Social, cultural and institutional foundations of Russia's political regime

The proposed paper has been designed to investigate the issue of social, cultural and institutional foundations of the Post-Soviet Russia's political regime. The author considers the study of the Russian political evolution to be a part of a broader issue concerning the problem of the Russian modernization. To describe a particular version of societal context resulted from the experience of the totalitarian project of the alternative modernization the author suggests utilizing the notion of anti-modern society. This societal model comes into being in conditions of modernization ''lagging behind''. It includes the proliferation of practices, which aim to imitate the institutional structure of the modern society. These practices lead to a dramatic institutional deformation, which, in turn, creates a social setting dominated by a network of informal institutions. That makes a rich soil for the system of all-embracing bureaucratic control to flourish in. The universal bureaucratic control was one of the key components of the Soviet regime. Its ineffectiveness and endemic corruption were among the most powerful reasons, which caused the collapse of the USSR. The Post-Soviet agenda for political development was defined by the program of democratization, which was to break with the anti-modern legacy of Communism. Though, this program was not successful. The Russian democratization failed and after 2000 the authoritarian backlash became a dominant trend in Russia's politics. The author believes that in this country any authoritarian political program inevitably leads to reproduction of the anti-modern system based on a personified rule and domination of bureaucracy. Any regime of this kind would support anti-modern structures of social interaction and would be unable to solve problems of modern development. The parallels with success stories cases of authoritarian modernization do not work in Russia's case, because regime actors that participated in creation of the ''efficient'' Latin American or Asian dictatorships are quite different from those who act in this country. Thus, the crucial condition which secures efficiency of an authoritarian system is the availability of competent bureaucracy and consolidated political elite, sharing high standards of public service and enjoying public confidence. Neither Russia's personified political leadership, nor bureaucracy meets these requirements. Their rule leads to a cyclical reproduction and aggravation of the development problems. The exit from this vicious circle could be provided by a political choice that would support transition from imitative social and political practices to a really modern structure of social interaction.

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