Abstract
This chapter investigates the reasons for the contradictions that have arisen in Russia between the post-Soviet liberal reforms in the economy and the conservative policy in state-building. In contrast to purposeful liberal economic reforms, some of the spontaneous decentralization that occurred in the 1990s was replaced with a purposeful centralization of public administration in the 2000s. The chapter discusses the hypothesis that this trend towards centralization of state administration was inevitable in the context of the course taken by President Boris Yeltsin to build state capitalism in Russia, where private businesses are either closely connected with the state-backed entrepreneurs or with state officials themselves. This model of capitalism includes only part of the elements of the concept of liberalism that capitalism generally accepts. Both federalism, and the institutions of democracy, were sacrificed to enable the “liberal reformers” of the 1990s to appropriate state property.
This research has been funded by the Russian Fund for Basic Research (Research Project No. 16-06-00532а).
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Notes
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Due to the relative sensitivity of prices to demand for oil, very slight decreases in the level of world demand in 2008 (and again in 2014), saw prices fall by around 200% in both cases. As the automotive industry moves towards electric-powered vehicles, the price of oil can be expected to fall virtually to zero (i.e., to the level of the marginal cost of production of the most easily extracted deposits, located in the Persian Gulf).
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Zulkarnay, I. (2019). Liberalism and Federalism in Russian State-Building, 1992–2017. In: Cucciolla, R.M. (eds) Dimensions and Challenges of Russian Liberalism. Philosophy and Politics - Critical Explorations, vol 8. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05784-8_13
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