Ne nash chelovek
| Ne nash chelovek (Russia) 🇷🇺 | ||
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| Location: Russia | ||
| Definition: Ne nash chelovek (lit., not our person) is a colloquial Russian term used within administrative environments to identify a professional whose adherence to formal rules and legal rationality makes them a systemic outlier and a threat to the informal comfort of the inner circle. | ||
| Keywords: Employment – Informal governance – Network – Personal connections – Public service | ||
| Clusters: Informal governance – Conformity – Non-conformity – Control – Lock-in effect | ||
| Author: Aleksandr Shchennikov | ||
| Affiliation: Independent researcher | ||
By Aleksandr Shchennikov, Independent researcher
| The concept of nash chelovek (our man) has traditionally referred to the core of informal solidarity in Russia. However, its mirror image — ne nash chelovek (not our man) — the systemic outsider — plays an equally important role: it maintains systemic equilibrium by excluding those who do not conform to informal codes.
The distinction between degrees of belonging is rooted in the very semantics of the Russian language. Linguistically, the use of the word svoi (one's own, or insiders) is more limited than that of nashi (ours, more broadly). Svoi implies belonging and even implies a degree of possession. It refers to an intimate, inner circle of a team, possibly tied together. Nash implies solidarity more generally, as opposed to outside idea, influence or force. |
In the context of governance at the municipal level, where this research took place, the difference between formal and informal belonging is essential. An employee can be considered one of us based on formal criteria (place of residence, department), yet remain an outsider in spirit, sticking to formalities, not making it to the inner circle of the team, or even made redundant on this basis.
In Russian classics, the playwright Aleksandr Ostrovsky has referred to family ties as "our people" (svoi lyudi) (1849). In The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky described one of the brothers, the rationalist Ivan, as a man who 'is not one of us at heart.' In modern bureaucracy, rational behaviour triggers a similar reaction: a lawyer or expert who insists on following formal procedures is perceived as a bearer of "alien" rationalism.
At the level of a municipal department, nash chelovek is someone compliant, who shares the common views and is easy to get on with. Ne nash chelovek is an uncomfortable colleague, and a potential threat to the group's cohesion. At the level of the entire administrative system, nash chelovek can reach an agreement and resolve the issue. Ne nash chelovek is a thorny presence — someone who creates problems rather than solves them. The phenomenon can be described by Veblen's paradox of trained incapacity (Veblen 1933[1]), whereby, say, a lawyer's expertise and professionalism become an obstacle to the system.
The process of alienating ne nash chelovek begins with creating communication barriers. No order formalises the ban on communication — managers present it as friendly advice to protect the unit's atmosphere. Similar friendly advice would be to avoid any horizontal networking, perceived by the system as a risk of information leaks and disloyalty. Sticking to a vertically integrated chain of command transforms the municipal administration into a set of airtight compartments where practical norms are shielded from external legal oversight.
Attempts to establish professional relationships with colleagues across municipal departments often run into subtle but systematic resistance. Patrikeev documents these as follows: "I was explicitly advised not to interact with employees from other departments. "You don't need to go there," they told me. They have their own atmosphere there; we have ours." "They might think you're passing information to others" (Patrikeev forthcoming[2]).
According to Herbert Simon, an administrative structure functions effectively only when it is capable of imposing certain psychological attitudes and organizational loyalties on employees, compelling them to make decisions based not on personal convictions but on the goals and context of the organization itself (Simon 1947[3]). Simon points out that the organization effectively limits the individual's autonomy by creating a zone of acceptance within which the individual is willing to comply with established rules.
However, a critical disconnect between rules and norms operates within the Russian local government system. The behavioural code that the system attempts to instil in new employees is based on compliance with unwritten rules and the exercise of informal loyalties. For professional lawyers, such reprogramming often proves impossible. The so-called zone of acceptance is strictly limited by the framework of formal law. As a result, as Simon noted, if an individual cannot identify with the values offered by the organization, he becomes an ineffective element of the system.
Simon's ineffectiveness within the City Hall of an average Russian city manifests itself in several ways. Direct communication with employees from other departments without a supervisor's approval is viewed as suspicious activity. Employees are taught the importance of family ties (our department is a family), while all other departments are competitors for resources or potential sources of problems. When an employee attempts to discuss their position with colleagues from a neighbouring department, their own colleagues may interpret this as betrayal of the department's interests.
