Sidorov Alexander Valentinovich

The main research problem of this article is the possibility of applying
some concepts of the neo-institutional approach to analyzing the history
of public administration system in Russia in the 19th — early 20th centuries,
as well as in the late Soviet era. Th is allows us to better understand the general
patterns of evolution of the mechanisms of state institutions functioning
in the past and present. Th e research method was case analysis; the selected
cases relate to manifestations of information asymmetry and opportunism of
subjects of state governance interactions. Th e paper examines the reaction of
government offi cials to the Decree of Alexander I of August 6, 1809 “On the
rules of promotion to ranks in the civil service and on tests in the sciences,
for promotion to Collegiate Assessors and State Councilors.” As the second
example illustrating the manifestation of “government opportunism”, the period
of the “Great Reforms” in Russia was chosen. Th e third case considered
was the development by the supreme power of normative documents ensuring
the activities of representative government bodies created in accordance with
the provisions of the Manifesto of October 17, 1905. Th e latest of the analyzed
cases were manifestations of information asymmetry and opportunism during
the perestroika period, examined using the examples of cotton pricing and the
behavior of regional government offi cials in relation to production cooperatives.
In all analyzed cases, the possession of more information by one of the parties led to an increase in mistrust between the participants in the interaction, usually
supporters of reforms and their opponents. In turn, mistrust resulted in opportunistic
behavior of subjects in the process of developing and implementing
reform plans. Ultimately, all this led to falling into institutional traps and the
consolidation of negative institutional qualities.

The set of memorable dates is one of the supporting elements in the toolkit of historical policy, implemented. This toolkit is applied in the form of anniversaries - sets of complex measures to update historical memory. The objective of this article is to identify the typological features of the "anniversary" practice in the historical policy of Russia in the twentieth century. The basic research method is to identify anniversary cases, based on those memorable dates that played the most important role in historical policy at different stages of the existence of Russian statehood. The result of the study was the identification of two basic tasks of the "anniversary" practice. The first of them is the formalization of the transformation of public consciousness, following a change in state policy or public reaction to this policy. The second task is to mobilize public consciousness to achieve the goals of either state policy or public activity. In each of the three cases under consideration, these two functions were present, but in different proportions, which influenced the nature and results of each specific anniversary practice.

The process of transit of state power in the history of Russia has repeatedly taken place in conditions of crisis: full-scale or intra-elite. Weak expression of the institutions accompanying this process led to personal struggle between contenders for power. This led to the use of "cancellation mechanisms" of this or that contender. The objectives of this article are: to identify the conditions in which the need arose to use "cancellation mechanisms"; to show the tools of "cancellation"; to point out the results that the use of this tool led to. To solve these problems, the case method was used. The authors selected the most illustrative of the situations of power transit in the USSR. To identify and describe the "cancellation mechanisms", the methods of institutional, semantic and semiotic analysis were used. The analysis conducted by the authors confirmed the original hypothesis about the weakness of the institutions of power transit. In each of the first two cases of transit (the 1920s and 1950s), this struggle between the contenders turned into a "zero-sum game". It ended with one of the "successors" gaining full power and the complete loss of political positions by all the others - their symbolic "cancellation". In the last of the cases considered, M.S. Gorbachev took steps to make it more difficult for "successors" to appear, but was unable to resist the process in which he himself, along with his decorative successors, was "cancelled" by the self-proclaimed successor - B.N. Yeltsin.