Article
Highly Managed Democracy: the Tandem and the Crisis
The author analyzes which characteristics of the political system created under Putin have and have not changed since Medvedev became president. He considers the likely impact of the economic crisis.
The article is devoted to analysis of discursive practices of public representation and discussion of the political course of “modernization” announced by president Dmitry Medvedev. It is focused at interpretations of the idea of modernization by the leading Russian politicians as well as at the role of the notions about collective past, present and future in its ideological justification and contestation.
The Working Paper examines the peculiarities of the Russian model of corporate governance and control in the banking sector. The study relies upon theoretical as well as applied research of corporate governance in Russian commercial banks featuring different forms of ownership. We focus on real interests of all stakeholders, namely bank and stock market regulators, bank owners, investors, top managers and other insiders. The Anglo-American concept of corporate governance, based on agency theory and implying outside investors’ control over banks through stock market, is found to bear limited relevance. We suggest some ways of overcoming the gap between formal institutions of governance and the real life.
The general aim of this thesis is to explore the gendered and classed nature of social work and social welfare in Russia to show how social policy can be a part of and reinforce marginalisation. The overall research question is in what ways class and gender are constructed in Russian social work practice and welfare rhetoric through Soviet legacies and contemporary challenges? In addition, which actors contribute to the constitution of social work values and how this value system affects the agency of the clients? This study focuses on contradictory ideologies that are shaped in discursive formations of social policy, social work training and practice. It is a qualitative study, containing fi ve papers looking at this issue from three different perspectives: policy and institutions, culture and discourse, actors and identity. The data collection was arranged as a purposive–iterative process. The empirical material consists of qualitative interviews with social work practitioners, administrators and clients, participant observations in social services and analysis of documents of various kinds.
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Institutional balance in Europe, issues of governance
The economic crisis has uncovered three negative Russian tendencies that created institutional obstacles for market economy growth during the last decade: deepening of raw materials specialization, wear and tear of the equipment, gap in scientific and technical progress, and strengthening of the government. To stop these negative tendencies and overcome economic crisis it is necessary to reform developed institutes.
The major problem of the Russian economy is its low performance level. Overcoming development gap in comparison with developed countries will become possible only with the help of innovations. This means that process of generating and using Schumpeterian-type innovations should become the key factor of economic development. It is necessary to note that innovative activity of businessmen can be present in various forms. Depending on existing game rules business activity can get not only productive (J. A. Schumpeter’s creative destruction), but also unproductive (rent seeking) orientation.
The “Concept 2020” analyses the global challenges which Russia faces in its development that amplify high level of social inequality and regional differentiation, preservation of barriers to conducting enterprise activity, weak interrelation of education, science and business, absence of necessary competition in various markets and low level of social capital development. Under these conditions, as A. Gerschenkron wrote, the government becomes the leading factor of economic modernization, and it is its representatives that try to shape the concept of long-term socio-economic development of the country.
It is supposed that gross national product growth will be provided, mainly, by means of priority development of labour productivity and large capital assets investments. Our calculations show they considerably advance growth of productivity and gross national product, and that will lead to increase in a capital intensity of production and falling yield on capital investment. The arising gap between export and import, according to authors of the Concept, will be covered by the accruing inflow of foreign capital.
However the main drawback is the mechanism of maintaining economic growth. Defining concrete aims of development is an important, but an insufficient condition. The institutional mechanism of private sector development stimulation is not developed at all. Meanwhile, sharp increase of expenses on social sphere will raise the question about budget spending. It can be reached either by increase in taxes or by public sector expansion.
In the report it is critically considered not only the official point of view, but also Porter M., Ketels K. “Competitiveness at the Crossroads: Choosing the Future Direction of the Russian Economy”, «The forecast of innovative, technological and structural dynamics of Russian economy till 2030», and RAND Corporation report “The Global Technology Revolution 2020: Trends, Drivers, Barriers, and Social Implications” devoted to tendencies of development of 16 technologies in 29 countries and other forecasts.
