Institutional Trap in Russian Politics: Still No Way Out?

Institutional Trap in Russian Politics: Still No Way Out?
PONARS Eurasia Policy Memo No.151
Moscow, March 2011

Vladimir Gel’man
European University at St Petersburg

"In the 2000s, Russia’s political structure demonstrated a trajectory of decay across major institutions of state, politics, and governance. Despite the fact that numerous negative assessments of Russia’s institutional development have highlighted tendencies of authoritarianism, poor quality of governance, and the lack of the rule of law, an analysis of continued downward trajectories remains a neglected part of the research agenda. This memo reconsiders the politics of institutional decay in contemporary Russia. It applies the notion that the self-interests of the ruling elites revolves around eliminating domestic challenges to their political dominance through the pursuit and maintenance of inefficient institutional equilibriums. This type of stasis is known as “institutional trap.” As long as the costs to for Russia’s political elite of institutional decay do not exceed the benefits, this equilibrium could survive over time, at least in the medium-term..." http://www.gwu.edu/~ieresgwu/assets/docs/ponars/pepm_151.pdf