Property, predation, and protection : piranha capitalism in Russia and Ukraine / Stanislav Markus.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Markus, Stanislav, 1977- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Privatization--Russia (Federation).

Privatization.

Privatization--Ukraine.

Right of property--Russia (Federation).

Right of property.

Right of property--Ukraine.

Political corruption--Russia (Federation).

Political corruption.

Political corruption--Ukraine.

Russia (Federation)--Politics and government.

Russia (Federation).

Ukraine--Politics and government.

Ukraine.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xi, 243 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Other Title:

Property, Predation, & Protection

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2015.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

What threatens the property rights of business owners? And what makes these rights secure? This book transcends the conventional diagnosis of the issue in modern developing countries by moving beyond expropriation by the state ruler or by petty bureaucratic corruption. It identifies 'agent predation' as a novel threat type, showing it to be particularly widespread and detrimental. The book also questions the orthodox prescription: institutionalized state commitment cannot secure property rights against agent predation. Instead, this volume argues that business actors can hold the predatory state agents accountable through firm-level alliances with foreign actors, labor, and local communities. Beyond securing ownership, such alliances promote rule of law in a rent-seeking society. Taking Russia and Ukraine between 2000 and 2012 as its empirical focus, the book advances these arguments by drawing on more than 150 qualitative interviews with business owners, policy makers, and bureaucrats, as well as an original large-N survey of firms.

Contents:

Cover; Half-title; Dedication; Title page; Copyright information; Table of contents; List of figures; Acknowledgments; 1 Introduction; The Magic of Secure Property Rights; Failed States, Dominant Rulers, and Credible Commitment: Conventional Wisdom; Threats to Property Rights; Securing Property Rights; Of State Piranhas and Business Stakeholders: Toward a New Theory; Methodology; Organization of the Book; 2 Agent Predation and Secure Ownership; Background and Definitions; Critique of the Literature; State Failure and Ruler Dominance as Threats?; State Commitment as Panacea?

Business Owners as Mere Policy-Takers?Agent Predation and the Bottom-Up Path to Secure Ownership; Ideal Types of State Threats to PR; Varieties of Agent Predation; State Actors and Agent Predation; From Agent Predation to Property Protection: Three Arguments; Property Rights and Postcommunism; Appendix: Interviews and Survey; Interviews; Survey; 3 Not Too Petty; Private Ownership and Its Legal Protections: A Brief History; Agent Predation beyond "Corruption"; Annexation; Intervention and Extortion; Administrative Wars and Agent Predation; Russia and Ukraine Compared; Private Threats

Survey Evidence: Agent Predation or Siphoning?Income Threats and Ownership Threats Compared; Impact of Distinct Threat Types; Dynamic Trends and the Broader Postcommunist Region; 4 Mini-Beasts versus Sovereign; Expert Opinion and Bureaucrat behavior; Sovereign Priorities and Agent Predation; Power Retention; Military Security; State Budgets and Pet Projects; Sovereign Efforts to Contain Agent Predation; Administrative Reform; Manual Control; Anti-Raiding Reforms and Sovereign Intentions; Deregulation and Sovereign Intentions; Survey Evidence: Agent Predation or Principal Expropriation?

Blame Attribution and Remedies for PR Insecurity: Central Vs Local StateImpact of Central-Local Blame Attribution on Firm Behavior; Subnational Variation in State Threats; Conclusion: Bespredel, Samodeiatel'nost', and History; 5 Commitment Dissolved; Putin's Russia and the Rise of The Business Quartet; Business Institutionalization under Putin; The Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs; The Chamber of Commerce and Industry; The Union of Business Associations of Russia (OPORA); Business Russia (Delovaia Rossiia); The BA Quartet

The Logic of Business Institutionalization: Cooptation versus CommitmentBusiness Institutionalization for Vote Harvesting?; Business Institutionalization for Sovereign Domination of Firms?; Business Institutionalization as Commitment; The Limits of "Commitment"; Subversion by State Agents; Politicization of Business Associations; Ukraine's Orange Revolution and Property Rights; Constraints on the Ukrainian Presidency before and after the Revolution; Whither Sovereign Commitment?; Predation in Orange; Impunity and Instability; Incompetence; Re-privatization; Conclusion

6 Firm Stakeholders versus State Predators

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-316-19007-2

1-316-19190-7

1-316-21225-4

1-316-21042-1

1-316-20670-X

1-107-45907-9

1-316-10474-5

1-316-20856-7

1-316-20490-1

1-316-20306-9