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Articles

Political foundations of bad governance in post-Soviet Eurasia: towards a research agenda

Pages 496-516 | Received 19 Dec 2016, Accepted 18 Apr 2017, Published online: 27 Jul 2017
 

ABSTRACT

Why are some countries governed much more poorly than one might expect judging by their degree of socio-economic development? In particular, why are most countries of post-Soviet Eurasia, according to numerous international evaluations of quality of state governance, similar to underdeveloped Third World countries and lagging behind their post-Communist counterparts in Eastern Europe? This article presents some arguments regarding the factors and mechanisms of emergence and maintenance of bad governance in post-Soviet Eurasia, discusses various explanations for this phenomenon, considers potential pathways for overcoming the trap of bad governance and outlines possible directions for further research of this phenomenon.

Acknowledgements

This article is part of the Center of Excellence “Choices of Russian Modernization”. Its previous versions have been presented at the PONARS Helsinki workshop (June 2016) and ASEEES Annual Convention (Washington DC, November 2016). I would like to thank Mikhail Alexseev, Hilary Appel, Li Bennich-Bjorkman, Sam Greene, Henry Hale, Juliet Johnson, Kelly McMann, Peter Rutland, Oxana Shevel, and Regina Smyth for their very valuable comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Vladimir Gel'man is Professor at the Department of Political Science and Sociology, European University at St.Petersburg, and Professor of Russian Politics at the Aleksanteri Institute, University of Helsinki. His research focuses on politics and governance in post-Soviet Eurasia in theoretical and comparative perspective. Recent publications include articles in Democratization, Europe-Asia Studies, International Political Science Review, Post-Soviet Affairs, Problems of Post-Communism, and other journals. He has also published numerous books, including Authoritarian Russia: Analyzing Post-Soviet Regime Changes (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2015) and Authoritarian Modernization in Russia: Ideas, Institutions, and Policies (Routledge, 2016).

Notes

1 For example, the Corruption Perceptions Index 2015, produced by Transparency International, ranked both Russia and Azerbaijan 119th worldwide (among 168 countries), alongside Guyana and Sierra Leone. Ukraine ranked even lower, in 130th place (Transparency International Citation2015).

2 Likewise, the Quality of Government Institute at the University of Gothenburg prioritises research on best practices of good governance – “that is, trustworthy, reliable, impartial, uncorrupted and competent government institutions” (a quotation from the website http://qog.pol.gu.se/).

3 This parallel was first drawn by Huntington (Citation1965, 416).

4 The case of the Unified State Exam, which was introduced in the 2000s as the only mechanism for evaluation of high school graduates in Russia, serves as a prime example: public opinion widely considered this exam illegitimate (Starodubtsev Citation2017).

Additional information

Funding

This work is funded by the Academy of Finland [grant number 284664].

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