The resilience of Russian Arctic cities 1989–2017

Regional Science Policy & Practice. 2022. Vol. 14. No. 4. P. 796–825.

Polyachenko A.

The topic of economic resilience is important and widely discussed today. However, the resilience of Russian regions and cities is insufficiently studied by indicator methods (without constructing an index). The paper aims to fill this gap and is based on R. Martin's method: the resistance of each city was calculated and compared with all other cities. The method was tuned: instead of employment (partly unavailable) as a resilience indicator, we took population, which generally correlates with employment. The sample includes 44 cities for two periods (1989–2002 and 2002–2017). The cities were separated into two groups: those with oil and gas specialization and those without, because this specialization mostly explains the resilience difference, that is, oil and gas cities coped with the shock far better. The factors of resilience were different. In the first period, location in Arkhangelsk region increased resilience of cities not specialized in oil and gas, while mining specialization and access to a water body reduced it. In the second period, regional capital status and specialization in state-based industry and services (military, military industry, nuclear) added resilience. For oil and gas cities, the starting phase of the resource cycle, regional capital status, and surrounding indigenous population added resilience during both periods. 

Keywords: Arctic, economic resilience, post-Soviet transformations, resilience