Russian civil service reform: A step toward democratic consolidation or bureaucratic authoritarianism

This research examines the theoretical foundation of bureaucratic politics in the context of transition from authoritarianism. For a long time the tradition founded by Max Weber, which accounts for bureaucracy's role in shaping political regime was replaced by emphasis on the politics-administration dichotomy in administrative science as well as in comparative politics. The political reality of the "third wave of democratization" during the last quarter of the twentieth century brought state back into the focus of scholarly attention as a possible explanation for the numerous cases of backsliding to "soft" authoritarian rule or even tyranny (Huntington, 1991). The high energy and mass character of the "reverse wave" is a new and complex political phenomenon, which cannot be explained by a single-factor model. However, the legacy of the communist "party-states" in the case of former Soviet Republics and some of the Eastern European countries brings out political role of bureaucracy to the top of the list of explanations for the expansion of the "gray zone" regimes that cannot be classified as pure-breed autocracies or consolidated democracies.;The present study aims at uncovering the mechanism behind the political influence of the post-modern bureaucracies and the effect that it may have on the nature of the emerging regimes in post-communist states. To explore this question a model is proposed that links two classes of variables: the intra-agency authority patterns and the bureaucracy's accountability to the external actors. This model is grounded on the premise that stability of a political regime is a factor of congruent authority patterns throughout state and societal organizations, which has been set forth in the Congruence Theory conceptualized by Harry Eckstein and Ted Gurr (Eckstein and Gurr, 1975).;The model proposed in this research was empirically tested using both qualitative (history tracing process, interviews, and meta-analysis of the existing research on the subject) and quantitative (survey data collected in the four selected regions of the Russian Federation) analysis. The findings reveal that internal bureaucratic agencies authority patterns influence the relationship of accountability between executive branch and other political actors. The higher the degree of centralization, formalization and work complexity within bureaus, the less transparent and responsive they are to the elected legislative officials and social non-governmental organizations. As a result, this study is able to contribute to scholars' and political analysis' understanding of the political consequences of the administrative reforms undertaken by the current Russian president in an effort to establish the "executive vertical" and "dictatorship of the law".