ABSTRACT
Chapter 1 introduces the corruption, coercion, and control model as an explanatory model for corporate raiding in Russia. This chapter argues that the corruption, coercion, and control model is applied by the ruling authoritarian regime in order to guarantee its sustainability, and the chapter also asserts that the model is directly related to corporate and property raiding. Suppression of corporate autonomy, the induction of state bureaucrats into corporate governing boards, the imposition of pseudo-accountability under the nontransparent financial regulations, and direct informal control through blackmail are manifestations of the model. These mechanisms are used by the ruling political regime in order to control businessmen and the business activities of the companies through the state authorities and administrations. In addition to Western scholarship, this study analyzes numerous scholarly works, media reports, and interviews that give the reader a flavor of local thoughts, expressions, and perceptions on the phenomenon of corporate and property raiding. Chapter 1 defines raiding and correlates it to violent entrepreneurship, economic crime, asset grabbing, property grabbing, privatization, economic transition, the role of the state, and corporate governance. Chapter 1 presents the phenomenon of raiding within the alienation-appropriation frame of property relations' dynamics and proves the inverted character of raiding in Russia.
