The Struggle for Bureaucratic and Economic Control in Russia

This report relates to a recently published FOI report (Managing Elections in Russia), which showed that the formal political system is managed by the power elite. The struggle within that elite for control over the state bureaucracy and the economic key sectors is treated in the present report. A proper understanding of this struggle is essential since Russian politics do not reflect an open political process. The mechanisms described in this report are not primarily dependent on individuals such as Putin or Medvedev but rather derive from basic structures, which do not change at the same pace as individuals in the power elite come and go, even though the system is far from static. The bureaucratic institutions are weak and are used in conflicts between political clans, which further contributes to weakening them. Since the President must try to balance the clans, they are even more weakened by administrative reforms. The clan conflicts also have a more brutal side, with arrests, suspicious deaths and murders. On the whole, a number of important political and other central issues suffer from the power struggle, which affects the Russian people in general. The bureaucrats have a very strong position in key economic sectors, directly or indirectly, which is particularly problematic considering the widespread corruption in Russia. State assets are encroached upon though various techniques, while profits from economic sectors with a large state influence end up abroad in offshore companies which seem to be connected to the power elite. This does not automatically mean that there is a lack of understanding of the problems Russia faces among members of the elite, only that the internal power struggle makes it more difficult to solve them. An open political debate would of course undermine the rhetoric of the Russian leaders if this rhetoric were compared with the decisions actually taken. This is an obvious but at the same time fundamental cause of the current anti-democratic development in Russia. Russia, politics, Putin, Medvedev, power struggle, clans, economy, bureaucracy, corruption