№ 3 - 2003
Samonova Ye.A.
Executive Power in Post-Soviet States (With Russia, Estonia, and Kyrgyzstan as Instances)

The article presents an attempt to examine post-communist political transformations as manifested on the touchstone of executive power. The analysis was carried out in the institutional-political context of three post-Soviet countries — Russia, Estonia, and Kyrgyzstan — with instruments of comparative political science, as well as quantification methods applied. It was central state structures that figured as the objects investigated. The place of the executive power in the political systems of the chosen countries; the inward structure of their organs of executive power; and, finally, the interaction of the executive power and society — all this having been analyzed, the researcher found out that in spite of certain concurrences arising from sameness of the historical heritage, the trajectories of Russia’s, Estonia’s, and Kyrgyzstan’s development essentially diverge. According to her conclusion, these divergences, to a large extent, result from particular features of the respective constitutional systems of the countries in question. Parliamentary order proper to Estonia is conducive to the domination of legislative power in the country’s political system and to the relatively liberal organization of society. In its turn, the likeness between Russia and Kyrgyzstan is essentially preconditioned by their presidential-parliamentary systems. A fairly strong role of executive power and a considerable degree of regulation of the social relations are characteristic of both these states.