The Merger of Power and Management: Transition to а “Manual” Regime at the Initial Stage of Market Reforms in Russia in 1991

Abstract

The study is devoted to examining the role of a “manual” control in the design and implementation of radical market reforms. A review of the scholarly literature has demonstrated the relevance and promise of investigating the special governance modes within the system of public administration. It has been shown that prevailing views of B.N. Yeltsin’s role in shaping the socio‑economic policy of the RSFSR Government during the period under study are incomplete, reducing his contribution to mere public political support for the reformist economists. The primary sources for this research include legal and administrative documents, memoirs, and contemporary media reports. An inductive method was used to summarize the research results. The RSFSR President’s influence on determining the government’s operational parameters is considered in two dimensions: organizational and facilitative. The organizational dimension involved maximizing the speed of decision‑making. Yeltsin took steps to overcome entrenched intra‑ and interdepartmental coordination practices, introduced additional reporting on current issues, and curtailed debate during government sessions. This approach reduced the drafting period for foundational reform documents to just a few weeks. The facilitative dimension involved invoking extraordinary presidential powers and advancing government bills through the RSFSR Supreme Council. Presidential decrees intended to establish the legal framework for market relations were reviewed and amended directly in government meetings and often came into force without parliamentary approval. Members of the presidential administration — and Yeltsin himself — played a leading role in lobbying for the reform’s key measures and were responsible for managing the information flow about the reforms in state media. Although the President generally granted the government’s economic team considerable autonomy, he intervened in decisions falling within his specialized remit: issues with significant foreign or domestic political implications and the military‑strategic aspects of socio‑economic policy. As a result, the reformist economists were forced to adjust their own plans, leading to distortions in the reform program. Synthesizing the findings of this study has allowed us to delineate the limits of situational adequacy for a “manual” governance mode during reform processes: namely, the presence of tight time constraints and institutional barriers. The risks inherent in this model include societal fragmentation, a narrowing of the political maneuvering space, and a proliferation of unpredictable consequences stemming from voluntaristic decisions.