The insular mindset transforms the administrative system into an assemblage of isolated islands, each of which develops its own micro-code of informal norms, rendering a figure of professional integrity into ne nash chelovek. If nash chelovek refers to someone who shares views and complies with the accepted way of thinking, a professional lawyer, ne nash chelovek within the local governance system, becomes a bearer of inconvenient truth and dissonant knowledge. Legal rationalism and adherence to formal procedures come into direct conflict with informal codes of solidarity, acting as sand in the wheels of informal governance.
For lawyers in local governance, the label of ne nash chelovek is not merely a subjective feeling or individual experience; it is a statistically confirmed fact. An analysis of staff turnover data collected between 2011 and 2015 — tracking recruits over a two-year retention window (year of recruitment plus the following year) — revealed a trend of rapid drainage of legal expertise from the system. Based on 184 personnel files, the recruitment statistics show that lawyers are in great demand and account for almost a third of the total number of recruits, but their retention rate is the lowest among all professional groups (60.4%) (Shchennikov 2011–2015[4]).
Lawyers leave not because of incompetence, but because of their professional acumen. When confronted with unwritten rules, they perceive them not as a management tool, but as a direct risk of criminal prosecution — a situation of suspended punishment (Ledeneva 2006[5]). Possessing hard skills, lawyers perceive the irreconcilable conflict between the legal rules and practical norms within the organisation more acutely than other groups. For the administrative system, a good lawyer is one who finds a way to legalize an informal decision. If, however, a lawyer chooses the role of a guardian of the law, he or she instantly falls into the category of ne nash chelovek.
The drain of professionals described above exposes a fundamental ambivalence (Ledeneva 2013[6]) within the administrative environment. On the one hand, ridding the system of proponents of formal rationality is a rational act of self-preservation for informal networks. This creates a comfort zone, where the absence of alien elements of the law allows their own people to resolve issues unhindered. However, this very practice turns into a strategic vulnerability: in the long term, the administration is left without the internal expertise needed to identify legal risks and external challenges in a timely manner.
To paraphrase Ernst Frenkel's concept of the dual state (Frenkel 1941[7]), the state apparatus operates according to two interdependent yet antagonistic principles: the normative state — the sphere of laws, rules, and predictable procedures — and the prerogative state — the sphere of pure arbitrariness and expediency, unrestricted by law. As a representative of the normative order, a lawyer inevitably comes into conflict with the prerogative logic of informal governance. Richard Sakwa points out that every administrative regime possesses a high degree of adaptability and self-cleansing (Sakwa 2011[8]), whereby the system squeezes out the bearer of normativity, restoring internal comfort zones.
Ne nash chelovek has a choice between complying with the informal code of the organization and leaving, typically once administrative pressure makes it impossible to maintain professional identity. Thus, the departure of lawyers is not a failure of personnel management, but an indicator that, at the municipal level, the prerogative principle predominates.
References
- ↑ T. Veblen, The Engineers and the Price System, (New York: Viking Press, 1933).
- ↑ A. Patrikeev, Meria iznutri: 16 let v koridorax rossiskoi vlasti [Mayor's office from within: 16 years in the corridors of power in Russia], in Russian, forthcoming manuscript.
- ↑ H. A. Simon, Administrative Behavior: A Study of Decision-Making Processes in Administrative Organization, (New York: Macmillan, 1947).
- ↑ A. Shchennikov, "Institutional Pitfalls of the Municipal Civil Service in Russia: Personnel Selection and Mechanisms for the Rejection of Specialists (2011–2015)", unpublished manuscript.
- ↑ A. V. Ledeneva, How Russia Really Works: The Informal Practices That Shaped Post-Soviet Politics and Business, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006).
- ↑ A. V. Ledeneva, Can Russia Modernise? Sistema, Power Networks and Informal Governance, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013).
- ↑ E. Frenkel, The Dual State: A Contribution to the Theory of Dictatorship, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1941).
- ↑ R. Sakwa, The Crisis of Russian Democracy: The Dual State, Factionalism and the Medvedev Succession, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011).