ABSTRACT
The historian of Russia and many social scientists concerned with Soviet politics now find clientelism and other forms of patronage an inescapable component of the structure of state power with its own impact upon policies and events. In prerevolutionary Russia (and in Muscovy) dyadic relations and larger networks or clienteles had their roots in the clan-based, highly personalized political culture of the Muscovite court and bureaucracy. In Russian history one may find the origin of not simply the domination of the ‘personal’ over the ‘institutional’, or the ‘legal’, but of what might be more aptly seen as the institutionalization of the personal within a variety of political and legal structures. The reform era and reign of Alexander II offer further insight into the clientelism phenomenon at a time when the state administration, particularly the ministerial bureaucracy had become quite elaborate and powerful.
