#3
Vek
No. 43
November 1, 2001
THE RUSSIAN ELITE FEARS INTEGRATION WITH THE WEST
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]
Interview with Professor Vladimir Boikov, director of the Sociological Research
Center at the Russian State Service Academy.
Question: It seems that President Putin is on the verge of pulling away from a significant proportion of other Russian politicians...
Vladimir Boikov: He already has. We recently polled 250 senior officials in regional administrations and governments. We asked them in whose hands power is currently concentrated. The top response was President Putin, followed by regional leaders, the financial- industrial oligarchy, and the criminal world; the federal Cabinet came in fifth, although it would seem that it ought to be directly linked to the president.
A sober assessment of the current situation shows that Russia has a president who has the people's support, but his concept of creating a state power hierarchy has not yet been successful, de facto. Therefore, the head of state doesn't have political or social support in the state service bureaucracy or financial groups. What's more, this part of the elite interprets attempts to establish order as threats to its ability to do whatever it wants.
In my view, the main threats could come from the ministries and government agencies. So I think there will inevitably be a confrontation between corporate interests and the imposition of international standards (standards which are in Russia's national interest.
Next Article