Public management in Russia: changes and inertia Lev Jakobson State University, Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia Abstract Public sector reforms in Russia are typically half-hearted attempts at privatization. At the same time, there are attempts to bring about bureaucratization in a Weberian sense by increasing the role of formal rules. Given the Russian tradition of disloyalty to rules, however, all attempts to establish some sort of Rechtsstaat (law and order) are likely to fail in the short run. It is essential for the government to build social capital through more public consultation and improved accountability to the public. But the development of civil society in Russia will take time. In the short term, creating new kinds of management teams could be the next best approach to solving the resource and management problems in the public sector. © 2001 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved. Over the past two decades, administrative reforms in the Western world have been shaped by the ideas of New Public Management (Kickert, 1997). Improvement of performance in the public sector and in the economy as a whole has been achieved by increasing administrative flexibility, giving public employees more autonomy and encouraging businesslike behavior. In countries where these methods have been used, the benefits are evident (Loeffler, 1997). During the same period in Russia, attempts have been made to radically reform public administration on the whole and public management in particular. The actions initially were aimed at improving the performance of the economy, and were conducive to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the communist system. 1 They resulted in enormous social, legal, political and cultural changes. At the same time, the administrative reforms themselves have not attained the objectives that were set for them. This fact is recognized by most Russian experts, regardless of their political orientation. For instance, a recent analysis by the well-known Council on Foreign and Defense Policy has shown that many of the current authorities have managed to preserve the Soviet Union’s, or even Stalin’s, worst adminis- * Corresponding author. Tel.: +928-04-21; fax: +928-73-60. E-mail address: roomjakobs@hse.ru (L. Jakobson). International Public Management Journal 4 (2001) 27– 48 1096-7494/01/$ – see front matter © 2001 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved. PII: S1096-7494(01)00040-X