Alexander Obolonsky | Fellow

Dr. Alexander Obolonsky is a Russian social scientist and doctor of Law & Policy. He is currently a Professor in the Research University-Higher School of Economics, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Public Administration and Municipal Management (Moscow), lecturing on comparative public service and ethics in public life. Previously he worked in the Institute of State and Law and in the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He is the Member of the independent Academy of Humanities Research and has participated in the Congresses of the International Political Science Association and the International Institute of Administrative Sciences.

Dr. Obolonsky’s fields of professional interest cover comparative civil service  and the theory of bureaucracy as a part of political theory and history of state, comparative political analysis, psychological aspects of inter-ethnic and inter-cultural conflicts, and other historical and cultural issues. In recent years, he has focused on the problems of: a) world-wide crisis of bureaucratic governance and alternatives to it; b) the geopolitical view as a wrong and dangerous form of consciousness; c) moral aspects of public policy and politics both in comparative and domestic respects; and d) political street protests.

Primary publications in English include the monograph “The Drama of  Russian Political History: System Against Individuality”, Texas A&M University Press, 2003; the chapters in collective monographs:  “Russian Bureaucracy and the State: Officialdom from Alexander III to Putin,” Palgrave Macmillan, 2009; “Russian Politics in the Time of Troubles: Some Basic Antinomies,” in Russia in Search of Its Future, Cambridge University Press, 1995; “Why It Is So Difficult to Reform Russian Officialdom; The Fate of Russian Officialdom: Fundamental Reform or Technical Improvements?” and selected papers from the 17th NISPAcee Annual Conference, May 14–16, 2009, Budva, Montenegro, 2010.
  His main texts in Russian include “The Crisis of Bureaucratic State, 2011; “Public Service ( the complex approach)”, the textbook, 2009; “Morality and Law in Politics and Governance”, 2006; Bureaucracy for the 21st Century? The Patterns of  Public Service: Russia, USA, England, Australia, 2002; “The  Bureaucracy and State” – 1996; “The Drama of Russian Political History: System Against Individuality” – 1994; “The Individual and Public Administration”,1987; “Deadlocks of Geopolitical Immorality and Searches of New State Paradigm”, 2009; “Political Distrust as a Factor of Development.”