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1 |
ID:
180476
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Summary/Abstract |
This essay is focused on the analysis of several success stories of state-directed developmental projects and programmes in Russia, which are designed and implemented amid conditions of bad governance. I argue that these success stories do not serve as exceptions to the general rules of bad governance but rather confirm its overall tendencies. The prioritisation of state support for successful projects and programmes is related to conspicuous consumption of material and symbolic benefits by the political leadership against the background of mediocre policy outcomes beyond the ‘pockets of efficiency’ intentionally designed by authorities. The analysis of several success stories related to technological development and the advancement of higher education addresses the questions of why they were short-lived and resulted in diminished returns and/or weak multiplicative effects. Thus, success stories become the other side of the coin for bad governance: these achievements are intertwined with the general trends of governing the state.
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2 |
ID:
180471
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Summary/Abstract |
It is a given that the quality of governance makes a difference. It determines the developmental trajectories of states and it influences the everyday lives of their citizens. Why are some countries governed worse than others? In particular, why is contemporary Russia governed so much worse than one would expect, judging by its degree of socio-economic development? In comparative perspective, Russia is an example of a high-capacity authoritarian state, which exhibits the major features of bad governance, such as lack and/or perversion of the rule of law, rent-seeking, corruption, poor quality of state regulation, widespread public funds abuse, and overall ineffectiveness of government (Gel’man 2017, p. 498). These features have been demonstrated in numerous recent assessments of Russia vis-à-vis other countries, conducted by various agencies. For example, Russia ranked as 137th out of 180 countries in the 2019 Corruption Perception Index.
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3 |
ID:
104189
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Publication |
2011.
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Summary/Abstract |
THE EMERGENCE OF LOCAL REGIMES,1
OR RELATIVELY stable patterns of subnational
governance, became an important logical consequence of the
turbulent political and economic changes in Russia's regions and cities during
the periods of the 1990s and the 2000s. We posit that these developments could be
analysed within the theoretical framework of 'urban regimes', which have been
conducted in studies of American and West European urban politics and
governance over the two last decades (Mossberger & Stoker 2001; Ledyaev
2008). Despite the major differences which exist between local regimes in
contemporary Russia and in the West, and their highly divergent political and
institutional environments, the placement of Russian local regimes within a
theoretical and comparative perspective opens new horizons for their analysis. It
also provides us with a better understanding of their general trends as well as some
of their peculiarities
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4 |
ID:
084639
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5 |
ID:
084645
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6 |
ID:
136926
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Summary/Abstract |
In the mid-2000s, the decline of opposition politics in Russia was so sharp and undisputed that the title of an article I wrote at the time, ‘Political Opposition in Russia: A Dying Species?’ (Gel'man 2005) met with little objection. At that time, the impact of the opposition was peripheral at best. The ‘party of power’, United Russia (Edinaya Rossiya—UR), dominated both nationwide (Remington 2008) and sub-national (Ross 2011) legislatures, and the few representatives of the opposition exerted almost no influence on decision making. The share of votes for the opposition parties (in far from ‘free and fair’ elections) was rather limited (Gel'man 2008; Golosov 2011). Even against the background of the rise of social movements in Russia, anti-regime political protests were only able to gather a minority of 100 or so participants, while environmental or cultural protection activists deliberately avoided any connections with the political opposition, justly considering being labelled ‘opposition’ as an obstacle to achieving positive results (Gladarev & Lonkila 2013; Clement 2013). In other words, political opposition in Russia was driven into very narrow ‘niches’ (Greene 2007), if not into ghettos, and spectators were rather gloomy about the chances of its rebirth.
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7 |
ID:
057708
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