Реферат: Consolidation Of Democracy In PostSoviet Russia Essay

especially the young (Fish 234).

To allow a government to actively encourage private, economic enterprise, political appointments must

move above the personal level. There must be a balance between the administrative and political roles of

the members of the bureaucracy. Shevstova writes on page 69 that Yeltsin ?has a habit of ranking

personal loyalty to himself far above professionalism when choosing appointees and subordinates.? The

clientelism of the Soviet era is alive and kicking in the Yeltsin government. To challenge this system, a

professional bureaucracy, one that is limited in its ability to intervene directly in the policy-making

process, must develop.

Another important component of democratization that Shevstova feels is missing from the current Yeltsin

administration is a lack of imperatives to build broad consensus and foster genuine communication

between leaders and citizens at large (Shevstova 57). Much of this can be attributed to the Communist

tradition that placed enormous authority in the local ministers. The autarkic, socialist system allowed

executive agencies to acquire many legislative functions. Communication with constituents and

consensus building was a unnecessary hassle. The real conflict existed within the decision-making elite.

As we will see later, elite conflict is still a major ingredient in the Yeltsin formula of power consolidation.

Shevstova call this lack of consensus building and communication a hangover from Leninism (Shevstova

57). Political power was restricted to a self-selected elite which iniated new personnel less for their

technical skills than their willingness to embrace Communist ideology or their relationship to powerful

party elites. This system of clientelism retarded and made irrelevant any development of modern,

responsive bureaucratic institutional arrangements. Consequently, today?s bureaucrats (and yesterday?s

communists) find it difficult to appreciate the need for compromise, power sharing, and local initiative.

This is precisely the problem Russia faces with Yeltsin. It is painfully apparent from his tenure as the

architect of Russia early transition period, that old habits die hard.

Yeltsin: Presidential Power and His Communist Tradition

A brief look at the Boris Yeltsin biographical sketch shows that he is truly a maverick who, on the eve of

Ol? Blue Eyes birthday (Sinatra that is; I think Yeltsin also has blue eyes), ?did it his way.? Rising

through the nomenklatura , gaining a reputation as a fearless reformer, Yeltsin found himself as a

member of the Politburo. Once again, Yeltsin proved an able and determined reformer, but an

estrangement between himself and Gorbachev set in when Yeltsin began criticizing the slow pace of