Russia Can Change Itself Not by Changing Policies Alone but Only by Changing the Mechanisms by which Its Policies are Chosen and Implemented, Kovalyev Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 23 – Russia has repeatedly fallen into the same set of traps because it has sought to change this or that policy rather than seeking to change the mechanisms and institutions by which policies are adopted, according to economist and commentator Sergey Kovalyev.

            That has meant, he continues, that after a new regime announces its new policies, the country more or less rapidly returns to the situation that produced the earlier ones, leaving the country with “a high concentration of power, weak institutions and limited political competition” (ru.themoscowtimes.com/2026/07/23/vosem-lovushek-v-kotorie-vsegda-popadaet-rossiya-i-kak-iz-nih-vibratsya-a201566).

            According to Kovalyev, this reflects the fact that Russia continually falls into what he identifies as “eight traps” that prevent it from making and institutionalizing real changes. These are:

First, he says, there is “the historical dominance of the state over society,” a pattern very different from most European countries and one that means the state rather than society is “traditionally viewed as the main subject of history rather than as an instrument of citizens.
· Third, the country’s economy is a rentier one in which the state because most of its income comes from the sale of natural resources abroad is “significantly less dependent on the taxes paid by citizens and businesses,” a pattern that weakens the ability of the population to control the government.
· Fourth, there is a lack of horizontal trust and “informal ties continue to dominate,” something that means that institutions themselves remain weak.
· Fifth, Russia lacks “a coherent image of the future” and continues to argue “not only about the goals of development but also about its own identity.” This “lack of agreement on the rules of political coexistence turns each new course into the denial of the one that went before it.”
· Sixth, Russia is a country of “mobilization modernization,” one that has “repeatedly shown the ability to concentrate resources to achieve major goals” but not to institutionalize these methods when the emergency has ended.
· Seventh, Russia’s political system “traditionally has been built around the personality of the leader much more than around sustainable procedures.” As a result, Russians often seek to find a new strong leader rather than to create “a system in which no leader can destroy what other institutions do exist.
And eighth, Kovalyev continues, Russia’s diversity “does not require administrative uniformity, but an effective distribution of powers and responsibilities between the center, regions and local self-government. Until this happens, federalism remains a form of administrative structure rather than a mechanism of development.”

            What all this means, the analyst says, is that “the future modernization of Russia should not begin with another economic program or the search for a new leader. Rather, it should begin with the design of a constitutional architecture that will make a return to personalized power as impossible, regardless of political conjuncture.