Business In Post Communist Russia

It is a widely held idea that Russia has completed its revolution which brought down the Soviet economy, and that many companies after privatisation work as typical western companies. Another belief is that Russia has adopted a market economy but then reverted to authoritarianism. With these two ideas in mind, this book discusses the suggestion that the key element of post-Soviet economic and political reforms in the last two decades was the redistribution of assets from the state to oligarchs and the new elite. It looks at why most Russian companies could not achieve strong long–run corporate performance by analysing in detail a range of different Russian companies. The book is a useful tool for understanding the future prospects for Russian business.

Russian businesses in the post-Soviet period have been noted for their unusual, sometimes allegedly corrupt, business practices, and for their role in the enrichment of oligarchs. This book, which includes a wide range of case study examples, and which draws on the author’s first-hand experience of running a Russian company, argues that a key to understanding contemporary Russian business is the importance of arbitrage, that is the ability to take advantage of price and cost differentials in different markets. The book argues that the conditions for such arbitrage advantages are often created by businesses which have special links to particular institutions; that arbitrage benefits are not available to all businesses in a sector, thereby providing unfair competitive advantages to some businesses; and that businesses’ overall activities are often distorted by this system. The book includes an analysis of a wide range of different types of arbitrage activities in action.

Prior to 1989, the communist countries of Eastern Europe and the USSR lacked genuine employer and industry associations. After the collapse of communism, industry associations mushroomed throughout the region. Duvanova argues that abusive regulatory regimes discourage the formation of business associations and poor regulatory enforcement tends to encourage associational membership growth. Academic research often treats special interest groups as vehicles of protectionism and non-productive collusion. This book challenges this perspective with evidence of market-friendly activities by industry associations and their benign influence on patterns of public governance. Careful analysis of cross-national quantitative data spanning more than 25 countries, and qualitative examination of business associations in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Croatia, shows that postcommunist business associations function as substitutes for state and private mechanisms of economic governance. These arguments and empirical findings put the long-standing issues of economic regulations, public goods and collective action in a new theoretical perspective.

Prior to 1989, the communist countries of Eastern Europe and the USSR lacked genuine employer and industry associations. After the collapse of communism, industry associations mushroomed throughout the region. Duvanova argues that abusive regulatory regimes discourage the formation of business associations and poor regulatory enforcement tends to encourage associational membership growth. Academic research often treats special interest groups as vehicles of protectionism and non-productive collusion. This book challenges this perspective with evidence of market-friendly activities by industry associations and their benign influence on patterns of public governance. Careful analysis of cross-national quantitative data spanning more than 25 countries, and qualitative examination of business associations in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Croatia, shows that postcommunist business associations function as substitutes for state and private mechanisms of economic governance. These arguments and empirical findings put the long-standing issues of economic regulations, public goods and collective action in a new theoretical perspective.

Tiivistelmä.

Entering the shady world of what he calls "violent entrepreneurship," Vadim Volkov explores the economic uses of violence and coercion in Russia in the 1990s. Violence has played, he shows, a crucial role in creating the institutions of a new market economy. The core of his work is competition among so-called violence-managing agencies—criminal groups, private security services, private protection companies, and informal protective agencies associated with the state—which multiplied with the liberal reforms of the early 1990s. This competition provides an unusual window on the dynamics of state formation.Violent Entrepreneurs is remarkable for its research. Volkov conducted numerous interviews with members of criminal groups, heads of protection companies, law enforcement employees, and businesspeople. He bases his findings on journalistic and anecdotal evidence as well as on his own personal observation. Volkov investigates the making of violence-prone groups in sports clubs (particularly martial arts clubs), associations for veterans of the Soviet—Afghan war, ethnic gangs, and regionally based social groups, and he traces the changes in their activities across the decade. Some groups wore state uniforms and others did not, but all of their members spoke and acted essentially the same and were engaged in the same activities: intimidation, protection, information gathering, dispute management, contract enforcement, and taxation. Each group controlled the same resource—organized violence.

In 1991, a small group of Russians emerged from the collapse of the Soviet Union and enjoyed one of the greatest transfers of wealth ever seen, claiming ownership of some of the most valuable petroleum, natural gas and metal deposits in the world. By 1997, five of those individuals were on Forbes Magazine's list of the world's richest billionaires.

Market Democracy in Post-Communist Russia is a thorough exploration of Russia's dramatic transition from a centralized economy to a market economy and from communism to democracy. Scholars from Russia and the United States debate issues of mutual concern, exchange ideas, and collectively characterize the current state of the government, the economy, the business enviroment, international relations, and identity politics in Russia. Market Democracy in Post-Communist Russia Investigates a wide range of important issues including constitutional law, political parties, and legal structures in Russia; the relationship, and possible relationships, between Russia, The WTO, the EU, and NATO;the changing of climate for entrepreneurship and consumers in Russia; the roles of the 'oligarchs' and organized crime; the relative benefits and costs of 'shock therapy, ' the interrelationships among privatization, the executive branch of goverment, and the overall quality of both markets and democracy in Russia; and the relatonship between Russian identity and political representation. What, in sum, has gone well and gone poorly during Russia's post communist transformation? what does this teach us about markets and democratic processes in practise? What after all, is a healthy market democracy, and how can Russia's difficult transformation help us approach this question? Edited by M. Lane Bruner, reasearch faculty in Public Communication at Georgia State University and Viatcheslav Morozov, Associate Professor of European Studies in the School of International Relations, St Petersburg state University. Russia. M. Lane Bruner is currently Assistant Professor of critical political communication in the department of communication at Georgia State University in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A. He is the author of Stategies of Remembrance: The Rhetorical Dimensions of National Identity Construction (University of South Carolina Press, 2002) and over a dozen scholarly articals on politics and communication in journals such as the quarterly Jounal of Speech, Rhetoric & Public Affairs, Discourse & Society, and National Identities. Viatcheslav Morozov is Associate Professor of European Studies in the School of International Relations, St. Petersburg State University, Russia. His main research topic is the significance of Europe for Russia's national Identity. He has authored a Russian- Language textbook Introduction to European Studies and a number of articles on various aspects of Russia-Europe relations.