BLOG #10

BLOG #10

“The organization and structure of societal groups that Russia inherited from the Soviet regime were neither "weak" nor "flat." Soviet civil society was small, nascent, and only starting to emerge before the collapse of the USSR in 1991. Social groups or special-interest groups located within the state, however, were organized, cohesive, and powerful. These interest groups did not wither, disband, or weaken when the Soviet state formally collapsed. Rather, they became autonomous units located somewhere between state and society. Two years after the dissolution of the Soviet state, Russia's post-communist civil society was still dominated by social units constructed according to the organizing principles of the Soviet regime.” (McFaul, pp. 220).

          The effect of globalization on nation states cannot be clearer or evident than the case of the Soviet Union and the rise of Russia as a oligarchy in which the economy is control by powerful bureaucrats with close ties to the highest doors of the Kremlin. The idea expressed in the quote by McFaul exposes how the privatization of the Russian economy didn’t only led to the weaken of the state and its institutions but also the spread of corruption and capital accumulation within a tight grid. The soviet regime as mentioned in the quote wasn’t weak but the challenges affronted during and after the governments of Boris Yeltsin. The organization of the soviet regime as expressed by McFaul was structured through the institutionalization of agents within the bureaucracy that acted as defenders of those interests but once the power grid was remove, those agents (or members of the bureaucracy) started to perceived power and most importantly private property as a means of their own, basically owning the different production fields that were monitored by the state. Privatization as a consequence just allocated the power structure from an organized central government to the hands of powerful individuals within the state or associated with the state.

          The lecture made emphasis on the power and future of nation states in the rise of globalization and the reality is that nation states do still remain power yet not absolute power because they become dependent not only of the needs of their constituents but also of millions of people in Europe or Asia or Latin America who are consumers and important players in the shaping of economic and social development of that particular country. In the case with Russia, that privatization and openness to neoliberal practice hasn’t being propagated completely because the state even though much weaker, still remains attached to these agents that McFaul describes who play a fundamental role in between the state and the people. Russia’s case is different in that private ownership is not so private but private enough to stopping capital from getting to those who need it.