Russia Governed Not at the Level of Eastern European States but at that of Sub-Saharan African Ones, Gelman Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, January 3 – One might expect that Russia would be governed “approximately at the same level as the countries of Eastern Europe but in fact it is ruled at a much lower level than many countries of Africa,” the result of a model of governance designed to allow those in power to extract as much rent as possible for as long as possible, Vladimir Gelman says.

            The Putin regime, the St. Petersburg political analyst tells Radio Liberty’s Valentin Baryshnikov, is based on the principles of “extracting rent and corruption” and thus provides “a low quality of government regulation and also fundamentally violates or perverts the principles of the supremacy of law” (svoboda.org/a/30358297.html).

            And this system which he describes in his new book, Indecent Rule, Gelman continues, has become “the most important means of retaining political power and economic dominance in the hands of the ruling group and therefore it is the functional mechanism of administering the country.” 

            “In the Soviet Union, state administration was also quite low, but there were quite serious barriers to extracting rent,” all connected with “the highly institutionalized system” of governance. In the 1990s, these limitations were largely lifted as a result of the collapse of the Soviet system, and the remaining ones have been removed more recently.

            According to Gelman, “the old limitations have collapsed but new ones were not established or proved too weak; and the stimuli for putting up barriers against ‘an indecent state’ became ever less over time among the Russian leadership.”

            This is one of the reasons many have thought that what was needed to make the transition was an enlightened dictatorship, but that view is fundamentally flaws, Gelman says. Reformist commitment is not widespread. And therefore, “the present-day Russian rulers are moved not by a striving to improve the life of the country as to simplify their own rule.”

            Unfortunately, such a regime can continue “for quite a long time.” Not forever as nothing is forever, “but we do not see massive risings against ineffective state administration in the major countries which are poorly governed.”  What is more distressing, Gelman says, is that research suggests, the longer such a system is in place, the more likely it is to continue into the future.

            Further, he continues, “even if democratization does take place, it also does not involve an increase in the quality of state administration” and thus may not allow a particular country to escape the vicious cycle at least some of its population would like to see occur.

            Gelman says he finds convincing the observation of US economist Danny Rodrick who has written that “for every Lee Kwan Yew, there are many Mobutus.” He also points out another problem: personalist dictators have few reasons to adopt a long time-horizon as they are seldom able to transfer power and property within their countries.

            Instead, they often try to extract as much wealth as they can planning that they or their children will become what Mancur Olson has called “roving bandits,” people who have stolen wealth abroad and then moved to countries where it is more likely to be protected so that they can enjoy it.

            “The Russian case is not that unique,” Gelman concludes. “It is simply very clear” in that Russia is not an underdeveloped country and “therefore the gap between expectations and low-quality state administration is simply clearer than when we speak about Burkina-Faso.”