From plan to network: Urban elites and the post‐communist organisational state in Russia

Abstract

Abstract. This article uses the results from formal network analysis to test hypotheses about the character of Russia's post‐communist transition, taking decision‐making elites at the sub‐national level as the unit of analysis. From the transition literature, the hypothesis generated is that city politics retains elements of its pre‐democratic structure; from the urban regime theory, the hypothesis generated is that the elites’ structure will show elements of convergence to a Western type, with the prominence of actors from the private sector. The data is drawn from a survey of elites in one city, Novosibirsk, undertaken in 1997. The results show that the membership and structure of the network has some similar characteristics to a Western city. Rather than being purely dominated by bureaucratic elites, the private sector plays a role. The private sector actors are grouped with the public sector actors, though they are not, however, equal partners to the networks as its members do not appear among the most networked in the city. We conclude that the legacy of the past may not be as much a constraint as the transition literature supposes.