"Gorbachev Factor"
 |
In
the late 1970s and early 1980s the debate on the nature of the
Soviet political system between the supporters of the totalitarian
and pluralist schools was reinvigorated by the appearance of a new,
锟絚orporatist锟?approach. Most fully the views of the corporatist
strand of Soviet studies were presented in the works of Valerie
Bunce and John Echols.
Like pluralists, the corporatists recognized the existence of organized
interests in the USSR and a certain adjustment of the post-Stalin
regime. |
However, they disagreed strongly with the pluralist interpretation
of the role of these interests and the nature of the changes. In
particular, they objected to the central proposition of the
pluralist model that downgraded the role of the top party-state
leadership to that of a passive broker mediating institutional
interests. The corporatists argued that this view ignored the
fundamental differences between the role of the government in
pluralist democracies of the West and in Brezhnev锟絪 USSR.
The
supporters of the corporatist theory insisted that the Soviet
authorities retained their immense prerogatives and were actively
involved in the decision-making process. Soviet interest groups were
not autonomous and independent, but instead were organic parts of
the system and bound to follow the 锟絩ules of the game.锟?In other
words, their functioning was based on the corporatist, rather than
the pluralist, model. In corporatist politics the more important
interest groups are incorporated into the policy process by the
state and its leaders. State corporatism allows the organization and
articulation of interests, particularly those connected with heavy
industry and the military, but only under the tight control of the
state.
It
is clear now that the Soviet reality was too complex, multifaceted,
and contradictory to allow its essence to be captured in a single
word, be it totalitarianism, pluralism, or corporatism. However, by
focusing on particular aspects of the regime, the adherents of each
of the three schools of thought contributed to a better
understanding of the power mechanisms in the Soviet Union. In
particular, the emphasis by the pluralist and corporatist schools on
the study of interest groups helped to gain important insights into
their structure and political role in the pre-Gorbachev period and
laid the foundation for subsequent research into the growth of
pluralism under Gorbachev and the evolution of organized interests
in post-Soviet Russia.
