Paper short abstract:

The paper focuses on informal rules that regulate public expressions of big Russian businessmen about political leaders. These rules are seen as an interpretative device through which different actors act and perceive the economic and political reality.

Paper long abstract:

The relations between the state and big business in Russia are known to be dominated by informal practices. Numerous researches focus on clientelism, corruption, tax evasion, government predation on business and capture of assets of private compagnies. The effectiveness and persistence of these practices is ensured, among other things, by their partly dissimulated character. An official façade of state business relations covers the “way in which things get done in practice”. Self-censorship of Russian elites is a widely recognized phenomenon; however, little is known about the specific mechanisms through which it operates and the political effects it may produce. The paper presents some results of my PhD dissertation that aimed to study how leading Russian businessmen express their attitude towards the head of the state and his entourage during different media appearances. Using video analysis of TV interviews with big Russian businessmen and research interviews with journalists of different TV channels, I brough to light a set of the informal rules (termed “pact” by the informants), enforced by sanctions and prescribing what business magnates may say about the political leaders and their associates. The main point of the presentation is that the “pact” should not be seen as a stable list of instructions applicable in clearly defined conditions, it is better understood as a comprehensive interpretative device through which members of elites (but also journalists, analysts) act and perceive the economic and political reality.