In this paper we analyze institutional preconditions and possibilities of application of the concept of social market economy in the 21st century Russia. Basic elements of social market economy are personal liberty, social justice, and economic efficiency.
Personal liberty assumes trust strengthening between agents, development of guarantees of private property, and regular economic policy promoting freedom.
With social justice present market economy promotes social development and strengthens middle class. Democracy will allow to break administrative barriers and to create public control. Social justice also includes address support of vulnerable regions of Russia.
Economic efficiency should be directed towards creation and maintenance of competitive order, strengthening of antimonopoly activity and improving fair entrepreneur’s image. This will make Russia more attractive for workers from abroad and help it develop integrative relations with neighboring countries.
All these measures will raise economic efficiency while creating preconditions for a fast overcoming of the crisis and increasing the well-being and the acceleration of economic development of Russia.
The economic crisis has uncovered three negative Russian tendencies that created institutional obstacles for market economy growth during the last decade: deepening of raw materials specialization, wear and tear of the equipment, gap in scientific and technical progress, and strengthening of the government. To stop these negative tendencies and overcome economic crisis it is necessary to reform developed institutes.
The major problem of the Russian economy is its low performance level. Overcoming development gap in comparison with developed countries will become possible only with the help of innovations. This means that process of generating and using Schumpeterian-type innovations should become the key factor of economic development. It is necessary to note that innovative activity of businessmen can be present in various forms. Depending on existing game rules business activity can get not only productive (J. A. Schumpeter’s creative destruction), but also unproductive (rent seeking) orientation.
The “Concept 2020” analyses the global challenges which Russia faces in its development that amplify high level of social inequality and regional differentiation, preservation of barriers to conducting enterprise activity, weak interrelation of education, science and business, absence of necessary competition in various markets and low level of social capital development. Under these conditions, as A. Gerschenkron wrote, the government becomes the leading factor of economic modernization, and it is its representatives that try to shape the concept of long-term socio-economic development of the country.
It is supposed that gross national product growth will be provided, mainly, by means of priority development of labour productivity and large capital assets investments. Our calculations show they considerably advance growth of productivity and gross national product, and that will lead to increase in a capital intensity of production and falling yield on capital investment. The arising gap between export and import, according to authors of the Concept, will be covered by the accruing inflow of foreign capital.
However the main drawback is the mechanism of maintaining economic growth. Defining concrete aims of development is an important, but an insufficient condition. The institutional mechanism of private sector development stimulation is not developed at all. Meanwhile, sharp increase of expenses on social sphere will raise the question about budget spending. It can be reached either by increase in taxes or by public sector expansion.
In the report it is critically considered not only the official point of view, but also Porter M., Ketels K. “Competitiveness at the Crossroads: Choosing the Future Direction of the Russian Economy”, «The forecast of innovative, technological and structural dynamics of Russian economy till 2030», and RAND Corporation report “The Global Technology Revolution 2020: Trends, Drivers, Barriers, and Social Implications” devoted to tendencies of development of 16 technologies in 29 countries and other forecasts.
In this paper we analyze institutional preconditions and possibilities of application of the concept of social market economy in the 21st century Russia. Basic elements of social market economy are personal liberty, social justice, and economic efficiency.
Personal liberty assumes trust strengthening between agents, development of guarantees of private property, and regular economic policy promoting freedom.
With social justice present market economy promotes social development and strengthens middle class. Democracy will allow to break administrative barriers and to create public control. Social justice also includes address support of vulnerable regions of Russia.
Economic efficiency should be directed towards creation and maintenance of competitive order, strengthening of antimonopoly activity and improving fair entrepreneur’s image. This will make Russia more attractive for workers from abroad and help it develop integrative relations with neighboring countries.
All these measures will raise economic efficiency while creating preconditions for a fast overcoming of the crisis and increasing the well-being and the acceleration of economic development of Russia.
