In 1984, the Financial Times journalist David Buchan called the USSR “Upper Volta with rockets”, ironically noting the poor quality of governance, an inefficient Soviet bureaucracy, and the irrational distribution of resources. Post-Soviet Russia has undergone significant socio-economic and political transformations since then. Even so, there has been no significant improvement in the quality of public administration. According to the Worldwide Governance Indicators for 1996–2019, Russia has consistently retained a position in the second half of the world’s countries in government performance. It has occupied a position in the bottom third for accountability. If we look at another important component of good governance, i.e. the perceived level of corruption, Russia’s performance is even worse. The Transparency International 2019 report sees Russia ranked 137th.
