Talk: Russia’s Bureaucracy in Transition

Russia’s political system is manned by and largely consists of a voluminous, multi-level civic, coercive, financial and media bureaucracy. This bureaucracy, however, centers around and depends primarily upon personalities rather than institutions. While this system has points and pockets of efficacy, it also has its limits – both constitutional and functional. Currently, the system faces a number of challenges in its quest for self-preservation: aging cadres, a shrinking resource base, shifting public opinion, and constitutional restraints. Far from being unique, the dilemmas faced by Russia’s policy-making machine are typical of authoritarian and semi-authoritarian states. But, to paraphrase Tolstoy, while democracies suffer through elections, every non-democracy makes itself unhappy in its own way.