Foreign Policy Perspective
Russia as the Subject of the World Policy.
The author focuses his attention on the main approaches to the determination of Russia’s place in the globalizing world. A. Galkin divides them into sovereign active and subjectively passive. He believes that their differences lie in understanding of national interests, the assessment of resources, identifying of the most possible partners and designing of supposed actions and stages in the process of attaining of the goals. The choice of strategy implies tactical approaches and decisions. Besides, according to the author opposing each other strategies and real difficulties conditioned by historical development and specific circumstances will have to be taken into consideration.
Russian Polity
Lydia Nickovskaya, Vladimir Yakimets
Public Policy in Modern Russia – between Corporate Bureaucratic and Civil Modernization Choices.
The authors analyze the state, dynamics and prospects of public policy in Russia. They use the data of a comparative study conducted in the regions. According to L. Nickovskaya and V. Yakimets during lately the public policy and the public sphere at large are in the situation of slow but persistent freezing caused by building of so called managed democracy. The authors try to prove that modern Russia needs a new type of political development that would much more appeal to solidary partnership and not to directive mobilization.
DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2007-44-1-30-51
Business and Bureaucracy in Russia – Dynamics of Interaction.
The author analyses the principles and norms of interaction between the executive power and business community. S. Peregudov puts in doubt the widely common thesis about the emerging corporate state in Russia. In his opinion bureaucracy and big business separately and together are not the instances where the most important national decisions are worked out. Not being the arbiter of the fate in the direct meaning corporate bureaucracy nevertheless largely influences the whole system of social relation in Russia and in many ways determines its rules of the game. The author believes that its influence is mainly expressed in the depolitization of relations between the society and the state, blocking of the society-power interaction channels and growingly evident alienation of ordinary citizens both from business and the power.
DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2007-44-1-52-64
Bureaucracy, Clientalism and Corruption in Russia.
The article is based on the series of empiric studies conducted by INDEM Foundation since the late 1990-ies with the direct participation of the author. V. Rimskiy addresses the problem of understanding of corruption especially in its current national interpretation. The author sees the specifics of the Russian corruption in its strong ties with the bureaucratic system of public administration. The factor of the underdevelopment of power and property with its deep historic roots is the special focus of the article. The author also dwells on the formation and widening of corruption networks that control significant resources.
V. Rimskiy is sure that only the system approach can combat corruption. In particular, this phenomenon cannot be curbed without reforming of the bureaucratic administration system and its adaptation to the resolution of real problems in the country.
DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2007-44-1-65-84
The article deals with the analysis of concept “sovereign democracy” as a complex multi-layered political ideological project addressing the formation of “Putin’s discourse” that is seen as a certain textual contextual political quintessence of the epoch. Having found out the powerful “conservative-revolutionary” component the author proves that the power and its ideologists started to use the “conservative revolution” concepts not due to the ideological metamorphosis but due to the fact that its own conceptual toolkit was exhausted. The values of order and stability as well as the “anti-orange” rhetoric lost their effectiveness while the regime’s mobilization needs significantly rose including due to the coming parliamentary and presidential elections. According to A. Okara from the point of view of political ideological marketing and Putin’s regime survival merging of the conservative protective camp political organizational and media possibilities with the conservative revolutionary system of values (with a touch of liberal rhetoric) is quite adequate response to the challenges of the time under our conditions.
Practical Sociology
Dynamics of political preferences.
The empirical base of the article is the results of all Russian sociological surveys held in 1999, 2003 and 2006. The author finds evident ideological and political differences in the different groups of the urban middle class and attempts to reveal some of their typical features. This is low interest to politics, evident orientation to private interests, individual self-realization conformism and neutral and estranged attitude to the power. In spite of the left trends in the Russian society the number of the adherents of communist and other left ideas is on the decrease in the urban middle class. At the same time the liberal idea adherents do not find any adequate carriers of this ideology in the political environment.
Cathedra
The Fate of Federal Projects in the Post-Soviet Space.
The author views federalism as both the world phenomenon and the factor of democracy enhancing. The main task of his research is in finding out the causes of the failure of federalist projects in the post-soviet space and the reasons of their low popularity both with the ruling elite and the society at large. A. Bolshakov attempts to assess the prospects of federalism in Russia and other post-soviet countries; he sees the use of its possibilities as an important and effective way of the resolution of current conflicts and contradictions.
Books Review
Study of Totelitarism: Earnest Nolte.
The article covers the review of the historiography of European totalitarian regimes of the XX-th century. The author focuses on the postwar study of the Western European fascism and the role of Earnest Nolte a famous researcher in it. In particular the author analyses E.Nolte’s concept of totalitarianism his three level classification of fascism and comments on his most significant publications. Valeriy compared E. Nolte’s point of view with the other researchers’ opinion in particular the Soviet and the Russian ones.
DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2007-44-1-126-138
Interview for magazine “Politeia”.
In his interview (V. Lyubin took the interview) E. Nolte assesses the contribution to the development of the totalitarianism theory by some scientists and criticizes some approaches to the study of this problem. Nolte identifies papers that he finds most significant including published during lately. He also speaks about the practical influence of theoretical ideas on totalitarianism upon modern politics and politicians.
Chronicle
“Jekyll and Hyde” System. Political Party Life in Russia in Spring 2007.
In the traditional for magazine “Politeia” review the main events from the life of Russian political parties in spring 2007 are presented. As a rule the chronicle is accompanied by the analysis of the alignment of Russian political party forces in this period of time. The author focuses on the March elections to regional legislatures. He tries to draw the attention to such features as the dominance of the pro-government forces in the information environment the active use of the administrative resource and the dismissal of “extra” candidates for the elections. According to Y. Korgunyuk such actions on the side of the authorities are counter-productive and only contributes to the creation of opposition coalitions.