ABSTRACT
A dominant set structures the post-Soviet institutional context: the reproduction of the 'small' society model and the incomplete transformation of that society into a 'large' society. The persistence of the 'small' society serves as a guarantee against total collapse following a given exogenous shock, including the shocks produced by the reforms of the 1990s. Trust only exists within the 'small' society in its local and personalized form, which makes it impossible to construct a true collective subject. A society torn between two poles, an hourglass society, materializes the Russian/Soviet/post-Soviet model for State/citizen interactions. The failure to complete the construction of the 'large' society implies that each element in the social construction represents a miniature universe, a small society. The level of corruption serves as an indicator of the actual scope of the society. The Mafia mind-frame is found everywhere that the 'small' society has not been completely transformed into the large society.
