin'). Borrowing from the literature on institutional presidencies and institutional approaches to authoritarianism, I argue that the administration institutionalised over the years of study, 1994-2012. More stable and predictable procedures enhanced administrative presidential powers but personalism and non-compliance with presidential orders remained. Original data on budget, staff, units, organisational structure and presidential assignments demonstrate that presidential power ought to be conceptualised as a polymorphous phenomenon that varies depending on the level of analysis. Researchers should refrain from over-personalising accounts of authoritarian regimes at the expense of more structural, organisational elements such as 'institutional presidencies'.'THE KREMLIN' HAS BECOME A METAPHOR ATTESTING TO THE alleged omnipotence of Russia's presidents. At the same time, it has remained an impenetrable 'black box' that supposedly prevents systematic, intersubjectively verifiable analysis. Opacity is a general

show abstract

“…The intentional use of Soviet institutions and practices as a set of building blocks for post-Soviet institution-building and mechanisms of governing states and regimes contributed to preservation of the authoritarian status quo through fragmentation or translation of this social construct into major political choices and solutions. Examples include the transformation of government structure after the Soviet collapse with regard to performance of the state apparatus (Huskey 2014), and practices of control and monitoring in law enforcement agencies (Taylor 2014), both of which extended the lives of outdated institutions and organizations, thus contributing to a lack of political accountability and to the use (or abuse) of the state agencies and coercive apparatus of post-Soviet states as instruments of political regimes and their leaders. In this respect, "cultural schemata," modes and patterns of thinking and perceiving reality, are especially relevant for uncovering the agency-driven logic of post-Soviet authoritarian regime building.…”

Section: How and Why Actors Mattermentioning

confidence: 99%

Bringing actors back in: political choices and sources of post-Soviet regime dynamics

Gel'man

2018

Post-Soviet Affairs

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

One might summarize the state of the field of research into contemporary Russian politics as a "dismal consensus": most observers believe that durable authoritarianism has consolidated itself, and there is very little chance of democratization in the foreseeable future. Many barriers to democratization, such as an unfavorable international environment and the persistence of non-democratic legacies, as well as the entrenchment of the state's use of coercion and repressions, seem insuperable in the short term. However, political regime changes are often launched and develop over time as side effects of moves made by political actors, and their outcomes are not predetermined. This article aims to go beyond this "dismal consensus," and revisits some of the arguments on the role of structure and agency in post-Soviet regime dynamics. Apart from the changes in structural variables, it reconsiders the role of the incentives and choices of selfinterested political actors, who are not always omnipotent and well-informed strategists. The overall dismal tendencies nevertheless leave some "bias for hope" in the analysis of regime dynamics in post-Soviet Eurasia and beyond.

show abstract

Legacies and Departures in the Russian State Executive

Cited by 6 publications

References 29 publications

Producing Kartinka: Street-Level Bureaucracy and Implementation of Russia’s Tolerance Policy in St. Petersburg

Producing Kartinka: Street-Level Bureaucracy and Implementation of Russia’s Tolerance Policy in St. Petersburg

Institutionalising Authoritarian Presidencies: Polymorphous Power and Russia’s Presidential Administration

Bringing actors back in: political choices and sources of post-Soviet regime dynamics

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About