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State, Society, and Transformation

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State, Society, and Transformation S tate STATE, , S SOCIETY, AND OCIETY TRANSFORMATION , AND transformation Edited by Beth A. Mitchneck Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars 1300 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W. Washington, DC 20004 Tel. (202) 691-4270 Fax (202) 691-4100 www.wilsoncenter.org/kennan Kennan Institute STATE, SOCIETY, AND TRANSFORMATION Edited by Beth A. Mitchneck WOODROW WILSON INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR ScHOLARS The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, established by Congress in 1968 and headquartered in Washington, D.C., is a living national memorial to President Wilson. The Center’s mission is to com- memorate the ideals and concerns of Woodrow Wilson by providing a link between the worlds of ideas and policy, while fostering research, study, discussion, and collaboration among a broad spectrum of individuals con- cerned with policy and scholarship in national and international affairs. Supported by public and private funds, the Center is a nonpartisan in- stitution engaged in the study of national and world affairs. It establish- es and maintains a neutral forum for free, open, and informed dialogue. Conclusions or opinions expressed in Center publications and programs are those of the authors and speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Center staff, fellows, trustees, advisory groups, or any individuals or organizations that provide financial support to the Center. The Center is the publisher of The Wilson Quarterly and home of Woodrow Wilson Center Press, dialogue radio and television, and the monthly news- letter “Centerpoint.” For more information about the Center’s activities and publications, please visit us on the web at www.wilsoncenter.org. Jane Harman, Director, President, and CEO Board of Trustees Joseph B. Gildenhorn, Chair Sander R. Gerber, Vice Chair Public Members: Melody Barnes, designated appointee from within the Federal Government; Hon. James H. Billington, Librarian of Congress; Hillary R. Clinton, Secretary, U.S. Department of State; G. Wayne Clough, Secretary, Smithsonian Institution; Arne Duncan, Secretary, U.S. Department of Education; David Ferriero, Archivist of the United States; James Leach, Chairman, National Endowment for the Humanities; Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Private Citizen Members: Timothy Broas, John Casteen, Charles Cobb, Jr., Thelma Duggin, Carlos M. Gutierrez, Susan Hutchison, Barry S. Jackson STATE, SOCIETY, AND TRANSFORMATION Edited by Beth A. Mitchneck 2011 Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C. www.wilsoncenter.org Cover Photograph: A corner of a building at the intersection of Freedom Alley and Soviet Street, Tver’, Russia. Reproduced with permission from Rosfoto.ru, 2011; Photographed by Artur Avakov. ISBN: 1-933549-63-7 CONTENTS Introduction: State, Society, and Transformation 6 Beth A. Mitchneck, editor Part I: ConceptUALIZING Interactions BetWeen State and Society Chapter 1 20 Conceptualizing “Society” and “State” Joe Painter Chapter 2 50 Post-Soviet Power in Anthropological Perspective Nikolay N. Kradin Chapter 3 77 Russian Nationalism in a Post-Ideological Era Stephen E. Hanson Part II: InstitUtionaL CHanGE and Interactions BetWeen State and Society Chapter 4 102 Public Discourse on the Perspectives on Transition in Post-Soviet Russia: The Pluralism of Ideas in Transforming the Public Sphere Olga Malinova Chapter 5 126 The Transformation Decade: More State Than Society? Gevorg Poghosyan 4 INTRODUCTION Conclusion 137 Beth A. Mitchneck Acknowledgements 142 About the Contributors 144 STATE, SOCIETY, AND TRANSFORMATION 5 INTRODUCTION: State, SOCIETY, AND TRANSFORmation BetH MitcHnecK or many years, the field of Soviet studies revolved around “Kremlinology” — an area of research focused on the politics su- Frrounding decision making in the Soviet central government and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). This focus resulted in a government-centered, top-down view of life in the Soviet Union. It also resulted in a view of the Soviet state that blended two separate yet highly related structures—the government and the CPSU. Research on Soviet society centered on historical and literary studies minimizing the role of general social science with the exception of Kremlinology. This was due in part to restricted access to information, including the quantitative and qualitative data sources traditionally used by social scientists. Historical and literary studies provided critically important insights into how society in general was related to and affected by state formation and the practice of state socialism and communism. In the post-Soviet world, social scientists have research opportunities that were previously unavailable. The result of this development has been the creation of an opportunity to step back and view state and society in the post-Soviet space in an historical context. Anthropologists, sociolo- gists, political scientists, and geographers (among others) now integrate the study of society with their consideration of the state and state processes in the region. While some recent research attributes much of current so- cial, economic, and political behavior to the legacy of communism or to the introduction of neoliberalism, the focus of the present volume is on contextualizing state and society with respect to longer-term cultural and political processes in Russia and the broader region. In other words, a pri- mary goal is to bring society back into the study of the state in the former Soviet Union and Russia. The authors met during two workshops, one in Moscow hosted by the Kennan Institute and one in Durham, England, hosted by the Department of Geography of Durham University. Each workshop resulted in broad 6 INTRODUCTION theoretical and empirical debate among the participants about the mean- ing of “the state” and “society” both as terms of language and as institu- tions. The debates suggested that states, as both entities and concepts, as we comprehend them in the post-Soviet case, are continually conceptual- ized, reconceptualized, and redefined. The debates also highlighted that one’s positionality in terms of national identity and scholarly perspective greatly influences one’s interpretation of those processes. As a result, the chapters in this book cannot present a unified approach to understanding the state, society, or interrelations between the two. Rather, the chapters reflect attempts by the authors to examine, link, and comment on a variety of perspectives, both historical and contemporary, about the relationship(s) between state and society. The project has a number of interrelated aims. First, we intend this volume to engage an international audience of scholars in an interdisciplin- ary conversation about the meaning of state and society in the post-Soviet space. The state and society lens provides a look into contested concepts such as state, public, modernity, modernization, transition, ideology, politi- cal legitimacy, perezhitki (holdovers), and post-Soviet society itself. Second, we intend that the papers presented here move the international commu- nity toward understandings of social transformations that are distinct from the concepts of transition and democratization. Because these terms are so highly problematic in regard to translation, meaning, and experience, we found in our discussions that a focus on them diverts analysis from the primary goal of engaging the state–society nexus. Third, we aim to move scholarly attention toward an understanding of the interrelationship be- tween state and social engagement. Previous research on the Russian state and government has led to an understanding of the indicators of the func- tioning of government institutions and the impact of government policy that is critical for illuminating the results of years of political and economic reform.1 The work presented in this volume engages with these concepts but also focuses most directly on historical and social aspects of the context in which interactions between state and society occur. Finally, we aim to distinguish the concepts and terms of “government” and “state” by pro- viding theoretical or conceptual frameworks on which to hang empirical analyses. While the process of forming this work group and working with the international group has convinced us that it is not possible and prob- ably not desirable to have one definition of the state, all of these aims move STATE, SOCIETY, AND TRANSFORMATION 7 us toward a conversation about the meaning of state and society in places experiencing significant social change. Our work group members tackle important but relatively obscure ques- tions related to state and society, such as: How necessary are a “strong” state and “strong” state structure to the functioning of society? What roles do the underlying social norms and structure play in shaping the state and interactions between state and society? What role do informal and daily practices play in shaping state–society interactions? These kinds of ques- tions are underplayed in works that analyze government institutions or the state separately from society. The general literature on the post-Soviet state focuses heavily on the weak state and the implications of the weak state for democratization and marketization as well as economic performance. Some recent work analyzes linkages between government and business institutions, but attention to conceptualizing the post-Soviet state and its interactions with society within a theoretical framework suggested and supported
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