Academia
Alexander Galkin, Yury Pivovarov, Boris Makarenko, Yury Senokosov, Tatiana Alekseeva, Svyatoslav Kaspe, Yuri Ryabykh
Keywords: Salmin, political science, socio-humanitarian knowledge, scientific interests
February, 18th, 2011 the founder of our journal Aleksei Mikhailovich Salmin would have turned 60. The seminar Politeia named after him held a special meeting Salmin: In Memoriam arranged to coincide with his Anniversary (supported by the Institute of Scientific Information for Social Sciences, Russian Academy of Science, the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation and the Public Political Studies Center). It was conducted in the traditional within the world science genre of homage: participants of the seminar delivered their reports that were related in this way or the other to Salmin’s scientific interests, elaborated on his ideas and hypotheses bringing them back into the active scientific vocabulary. In this issue we are publishing reports by Alexander Galkin, Yury Pivovarov, Boris Makarenko, Yury Senokosov, Tatyana Alekseeva, Svyatoslav Kaspe, and hegumen Philipp (Ryabykh).
Paradigms of social development
Keywords: institutions, institutional theory, bureaucracy, transaction costs, criminal procedure; accusative inclination
The article analyzes paradoxes of regulation system that emerge at the juncture of bureaucratic structures. E.Paneyakh shows by the example of the Russian criminal procedure that once regulation density passes a certain threshold coordinating properties of institutions that regulate relations inside departments are at odds with their transaction properties. The more influence department rules exert over the system of an agent’s incentives (limiting the scope of his/her opportunities), the more transaction problems between agents from different departments functioning within the distinct institutional context they create. This problem results in the emergence of informal institutions that reconcile interests of these agents, while the density of interdepartmental regulations leads to the fact that the object of their activity becomes the most easily accessible source of resources that are necessary to satisfy sides.
Russian polity
“PALACE”: HOW RUSSIAN STATE “REORGANIZED” (I)
Keywords: a “Palace state”, post-soviet transition, clan and group solidarity, the people
The article is devoted to proving a hypothesis that the specificity of the modern Russian state is best reflected in the metaphor of palace employed by V.O.Klyuchevsky for characterizing the Russian state that was formed after Peter I’s death. According to I.Glebova, a “Palace” represents a rather independent form of government that emerged as a response to new conditions and old state traditions rather than deviation from the “right” state (the soviet “nationwide” or western rule of law) or its perversion/ “worsening” that can be improved if someone is willing to do so. The first part of the article published in this issue describes key parameters of the post-soviet state that makes it resemble a “Palace” and analyzes reasons that lead to the restoration of a similar type of state in Russia.
DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2011-61-2-60-84
ELECTORAL CLEAVAGES AND VOTING MOTIVES
Keywords: elections, electorate, motives, party, candidate, factor analysis, cleavage
The author demonstrates on the basis of the electoral cleavages during the 1995, 1999, 2003 and 2007 Russian Federation State Duma elections that deideologization of the Russian electoral process was a reason rather than an implication of the administrative expansion. His analysis indicates that as the ideological fervor in the society is fading, a voter’s role as a subject of choice is decreasing, whereas his/her role as an object of manipulation, from the side of the power holders, is increasing. Vast openings emerged in the electoral space where bureaucracy directed its expansion. Yu.Korgunyuk concludes that the modern pseudopartisanship of the Russian politics is largely a cost for the shortage of subjectness possessed by broad masses of population as well as by political elite.
Laboratory
Keywords: political contract, nomenclature, supreme authority
The article is devoted to the proof of a thesis that during the intraparty struggle in 1923–1927 between nomenclature and the supreme authority a political contract was concluded. On the basis of the analysis of I.V.Stalin’s report at the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) 13th Conference, K.Titov shows that the text formally presented as criticism against L.D.Trotsky’s position contained in fact a range of responsibilities (regarding nomenclature) that a pretender for the supreme authority assumed in the exchange for the political support from the nomenclature. According to the author, in 1930-s this contract was unilaterally torn by the supreme authority that refused to act on the overwhelming majority of its promises, but it was restored in 1956 and 1964 as a result of the “nomenclature’s revanche”.
DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2011-61-2-118-127
EVALUATION OF FACTIONAL DISCIPLINE IN RUSSIAN FEDERATION STATE DUMA: APPROACHES TOWARDS MEASURING
Keywords: split threshold, factional discipline index, State Duma, faction, deputies’ group
The article offers two approaches towards measuring factional discipline in the collective decision-making organs, one of which allows to evaluate the overall level of factional discipline within a deputies’ group or faction and the other allows to trace its dynamics. The article consists of three parts. The first one describes an approach towards measuring factional discipline based on calculating split thresholds within deputies’ groups and factions; the second one introduces an index of faction discipline; the third one presents results of applying these approaches to the analysis of factional discipline in the first, second and third Russian State Dumas.
DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2011-61-2-128-141
Gubernatorial readings
Keywords: modernization, culture, values, competitive environment, Tumen region
The material published here is a report on the Third Gubernatorial Readings held in Tumen, April 19, 2011, under the framework of the joint project conducted by the journal Politeia and the administration of Tumen region with the topic of readings being culture modernization as a prerequisite for state modernization and a lecturer being D.B.Dondurey, a chief editor of the journal Art of Cinema, a member of Council on Civil Society Development and Human rights and a member of Council on Culture and Art under President of the Russian Federation.
Cathedra
Vladimir Volsky, Aleksandr Karpov
APPLICATION OF DIFFERENT versions of Single Transferable Vote System
Keywords: single transferable vote, system of proportional representation
The article analyzes actual practices of application of the single transferable vote electoral systems. The authors thoroughly describe various types of procedure: Gregory method used in Australian Capital Territory, Tasmania and Northern Ireland; inclusive Gregory method employed at the elections to the Australian Senate as well as in such states as Southern and Western Australia; weighted inclusive Gregory method introduced in Scotland; Meek’s method applied in New Zealand. The authors analyze advantages and disadvantages of each method and demonstrate how the improvement in theoretical models leads to the alteration of electoral systems functioning in practice.
DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2011-61-2-162-174
TRANSFORMATIONS OF STATE INSTITUTION UNDER POSTINDUSTRIAL TRANSITION
Keywords: state, transformation, postindustrial transition, 20th century phenomena
In this article the author analyzes transformations that an institution of state is undergoing during the postindustrial transition and their reasons. Yu.Nisnevich presents five phenomena of the 20th century that according to him predetermined the postindustrial transition itself as well as its implications for a state change. The end of history (F.Fukuyama) turned democracy into the main form of organizing political and state order and led to the maintenance of human rights and freedoms as a fundamental value. Revolt of the masses (J.Ortega y Gasset) pushed a start button for the root transformation of the social basis of state. The third wave (A.Toffler) stipulated revolutionary changes in the technological, informational, social and political spheres. An increase in the migration mobility created conditions for mutual penetration of cultures and civilizations and human participation in life of the whole planet. Globalization has given an impetus to the gradual decay of the “solid” nation-state.
DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2011-61-2-175-185
CONCEPTUALIZATION OF STATE BUDGETARY PROCESS AND RUSSIAN EXPERIENCE
Keywords: budgetary process, incrementalism, Aaron Wildavski, regional research
In Russia the issues of budgetary process have been traditionally developed in the framework of economic theory and judicial studies. However, there is a range of questions, the answers to which will require employing political science instruments. Comparing the Russian and US practices, E.Bayadina designs several directions of budgetary process analysis from the political science viewpoint. In the first two parts of the article the author reviews theory and practice of the US budgetary process, in the third one she evaluates budgetary process in the Russian Federation as a whole, in the fourth part she analyzes the experience of the Perm Krai (district) using a budgetary process model that is unique within the Russian Federation.