Tabla de Contenidos:
  • Figures; Tables; Boxes; Acknowledgements; Abbreviations and acronyms; Introduction: modernising sistema; From the power of networks to networks of power; Paradoxes of modernisation; The power of informal networks; Informal networks: a problem or a solution?; Sistema as a new puzzle; Methodology and fieldwork; 1 What is sistema?; Defining the contours of sistema; Embeddedness; Diffuse nature; Complexity; Anonymity; Ambivalence; Open secret; The leadership trap; Changes and continuities of Putin's sistema; 'Bottling': the Soviet administrative-command culture.
  • 'Barrelling': Russian political culture'Soil and seed': social network culture, or why comply with oral commands?; Factors of change: business and monetisation; Factors of change: globalisation; Reflexivity: why do good people do bad things?; 2 Putin's sistema: svoi on top; Integrating the network dimension into the model; Ideal types of power networks; Ambivalence of power networks; Supportive yet subversive: the functions of power networks; Putin's vertical of power; Putin's networks; 'Inner circle'; 'Useful friends'; 'Core contacts'; 'Mediated contacts'; Prospects for change.
  • 3 The inner workings of sistema: from blat to otkatPutin on sistema: 'manual control'; Corrupt implications of a 'personalised' bureaucracy; Sistema recruitment: who can belong?; Economy of kickbacks: sistema's control of informal financial flows; How blat networks are different from otkat networks; An alternative to blat appointments; Exit from sistema; 4 Sistema's material culture: from vertushka to Vertu; Vertushka paradox: privilege or security trap?; Yeltsin and the privatisation of vertushka; Putin's vertical and vertushka; Big business re-shuffle.
  • Svoya infrastructure as pattern of resource allocation, svoya network as a pattern of controlFrom vertushka to Vertu; The Vertu deal; Informal rewards: privileges and the culture of belonging; 5 'Telephone justice' in the global age: from commands to signals; Women's power; Olga's story; 'Telephone justice' in Russian courts; Defects of the Russian judicial system: evidence from extradition cases in the UK; The Russian Federation as a litigant: the weaknesses of sistema in a global context; The future of informal commands; 6 'Werewolves in epaulets': from doublethink to doubledeed.
  • The 'Three Whales' affair: Putin's first termThe 'Three Whales' affair continued: Putin's second term; Corporate raiding v. reiderstvo; From reiderstvo to sistema raiding; 'Werewolves in epaulets'; Public-private crossover; Doubledeed; Outsourcing; The invisibles; Business capture; Insecurity forces; Globalisation of sistema raiding?; Personal appeals: Presidents v. 'werewolves in epaulets'; Sistema gives, sistema takes; 7 From dealership to leadership: sistema and informal governance; Informal leadership; Leaders as patrons and patrons as leaders.