Ledeneva, Alena V. Can Russia Modernise? ‘Sistema, Power Networks and Informal Governance (review)

Abstract

SEER, 92, 3, JULY 2014 582 Ledeneva, Alena V. Can Russia Modernise? ‘Sistema’, Power Networks and Informal Governance. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and New York, 2013. xv + 314 pp. Figures. Tables. Boxes. Notes. Appendices. Glossary. Bibliography. Index. £19.99: $32.99 (paperback). Can Russia Modernise? completes a trilogy of books by Alena Ledeneva on howinformalinstitutionsandpracticeshaveshapedmodernRussia.Thetrilogy mirrors the development of modern Russia. The first book, Russia’s Economy of Favours (Cambridge, 1998), focussed on blat´ (influence and influence peddling), how it was used to cope with the dysfunctions of the Soviet system and how it shaped early post-Soviet society and economy by subverting the market rationality that reformers hoped would transform Russia. The second book, How Russia Really Works (Ithaca, NY, 2006), moved things on, looking at how blat´ was married to new practices such as kompromat (compromising materials) to subvert formal political and market institutions in post-Soviet Russia. The first two books were about systems in flux. The blat´ system that Ledeneva described was evolving. The informal practices described in the second book were chaotic, and it was hard to see how they could be sustainable. Although the second book was written whilst Putin was consolidating power the practices that How Russia Really Works describes were very much of the El´tsin period and reflected the instabilities of that time. Ledeneva’s new book moves things on again. Can Russia Modernise? is an analysis of the informal institutions of the Putin era. Although some of the practices described in the previous books still exist, they are now part of what Ledeneva calls ‘sistema’, a system of governance that she identifies as being ‘Putin’s’ (p. 25). This sistema is not just a set of survival strategies or means to access power and resources in an environment that is formally underinstitutionalized . It reproduces itself and poses an obstacle to change. Unlike the chaos of the El´tsin period, sistema is more durable. Although there might be a desire to modernize the Russian polity and economy the networks and relationships that sistema consists of are effective both as substitutes for formal state bureaucracy and as means of co-opting political and economic forces and leaders. As a result, there is a ‘modernisation trap’: efforts at modernization use the informal methods and networks of sistema that they aim to replace so that the results of modernization are sub-optimal and sistema is reproduced. Even the effects of exogenous forces for change such as global economic integration are distorted by sistema so that they have a different form in Russia. The research that Ledeneva has done is revealing of elite attitudes and the relationship between wealth and power in contemporary Russia. The concept of sistema is not without its problems, however. Informal relations and their use are systemic in Russia but are they actually a ‘system’? It is possible to read Ledeneva’s research as pointing to multiple ‘systems’ of which the Putin REVIEWS 583 sistema is just one, a particular manifestation of a widespread phenomenon, that exists within a particular institutional space that give it a set of resources that are not available to others. At times Ledeneva acknowledges this. For example, she notes that control over formal institutions such as courts enables Putin to punish the informality of others to the advantage of his sistema. At other times, the difference between sistema and systemic is blurred and they are treated as equivalents. When this happens sistema becomes ‘everything’ and a very loose analytical concept. This is problematic on all sorts of levels. One consequence is that it is not always clear that the evidence that Ledeneva cites is using ‘system’ or ‘systematic’ in the same way that she is. A lot of the time it looks as if she is inferring the existence of sistema where others are talking about ‘system’ or ‘systematic’ and referring to something else entirely: the Soviet party-state, totalitarianism, corruption, injustice and weak rule of law and property rights, etc. Another consequence is that where formal institutions constrain informality (and vice versa) slips in and out of focus. This makes it hard to see how we can explain Russian political development using the idea...