Russia Faces Challenge of Moving ‘From a Strong Power to a Strong State,’ Moscow Political Scientist Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 13 – Under Vladimir Putin, Russia has constructed “a strong power” (vlast) but now faces the challenges of building “a strong state” (gosudarstvo), Nikolay Mironov says. Otherwise, Moscow will constantly need the intervention of the top leader to ensure that his goals are followed lest being confident that they will be.

            That is no small thing, the political scientist at the Moscow Center for Applied Research and Programs says, because otherwise however strong the vlast may be, it will be compromised by an inability to ensure that its decisions are implemented without the individual leader in charge constantly intervening (ng.ru/ideas/2026-10-13/8_9602_state.html).

            In well-designed modernizing states, Mironov argues, “political leadership sets the long-term direction for development and retains the capacity to ensure that decisions are implemented. But day-to-day management requires a degree of autonomy for the professional administrative apparatus.”

            “Without a political impetus, a bureaucracy may eventually succumb to inertia,” he continues; but “at the same time, if constant interference from above leads the bureaucracy to wait for instructions in situations where it could perfectly well make decisions on its own,” that can compromise the ability of the strong state to act.

            “Different countries have struck this balance in different ways, and not always successfully,” the political scientist continues. He makes his points by talking about countries other than the Russian Federation, but it is obvious that he intends his conclusions about the need for this balance to be applied there.

             Mironov suggests that finding this balance is ever more important because it is ever more a challenge to the political leadership: “As an economy grows more complex, an increasing number of decisions must inevitably be delegated to the professional administrative apparatus.”

But “at the same time, every policy area must have a clearly designated person in charge, vested with sufficient authority. The role of the political leadership is to monitor whether the chosen course is yielding the expected results. If the initial concept does not work, the system should allow for it to be adjusted or abandoned altogether.”

Once this is understood, he suggests, it will be obvious to all that “the strength of a state is ultimately determined not by the scale of its intervention but by its capacity to transform a chosen priority into a functional mechanism—and to modify that mechanism when necessary” Because that is how “a strong government evolves into a strong state.