Political corruption in Russia and the Soviet Legacy

Abstract

Signs of corruption in post-SovietRussia are abundant and its immediate cause, the rapidmove towards the market in advance of theestablishment of a legal infrastructure, readilyapparent. But the unqualified use of the term``corruption'' risks substituting liberal judgements ofRussian capitalism for an historically grounded andsociologically informed understanding of Russia'sdeviance from Western standards. Here it is arguedthat ``corruption'' in post-Communist Russia can mostusefully be understood as the extension of Sovietcoping strategies, developed in the command economy,to the opportunities opened up by marketisation. Thisoccurred in circumstances where the bureaucratic andideological constraints of the Soviet state were notreplaced by compensatory institutional and legaldisciplines. Rather than corrupting an establishedsystem of rights and obligations Russian ``corruption''represents the extension of the informal culture andpractices of the Soviet system to the opportunitiespresented by emerging Russian capitalism.