The Politics of Welfare Reform in Russia

The Dominance of Bureaucratic Interests

Author(s): Linda Cook
Editor(s): Jeronim Perovic, Robert Orttung, Matthias Neumann, Heiko Pleines, Hans-Henning Schröder
Series: Russian Analytical Digest (RAD)
Issue: 37
Pages: 2-5
Publisher(s): Center for Security Studies (CSS), ETH Zurich; Research Centre for East European Studies, University of Bremen
Publication Year: 2008

The postcommunist Russian state inherited a large social sector. Much of the population depended on that sector for social services and subsidies, while state-bureaucratic welfare stakeholders relied on public expenditures and administration for their resources and roles. When the Yeltsin and Putin administrations initiated welfare reform policies of retrenchment, privatization and decentralization, they met resistance. During the Yeltsin period, bureaucratic actors as well as unreformed Communist parties in the Duma blocked change in welfare state structures, even as economic decline forced defunding of these structures. Under Putin, the Duma and societal interests were marginalized, while statist-bureaucratic actors continued to play a major role, producing an elite-dominated politics that at once permitted and moderated reform.

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