Socio-Economic Foundations of the Russian Post-Soviet Regime : The Resource-Based Economy and Estate-Based Social Structure of Contemporary Russia / Andreas Umland, Simon Kordonsky

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kordonskiĭ, S. (Simon), Author.

Contributor:

Umland, Andreas, Editor.

Series:

Soviet and post-Soviet politics and society ; 152.

Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society 152

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Post-communism--Russia (Federation).

Post-communism.

Russia (Federation)--Social conditions--1991-.

Russia (Federation).

Russia (Federation)--Economic policy--1991-.

Russia (Federation)--Politics and government--1991-.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (333 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Hannover ibidem 2016

Biography/History:

Dr. Simon G. Kordonsky is Professor of Public Policy as well as Head of the Department of Local Self-Government and of the Laboratory for Municipal Administration at the National Research University Higher School of Economics in Moscow. Kordonsky studied biology at Tomsk State University and worked previously as a researcher at Altai State University as well as the Russian Presidential Administration. He is the author of five Russian monographs and has published papers in, among other journals, Osteuropa, Strategic & Business Intelligence, Otechestvennye zapiski, Mir Rossii, Vek XX i mir, Kentavr, and Mikroekonomika. Kordonsky is also member of the editorial boards of the journals Voprosy obrazovaniia and Voprosy gosudarstvennogo i munitsipal'nogo upravleniia, as well as Chairman of the Expert Council of the Khamovniki Foundation for Social Research (www.khamovniky.ru). The author of the foreword: Dr. Svetlana Barsukova is Professor of Economic Sociology at the National Research University Higher School of Economics in Moscow.

Summary:

This monograph discloses the estate-based social structure of contemporary Russia by way of outlining the principles of the USSR's peculiar estate system, and explaining the new social estates of post-Soviet Russia. Simon Kordonsky distinguishes and describes in particular the currently existing Russian service and support estates. He introduces the notions of a resource-based state and resource-based economy as the political and economic foundations for Russian society’s estate structure. His study demonstrates, moreover, how the method of inventing and institutionalizing threats plays a dominant role in the mode of distribution of scarce resources in such a social system. The book shows fundamental differences between resource- as well as threat-based economies, on the one side, and traditional risk-based economies, on the other, and discloses what this means for Russia’s future.

“[…] the book is an excellent English introduction and summary of Kordonsky’s recent research, which is itself an indispensable contribution to the political economy of post-communism. The major strength of this book is the way it forces the reader to consider the path-dependent relationship between group-based entitlements in the Soviet period and the current system.” – Europe-Asia Studies, issue 70/7, 2018

Contents:

Contents; Foreword; The shadow economy of the USSR; Contemporary Russia: re-emergence of the estate system; The cyclical nature of Russian history; The political economy of socialism and its legacy; The resource-based state; Resources and threats; the specific Russian nature; The ontological status of threats, their identification and ranking; The threat framework mirrored in the state structure; The institutional structure for neutralizing threats in Russia; Corporations for utilizing the resources allocated to neutralize threats; The population, threats and markets

Goods and money in a resource-based stateTypes of resources in the contemporary resource-based state; Resource self-management: redistribution and plundering; The social stability mythologem as a form of legitimizing resource plundering; The world economy and the resource-based state organization; Social justice and the social structure of a resource-based state; Social stratification as a specific task of the theory of classification; Estates and classes: concept operationality; Russian classes and Russian estates; The estate system in Imperial Russia; Soviet estates

Earned and unearned income, administrative trade, and shadow economyRepression as a form of regulating inter-estate relations in the USSR; The collapse of Soviet inter-estate relations; Contemporary service (titular) estates and state service; Relations between titular estates; The hierarchy of titular estates and corporate relations; The service of titular estates; Non-titular estates; Relations between titular and non-titular estates; Estate stratification with regard to service, facilitation, and support; Administrative bargaining as a way of social life

Political groups as integrated estates: government, the people, active population, and the marginalized populationModel of the estate component of Russia's social structure: reference conditions; The hypothesis underlying our calculations; Formalized model of the social structure; Discussion of the presented model; Limitations of the presented model; Some aspects of how the contemporary estate-based structure functions: Search for a national idea, repression and depressions; The national idea as justification for the need to mobilize resources

Resource depressions and repression as a way of ""restoring order"" in the use of resourcesStagnation and depression as phases of public life; Relations of the estate-based order with the external world: ""forming the resource base"", importing and adopting; Importing worldviews and knowledge of the society-the art of imitation; Socialization and its institutions in an estate-based society; Democracy and estate stratification; Daydreaming. Instead of a conclusion; Appendix 1. Classification of threats; Ranking threats and evaluating the relative amount of resources for their neutralization

Appendix 2. Order of the Administrative Directorate of the President of the Russian Federation

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN:

3-8382-6775-3

Publisher Number:

9783838267753