Description
This book places administrative reform in post-socialist countries in a broad context of power and domination. This new perspective clarifies the reasons why reforms went awry in Russia and some other post-Soviet countries, whereas they produced positive outcomes in the Baltic States and most East European countries. The contributors analyse the idea that administrative reform cannot produce sustainable changes in the organization of the state apparatus as long as it does not touch the underpinning model of power and domination. Using an interdisciplinary and comparative approach, the essays combine elements of philosophy, sociology, political science and economics, including a wealth of primary and secondary data: surveys, in-depth interviews with state representatives and participant observation. The book focuses on Russia and analyses recent developments in this country by the way of comparison with the experience of carrying out administrative reform in Ukraine, Bulgaria, Poland, Germany and North America.
This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction: Putting Administrative Reform in a Broader Context of Power 2. Domination, Power and Authority in Russia: Basic Characteristics and Forms 3. Changing Role of the State and State Bureaucracy in the Context of Public Administration Reforms: Russian and Foreign Experience 4. Institutional Framework for Sustainable Development in Eastern Europe 5. Law in Public Administration: How Russia Differs? 6. Rationalizing or Empowering Bureaucrats? Tax-Administration Reform in Post-Communist Poland and Russia 7. New Social Movements in Russia: A Challenge to the Dominant Model of Power Relationships? 8. Time Matters: Adapting to Consequences of Transformation 9. Existing and Potential Constraints Limiting State Servants’ Opportunism: The Russian Case 10. Basis for Regime Legitimacy: study of attitudes toward privatization in Ukraine 11. The Role of the State in Catch-Up Modernization – The post-1789 Reforms in the Germanies and the Russian ‘Great Reforms’ in Comparative Perspective
