China and Russia’s New Technocracy
Heitor Romana
A new ideological and geopolitical reality at dawn of 21st century has brought a huge challenge to the Chinese and Russian societies and their political elites. China and Russia have created new socio-political and economic systems which combine in the case of China, confucionism, neo-leninism (the basis for the State capitalism) and a developing monism, and in the case of Russia, the Weber’s neo-patrimonialism and political paternalism, supported by an Adam Smith’s «invisible hands» and by a «managed democracy» - expression designed by Kremlin spin doctors. In both cases we watch the emergence of nationalism as an ideological manifestation of a «statism» model. But while in China it helps keep the perty-State model, in Russia it serves mainly to mobilize support to external projection.