Political Culture of Post-Soviet Economic Change: The Case of Financial-Industrial Groups

Beneath the seeming chaos and conflict of Russia\u27s post-socialist experience were structured dynamics of contentious reconstruction of fields (collective relations of power and culture institutionalized as authority and definitions of normal ). This essay argues that the Russian experience was driven in no small part by contention over remaking core meanings and authority of field relations, practices, and boundaries. Contention over field reconstruction emerged as three groups\u27 interests and taken-for granted meanings of normality collided: those of Soviet-era managers, a new class of financial entrepreneurs and elites, and state elites and officials. Post-socialism has been a story of competing elite culture as well as interests