The Russian Elite under Putin: Militocratic or Bourgeois?

Rivera, Sharon Werning; Rivera, David W.

doi:10.2747/1060-586x.22.2.125

Cited by 32 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…13; and "The Making of a Neo-KGB State: Russia under Putin" 2007. For critiques of various aspects of this paradigm, see Rivera and Rivera 2006;andRenz 2006. 91 Clinton 1993;Christopher 1998, 36;andMcFaul 2003, 92.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Yeltsin, Putin, and Clinton: Presidential Leadership and Russian Democratization in Comparative Perspective

Rivera¹,

Rivera²

2009

Perspect. polit.

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Immediately after coming to power, the Clinton administration declared the consolidation of market and democratic institutions in Russia to be a vital American interest. The administration's central tactic for promoting this outcome was to help Boris Yeltsin remain in power. In a major assault on Clinton's historical legacy, much of the scholarly community maintains that U.S. policy was fundamentally flawed, both morally and strategically. In the view of these analysts, post-Soviet Russia's founding president was an autocratic leader who derailed the country's progress toward democracy. However, this body of research focuses exclusively on the Russian Federation and fails to utilize comparative referents. In contrast, we analyze the experiences of the full population of post-communist states of Eastern Europe and Eurasia from 1991 to the present. Whether examined in cross-national or longitudinal perspective, we find that Russian democracy under Yeltsin was, relatively speaking, a success. We conclude that the Clinton administration's policy of support for Yeltsin both served various American foreign policy interests and strengthened the prospects for democratic consolidation in Russia, thereby fulfilling the dictates of both real- and idealpolitik. In addition, the relative success of Russia's democratization in the 1990s, the reversal of that pattern in this decade, and the magnitude of the transformation of the polity under Putin all demonstrate the pivotal role played by presidential leadership in Russia's transition.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Yeltsin, Putin, and Clinton: Presidential Leadership and Russian Democratization in Comparative Perspective

Rivera¹,

Rivera²

2009

Perspect. polit.

Self Cite

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“…Thus, the state elite must identify its own interests with those of the state. In the early years of Putin's administration, individuals with these characteristics massively migrated to central government agencies, regional administrations, and state-controlled corporations (Cappelli 2008;Rivera and Rivera 2006). Applying "vertical power" through administrative and bureaucratic mechanisms allowed the state to expand its control over society (Berenson 2008).…”

Section: State-buildingmentioning

confidence: 99%

From Offsetting to Emulation: A Neoclassical Realist Analysis of Russia’s Internal Balancing Strategies

Dall'Agnol¹

2022

Urvio

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In 2008, Russia began to implement its largest military reform since the creation of the Red Army in 1918. Previous attempts at reforms in 1992, 1997, and 2003 did not result in fundamental transformations to the country’s military. Why was the 2008 military reform successful while others were not? This article uses the comparative-historical method to identify the causal mechanisms between Russia’s level of external threat, state capacity, and internal balancing strategies adopted since 1991. It advances Neoclassical Realism’s systemic and unit-level variables by building on the long-established contributions from Strategic Studies and Historical Sociology instead of relying on other International Relations theories. It concludes that the success of Russia’s military reforms in the post-Cold War period depended on the simultaneous existence of three conditions: the possibility of disrupting strategic stability, its ability to extract and mobilize societal resources, and the presence of some event of proven ineffectiveness. Under scenarios in which only one or two of these conditions were present, Russia carried out only partial military reforms. The article sheds light on three often-neglected drivers of Russia’s military reform by Western analysts: its enduring emphasis on interstate competition, strategic stability, and mid-to-high intensity conventional warfare.

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“…2 Thus, we also control for the Age of regional leader. In contrast, Putin promoted many individuals with a security background (Rivera and Rivera, 2006), so it is possible that Putin favored Siloviki in his appointments of regional leaders. In the selection stage we also include Democratic background and Electoral experience.…”

Section: Informational Tools Governors' Preferences and Selectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Life of Brian Revisited: Assessing Informational and Non-Informational Leadership Tools

Baturo

Mikhaylov

2013

PSRM

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Recent literature models leadership as a process of communication in which leaders’ rhetorical signals facilitate followers’ co-ordination. While some studies have explored the effects of leadership in experimental settings, there remains a lack of empirical research on the effectiveness of informational tools in real political environments. Using quantitative text analysis of federal and sub-national legislative addresses in Russia, this article empirically demonstrates that followers react to informational signals from leaders. It further theorizes that leaders use a combination of informational and non-informational tools to solve the co-ordination problem. The findings show that a mixture of informational and non-informational tools shapes followers’ strategic calculi. Ignoring non-informational tools—and particularly the interrelationship between informational and non-informational tools—can threaten the internal validity of causal inference in the analysis of leadership effects on co-ordination.

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The Russian Elite under Putin: Militocratic or Bourgeois?

Cited by 32 publications

References 22 publications

Yeltsin, Putin, and Clinton: Presidential Leadership and Russian Democratization in Comparative Perspective

Yeltsin, Putin, and Clinton: Presidential Leadership and Russian Democratization in Comparative Perspective

From Offsetting to Emulation: A Neoclassical Realist Analysis of Russia’s Internal Balancing Strategies

Life of Brian Revisited: Assessing Informational and Non-Informational Leadership Tools

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