Thus, the imperfect technocratic model of policy-making faces major and irresistible constraints. On the one hand, technocratic reformers and their patrons among the political leaders prioritize policy reforms with short-term positive effects at the expense of long-term programs. On the other hand, the poor quality of the bureaucracy and the influence of interest groups distort the goals and means of policy changes and negatively affect policy outcomes. Even if technocratic tricks (quasi-experimentation, creating special conditions for reforms under the political patronage of leaders, co-optation, and compromises in the form of sacrificing some reform projects) have brought certain successes, their price may be prohibitively high in terms of irreversibility of policy changes. But even if one admits these flaws and defects of the technocratic model of policy-making, to what extent are alternatives to this model possible, desirable, and realistic, and what are their effects?
Alternatives
to
Technocracy: No Way
Out
?
What would happen in Russia if for whatever reasons policy reforms in all areas were abandoned and technocrats only maintained the status quo in crucially important policy fields? Most probably, in the short term neither the political leaders nor the ordinary citizens would notice anything important. They might even breathe a sigh of relief because they were tired of the numerous successful and unsuccessful policy reforms over the last quarter century. The negative effects of the persistence of the status quo bias might be observed only in the medium term and/or after a change of political leadership. Policy reforms and mechanisms for their conduct would eventually be at the center of the political agenda, and alternatives to the imperfect technocratic model of policy-making would be discussed once again.
From the viewpoint of many analysts and the technocrats themselves,76 the most plausible solution is a correction of the defects of the technocratic model of policy-making aimed at its improvement. One may consider incentivizing bureaucratic performance through competition between agents, constraining the discretion of certain state agencies and revising their powers and, as the most radical solution, the replacement of “bad” political leaders, whose informal ruling coalitions are packed with rent-seekers, with “good” reform-minded and less corrupt autocrats. The problem, however, is that successful policy reforms in autocracies are relatively rare not only because of the personal traits of the political leaders but also because the incentives presented to them have left little chance of fixing the inherent defects of the imperfect technocratic model and transforming it into a perfect one. But even recruitment en masse of the best and brightest professionals into the ranks of policy reformers cannot guarantee that the major problems of the technocratic model will be resolved. Quite the opposite, the poor quality of the bureaucracy and the dominance of rent-seeking interest groups make attempts to improve the technocratic model questionable: they may result in the expansion of (already rigid) state overregulation and in the increase of the discretion of state watchdogs and law enforcement agencies.77 These changes may create new obstacles to policy reforms instead of the existing ones, or even in addition to them.
But what of the odds of a hypothetical transition from the imperfect technocratic model of policy-making to the political model bringing positive outcomes? In the short-term perspective, these odds are rather dubious. The experience of post-Communist Moldova and Ukraine (especially after 2014) tells us that politically accountable governments, even if they are formed through free and fair elections, are often no better at conducting policy reforms than technocratic cabinets of ministers. In these cases, the risks of state capture from outside, by oligarchic interest groups who compete with one another over rent-seeking, are high, and policy reforms may be blocked even if they are a priority for political leaders. A chain of weak, inefficient, and corrupt cabinets of ministers is not an attractive alternative to the technocratic model. Another risk of such a transition is the aggravation of principal-agent problems within a predatory piranha-like state apparatus78 and a possible shift toward decentralized corruption, which is justly considered even more dangerous than centralized corruption.79 In addition, the political model means that politically accountable governments may be hijacked by economic populists who may try to exploit the popular mandate to conduct inefficient policies. It may take Russia to numerous failures from the viewpoint of policy outcomes under conditions of bad governance, and temptations and risks of this kind may increase over time.
However, in the case of present-day Russia, both improvement of the imperfect technocratic model of policy-making and transition to the political model appear unrealistic. Since the political regime in the country is far from being in a full-scale crisis, its incentives are not toward change but toward preservation of the status quo. This is why the main alternative to policy reforms in Russia is further appeasement of rent-seekers and further sluggish development if not stagnation.80 The sad fate of Ulyukaev, the major proponent of post-Soviet technocracy, may serve as a prime example of this tendency. In November 2016 Ulyukaev, who was minister of economic development at the time, was fired and later sentenced to eight years in jail due to accusations of bribery during the process of privatizing a large block of shares of the state-owned oil company Rosneft. According to media reports, Ulyukaev, who had consistently objected to the government giving preferential treatment to state-owned companies and raised his voice against the proposed mechanism of privatization of Rosneft, was most probably not guilty of these criminal charges. Meanwhile, soon after Ulyukaev’s dismissal, the Rosneft block of shares was privatized in a nontransparent and suspicious way: the state-owned Gazprombank offered credit to two foreign investors in exchange for being loaned these shares. Just before this deal, Rosneftegaz (the holding company that controlled Rosneft shares) had put a large deposit into Gazprombank, so that this money was used to fund the privatization deal. Some observers even compared this model to the infamous loans-for-shares deals of the 1990s.81 The outcome of this deal was an increase in the influence of Igor Sechin, Putin’s close ally and CEO of the Rosneft, who was notorious as a highly voracious rent-seeker even in the rather grim context of Russian crony capitalism. Ulyukaev, who stood for other policy priorities, was sacrificed to the interests of rent-seekers with the consent of Russia’s political leadership. This episode (like many others of its kind) was hardly conducive to policy reform.