Rivera, Rivera, and Nemeth ’22 Publish in Slavic Review

Co-authored with Nemeth, the article extends Rivera and Rivera’s previous research on several issues that are central to the study of contemporary Russian politics: To what extent do former KGB agents dominate the country’s polity and economy, and, if that extent is large, what are its consequences? In particular, are the underlying sources of Russia’s descent into full-blown authoritarian rule to be found in Vladimir Putin’s professional socialization in the KGB and staffing of the state with former military and security officers—the siloviki—as has been widely claimed?

In a review essay that Rivera and Rivera published in 2018, they write that the scholarly community’s knowledge about “the militarization of the Russian elite,” as the field calls it, “rests on a rather thin, and in some cases flawed, body of systematic empirical research,” one in which core claims are “more asserted than demonstrated.” In order to inject rigor into research on this topic, Rivera, Rivera, and Nemeth utilize data from the 2020 Survey of Russian Elites to compare the attitudes of siloviki and civilians toward representative government, civil liberties, criminal justice, government control of the Internet, and the justifiability of various forms of protest.

The comparative and statistical analyses that they conduct lead them to conclude that the conventional wisdom on this topic is correct. Specifically, they find that “elites with career histories in one or more of Russia’s numerous force structures are, on average, significantly less supportive than lifelong civilians of various core principles that undergird representative government, civil liberties, and the rights of the individual.” In addition, “former and current military and security officers are more supportive of state control of the Internet and view various forms of protest activity as substantially less justifiable than do elites lacking professional experience in a force structure. Finally, siloviki are far less likely to prefer western-style democratic governance and considerably more enamored of Russia’s current authoritarian political system than are civilians.”