Power, autonomy, and adaptation: The reorganization of Russia's ministries, 1985-1995.

Abstract

This dissertation considers the reorganization which has occurred in Russia's ministries since 1985 and argues that Russia's ministries are in some instances significant actors in Russian politics today. However, there is no single pattern for describing Russian ministerial behavior in the post-Soviet period. Rather, Russia's ministries differ greatly in terms of the amount of power and autonomy which they enjoy. In the first section, I develop a number of indicators for measuring autonomy and present a typology. This typology organizes the ministries according to the differing amounts of autonomy which they presently enjoy vis-a-vis the legislature, the presidency, and the other organs of the executive branch. The rest of the dissertation seeks to explain the puzzle presented in section one, by asking, What resources or strategies have allowed some ministries to gain so much more autonomy than others in the new Russia? Using organization theory, I argue that just as successful corporations have been those which have 're-engineered' themselves to cope with a changing environment where old strategies are no longer effective, the most successful Russian ministries have been those which re-engineered themselves. Using case-study methodology, interviews with ministerial personnel, and newspaper articles, I show that re-engineering involves changing an organization's defined mission, its standard operating procedures, its organizational culture, and sometimes its leadership. In the conclusion to this dissertation, I comment on the relevance of these findings for understanding bureaucratic reorganization in comparative politics in general and in newly democratizing nations in particular.