ABSTRACT
The intention of this chapter is to give a snapshot of the ‘material’ or ‘extrasemiotic’ base upon which, and alongside which, contemporary Russian statesanctioned understandings of world order are developed. The snapshot will emphasise that since the collapse of state socialism and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Russian political economy has selectively internationalised, while undergoing an uneven transition to a state capitalist economy. It is asserted here that to emphasise the extent to which Putin-era practices deviate from norms associated with liberal capitalism is to ignore the extent to which a particular form of market economy has been consolidated in Russia over the post-Soviet period, in general, and the Putin era, specifically. State measures to discipline Russia into a market economy have been an important feature of this ‘transition’. That the Russian political economy is enmeshed in the global political
economy according to the tenets of market competition, albeit partly via the disciplinary functions executed by executive and bureaucratic state mechanisms, is an important observation to bring retrospectively to discussions that have unfolded across comparative political economy literature on Russia. While particularistic relations and both bureaucratic and executive decision making may have disrupted any full ‘automation’ of a market economy in Russia – the internalisation and self-reproduction of market norms and practices – Russian state organs and officials have been central to creating the conditions for market-based exchange and accumulation. Russian state organs and key Russian officials, therefore, have done more than obstruct the free movement of capital and the marketisation of property relations and exchange: they have participated in the historical consolidation of a market economy in Russia and created the institutional and ideational basis for capitalist accumulation while contributing to a systematic transformation out of the Soviet planned economy and corresponding social and economic provisions. Historicist analysis can contribute to the discussion by demonstrating how Russian state organs, including the office of the president, and key officials have relied on varying degrees of coercion and consent in the formation of a market economy in
Russia, even if their ability to fully discipline Russian society, including proand anti-market forces, into accepting such a settlement is incomplete. As I demonstrate in subsequent chapters, Russian state recourse to discourse that valorises state power, nationalism, and Russian political culture may be seen not simply as obstructing the emergence of a market economy in Russia, but rather facilitating it. Russian capitalism both challenges and bends some of the fundamental
tenets of neo-liberal globalisation while adhering to many of its precepts. In the Putin era, a degree of stability and predictability has been coupled with an emergent state-produced normative order, as the Putin regime has sought to articulate Russia’s place in the contemporary global political economy. While presiding over a consolidated market economy, it has rejected many of the precepts of Western liberal world order: Western, liberal-democratic ideas and those associated with American hegemonic rule are displaced by those derived from Russian history and philosophy, primarily those which emphasise autonomy, sovereignty, and Russia’s right to determine national development priorities and practices in accordance with its political culture and preferences. These ideas are central to any reflection on Russia’s emergence from the Soviet system, through a period of disorder and turmoil in the 1990s into a world order deemed by the Putin regime to necessitate geopolitical power, the state’s command of resources and economic competitiveness as prerequisites for the Russian state and populace’s well-being. I call this position ‘sovereign integrationist’, one in which Russian officials articulate a perceived need to manage globalisation processes and internal political developments while selectively integrating into the global political economy according to market tenets. Such a position is partly constituted by the Russian state playing a coordinating role in domestic and external processes of capital accumulation. However, it is also partly constituted by argumentation in which Russian cultural and civilisational distinctiveness is emphasised, if not overstated, while private and state actors participate in global capitalism in a manner not entirely dissimilar to Russia’s competitors. In this chapter, I examine Russia’s transitional political economy in the
1990s – its incomplete and imperfect adoption of free market principles, institutions and normative order – as well as Russia’s meaningful, but uneven, ‘material’ resurgence in the Putin era. While at the level of national political economy, Putin-era Russia has undoubtedly witnessed an improvement in its overall material conditions, its integration into the global political economy remains dependent upon the extraction and sale of resources and uncompetitive in the production of goods. By way of its ‘modernisation’ paradigm, the Russian executive has sought to discipline Russian economy and society into transitioning beyond reliance on the state for social well-being while nonetheless being charged with the task of managing the displacements associated with the transition to a market economy. In subsequent chapters I emphasise the extent to which the latter phenom-
enon has occurred on a semiotic and ideational level. The Russian political
economy now exemplifies certain norms and understandings that condition the terms of accumulation, conditions which serve as a counterpoint to liberalcapitalist-polyarchic systems: the Russian state, led by the presidential administration, is the arbiter of who controls major productive assets. Domestic capital is to acknowledge the political supremacy of the Kremlin. International capital and political forces are to acknowledge Russia’s right to construct a domestic political system that deviates from polyarchic principles. Russia’s position within the global political economy remains characterised
by a semi-peripheral status that suggests resource extraction’s dominant role in the state’s and economy’s well-being, the persistence of geoeconomic/ geopolitical competition against the core, the crafting of a centralised political structure to manage economic, social and political tensions inherent in Russia’s prolonged transition to a market economy, and attempts to carve out preferential zones for Russian capital through regional economic and political architecture. The Russian executive and Putin regime, meanwhile, attempt to coordinate Russian capitalism and discipline Russian society into an ‘entrepreneurial’ mindset and capitalist sociability so as to facilitate private capital accumulation and economic competitiveness. Meanwhile, the Russian state plays a modest role in redistribution and attenuating social conflict in the midst of a transition out of Soviet domestic and international identities and practices. These elements are investigated in this chapter and form the material basis by which Russia’s alternative world order concepts are to be understood. In Section 2, I consider Russia as one of a number of states that combine
illiberal (by Western pluralist standards) political practices at the regime level amidst the consolidation of a market economy. In the case of Russia, this tendency developed in spite of the initial expectation in the post-Soviet period by the Yeltsin government, American state, and international financial institutions (IFIs) alike that Russia would follow the twin tracks of liberal-democratic and capitalist development. In Section 3, I demonstrate the chaotic nature of the post-Soviet transition
and suggest that this period was characterised by an absence of both the legitimacy and institutional basis for market practices. Putin-era efforts to consolidate authority and legitimacy are to be understood partly on this basis. In Section 4, I consider how the Putin project consists of reconstituting
state authority and providing a normative order to accompany the consolidation of capitalism through providing expectations and assumptions as to how accumulation can occur in Russia. In Section 5, I demonstrate the precarious position that Russia as ‘sovereign integrationist’ occupies in the contemporary global political economy. This position is characterised by an over-reliance on extracted resources, the uncompetitiveness of manufacturing, and increased autonomy vis-à-vis IFIs. The position is also characterised by a selective internationalisation of the Russian economy, the prolonged introduction of a ‘modernisation’ paradigm, and the prioritisation of Russia-centred regional structures. A conclusion to the chapter follows in Section 6.
