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The Crisis of the Bureaucratic State and the Failed Attempts to Overcome it in the Russian Public Service
The article integrates several theoretical and practical issues into the general context of the contemporary crisis of the bureaucratic state and a quest for new patterns of governance. Considering the paradox of the positive influence of social distrust on political development, the dependence between trust and corruption, and recent changes in the public management of several leading countries as a kind of administrative response to new situations in the contemporary world, the author devotes the main part of the article to the case of Russia. Several rounds of unsuccessful efforts to create a genuine public service in post-Soviet Russia are described and the reasons for failure are explored. The common denominator of the author’s approach is an appraisal of the current condition of bureaucratic state institutions and personnel as unsuited to contemporary public expectations and demands, and the vital need to make them much more responsive and cooperative.