Institutions affect investment decisions, including investments in human capital. Hence institutions are relevant for the allocation of talent. Good market-supporting institutions attract talent to productive value-creating activities, whereas poor ones raise the appeal of rent-seeking. We propose a theoretical model that predicts that more talented individuals are particularly sensitive in their career choices to the quality of institutions, and test these predictions on a sample of around 95 countries of the world. We find a strong positive association between the quality of institutions and graduation of college and university students in science, and an even stronger negative correlation with graduation in law. Our findings are robust to various specifications of empirical models, including smaller samples of former colonies and transition countries. The quality of human capital makes the distinction between educational choices under strong and weak institutions particularly sharp. We show that the allocation of talent is an important link between institutions and growth.
How seriously does the degree of trust in basic social and political institutions for people from different countries depend on their individual characteristics? To answer this question, three types of models have been estimated using the data of the fifth wave of the World Value Survey: the first one based on the assumption about a generalized relationship for all countries, the second one taking into account heterogeneity of countries (using introduction of the country-level variables), the third type applying a preliminary subdivision of countries into five clusters. The obtained results have been used for suggestion of possible actions to increase public confidence in the basic institutions.
Smoking is a problem, bringing signifi cant social and economic costs to Russiansociety. However, ratifi cation of the World health organization Framework conventionon tobacco control makes it possible to improve Russian legislation accordingto the international standards. So, I describe some measures that should be taken bythe Russian authorities in the nearest future, and I examine their effi ciency. By studyingthe international evidence I analyze the impact of the smoke-free areas, advertisementand sponsorship bans, tax increases, etc. on the prevalence of smoking, cigaretteconsumption and some other indicators. I also investigate the obstacles confrontingthe Russian authorities when they introduce new policy measures and the public attitudetowards these measures. I conclude that there is a number of easy-to-implementanti-smoking activities that need no fi nancial resources but only a political will.
One of the most important indicators of company's success is the increase of its value. The article investigates traditional methods of company's value assessment and the evidence that the application of these methods is incorrect in the new stage of economy. So it is necessary to create a new method of valuation based on the new main sources of company's success that is its intellectual capital.
The article is devoted to the study of the authoritarianism prevalent in the mass consciousness of Russians. The article describes a new approach to the consideration of the authoritarian syndrome as the effects of the cultural trauma as a result of political and socio-cultural transformation of society. The article shows the dynamics of the symptoms of the authoritarianism, which appear in the mass consciousness of Russians from 1993 to 2011. This paper proposes a package of measures aimed at reducing the level of the authoritarianism in Russian society.
This work looks at a model of spatial election competition with two candidates who can spend effort in order to increase their popularity through advertisement. It is shown that under certain condition the political programs of the candidates will be different. The work derives the comparative statics of equilibrium policy platform and campaign spending with respect the distribution of voter policy preferences and the proportionality of the electoral system. In particular, it is whown that the equilibrium does not exist if the policy preferences are distributed over too narrow an interval.
The article examines "regulatory requirements" as a subject of state control over business in Russia. The author deliberately does not use the term "the rule of law". The article states that a set of requirements for business is wider than the legislative regulation.
First, the article analyzes the regulatory nature of the requirements, especially in the technical field. The requirements are considered in relation to the rule of law. The article explores approaches to the definition of regulatory requirements in Russian legal science. The author analyzes legislation definitions for a set of requirements for business. The author concludes that regulatory requirements are not always identical to the rule of law. Regulatory requirements are a set of obligatory requirements for entrepreneurs’ economic activity. Validation failure leads to negative consequences.
Second, the article analyzes the problems of the regulatory requirements in practice. Lack of information about the requirements, their irrelevance and inconsistency are problems of the regulatory requirements in Russia.
Many requirements regulating economic activity are not compatible with the current development level of science and technology. The problems are analyzed on the basis of the Russian judicial practice and annual monitoring reports by Higher School of Economics.
Finally, the author provides an approach to the possible solution of the regulatory requirements’ problem. The author proposes to create a nationwide Internet portal about regulatory requirements. The portal should contain full information about all regulatory requirements. The author recommends extending moratorium on the use of the requirements adopted by the bodies and organizations of the former USSR government.