ABSTRACT
State industrial subsidies, a weak banking system, the Soviet (non)distribution system, state pensions, subsidized energy prices, media subsidies, and the system of higher education and research all contribute to Russia's unstable foreign policy processes, discussed by the authors. Elite coalition building and leadership politics are crucial to the making of Russian foreign policy. Without systematic mechanisms to ensure accountability and to place constraints on elite ambitions and personalistic relations, foreign policy priorities derive from shifting ties and alliances within and among elites. The politics of Russian foreign policy making is unstable in the sense because many of the important institutional structures and "rules of the game" have been removed but not yet replaced with new ones. Soviet foreign policy institutions encompassed not only state bureaucracies and party organs but also the norms and rules of the game that ordered the policy process and terms of political competition.
