The Specific Nature of “Russian State Power”

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This article is the republished version of:

The Specific Nature of "Russian State Power"

Notes

^1. Oleinik confirmed and fine-tuned these attributes in a sociological investigation: “The results of two series of interviews with state employees and experts were used for content analysis. Series A includes the transcripts of sixty-four semistructured open-ended interviews conducted in 2006–8 with experts and state employees occupying the posts of section head and department director at the regional and federal levels. Series B consists of the transcripts of forty-three unstructured open-ended interviews conducted in 2005–6 with experts, business people, and state employees occupying the posts of department director and deputy minister at the federal level” (2010, p. 82).

^2. A comparative study of values using the methodology of Shalom Schwartz has shown that on the parameter of “Benevolence,” Russia occupies one of the last places among European countries, together with Slovakia, Romania, and the Russian-speaking residents of Estonia. The same applies to “Universalism” (acceptance of things that are foreign)—here Russia shares last place with Slovakia, Bulgaria, and Cyprus (Magun and Rudnev 2008).

^3. For a detailed historical analysis of this feature, see Pivovarov 2006.

^4. These ideas are developed in relation to Russia in Kirdina 2005, pp. 75–101; Bessonova 2006; Kordonskii 2008; and rossiia i rossiiane 2008.

^5. “Among the functions of the sacred state, one deserves special attention: a ‘real’ sacred state is regarded as an ‘equalizer’—that is, a force that stands against the processes of property differentiation that destroy the traditional village community. It is far from a coincidence that the Russian peasantry turned away from tsarism after the Stolypin reforms and followed the Bolsheviks” (Iakovenko 2009, p. 254).

^* A nineteenth-century witticism variously attributed to Alexander Pushkin and Nikolai Karamzin, among others.—Ed.

^6. “The bearer of sovereignty and the only source of power in the Russian Federation shall be its multinational people” (Constitution of the Russian Federation, article 3, point 1 [quoted from the official translation at www.constitution.ru/en/10003000-02.htm, accessed 18 October 2011—Ed.]).

^7. This is formulated with the utmost precision in Levada 2006: “Dispersed and ineffective mass dissatisfaction in fact serves as a means of neutralizing and devaluing the potential for protest and, in a broader context, of justifying the established system of state tyranny and social helplessness. Discontented groups are compelled to appeal to the state authorities, which makes them even more dependent on the ruling bureaucracy.”

^8. Gudkov makes the same point: “Under our conditions, public actions by officials have the deeply theatrical and demonstrative, almost ceremonial purpose of staging a ‘drama of paternalistic and total governance.’ The manifest (presented publicly on television screens) actions of the country's leadership have nothing to do with the technology of governance or, correspondingly, with issues of efficiency, expediency, political responsibility, and final effectiveness” (2009, p. 27).

^9. “State power in Russia is an institution for preserving the whole, since it is based not on representation of the diversity of social forms and social meanings (group or corporate interests), but instead on disqualification of any Other in comparison with itself, on exclusion from public life of any alternative authorities and sources of influence. Such a state power, properly speaking, is an embodiment of violence—that is, subordination of all to the monopoly of authority in the hands of those who hold power” (Gudkov 2009, p. 26).

^10. “Russia, however ill-fated by its history, has had at least a version of democracy since 1991, so there should be some conditions, generally specifiable, that would make it possible for Russian democracy to prosper” (Collins 1999, pp. 111–12). On general conditions for a breakthrough to open public politics, see Rozov 2008, pp. 74–89; on the general principles of mental dynamics and the diversity of Russian habitus, see Rozov 2010a, pp. 7–21; on the imperatives for change in the Russian mentality, see Rozov 2010b. In my new book, I give a theoretical-historical analysis of Russian cycles, assess possibilities and work out trajectories for a “breakthrough,” propose a strategy for a peaceful institutional revolution, and substantiate priorities and goals for foreign policy in its geoeconomic, geopolitical, and geocultural aspects (Rozov 2011).

English translation © 2012, 2015 from the Russian text © 2011 “Polis” (Politicheskie issledovaniia). “Spetsifika russkoi vlasti: ee mental'nye struktury, ritual'nye praktiki i instituty,” Polis, 2011, no. 1, pp. 29–41. Translated by Stephen D. Shenfield. Translation reprinted from Russian Politics and Law, vol. 50, no. 1. doi: 10.2753/RUP1061-1940500102Nikolai Sergeevich Rozov, Doctor of Philosophy, is leading research fellow at the Institute of Philosophy and Law of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Siberian Division, and a professor in the Philosophy Faculty of Novosibirsk State University.