A Study of Russia and the Opportunities it Offers Foreign Investors: Bleak Statistics, Bleak Politics

Russia has experienced two momentous revolutions during the twentieth century. The overthrow of the czar in 1917 began the first. After a brief attempt at democratic rule, Lenin\u27s Bolshevik Communists seized power in 1918 and established a totalitarian government, naming the remade Russian empire as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The seeds of the second revolution were sown with the elevation in 1985 of the reform minded Mikhail Gorbachev to the leadership of the Soviet Communist Party. His reforms, including perestroika (restructuring) and glasnost (openness, including limited democracy) unleashed strong forces within the Soviet Union. The revolution that Gorbachev\u27s reforms promoted-or at least contributed to-reached a crisis stage in 1991. The old guard communist party leaders, whose positions of power were being threatened by both perestroika and the demands of many of the Soviet Union\u27s constituent republics for greater autonomy, staged a coup against Gorbachev on August 18. The coup collapsed within days, however, in part because hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens took to the streets to rally against it. Boris Yeltsin, the president of Russia (then a Soviet republic), was the most visible symbol of democratic defiance of the old guard. In the aftermath of the crisis, the already weak Soviet state lapsed into a terminal coma. Central authority dissipated. Real power shifted rapidly to Yeltsin\u27s office in the Russian White House and to the other 14 republics, which moved rapidly toward independence. On December 25, 1991 the Soviet flag was lowered for last time from atop the Kremlin and the Russian flag was raised in its stead. Of the former Soviet republics (FSU\u27s), Russia is by far the largest, and the most powerful. Russia has retained all the Soviets Union\u27s tactical nuclear weapons and the vast majority of its strategic-range nuclear weapons. These factors make the course of Russia a matter of great concern for the world. It is the purpose of this paper to explore the history of the reform process, the current political and economic situation in Russia, the process in establishing free market mechanisms and the realities in opportunity for foreign direct investment in Russia

Contemporary Russian Identity between East and West

This is a review of recent English-language scholarship on the development of Russian identity since the collapse of the USSR in 1991. The first part examines literature on the economic and political changes in the Russian Federation, revealing how scholars became more sceptical about the possibility of Russia building a Western-type liberal democracy. The second part investigates approaches to the study of Russian national identity. The experience of empire, in both the tsarist and Soviet periods, gave Russians a weak sense of nationhood; ethnic Russians identified with the multinational Soviet Union. Seeking legitimacy for the new state, President El’tsin sought to create a civic identity focussed on the multinational Russian Federation. The Communist and nationalist opposition continued to promote an imperial identity, focused on restoring the USSR or creating some other formation including the Russian-speaking population in the former Soviet republics. The final section discusses accounts of the two Chechen wars, which scholars see as continuing Russia’s imperial policy and harming relations with Russia’s Muslim population. President Putin’s co-operation with the West against ‘terrorism’ has not led the West to accept Russia as one of its own, due to increasing domestic repression and authoritarianis

Commodity Exchanges and the Privatization of the Agricultural Sector in the Commonwealth of Independent States—Needed Steps in Creating a Market Economy

Pre-revolutionary commodities exchanges in Russia and their extinguishment by the Bolsheviks are examined, and the role thereafter by Soviet central planners in the distribution, import and export of agricultural commodities is described. It is argued that the privatization process in the CIS must include incentives for the development of an exchange system for agricultural goods

Postcolonial transitions on the southern borders of the former Soviet Union: the return of Eurasianism?

As the Soviet Union dissolved into a new territorial reality, it released the doubly repressed histories of Tsarist and Soviet imperium. In the states to the south of the new Russian Federation, the post-soviet jostled with the postcolonial as nations were reinvented across a vast swathe from the Caucuses through Central Asia. In the process, the old Russian linguistic duality between Russki (the ethnic Russian) and Rossiiskii (the citizen of Russia) founds its echo in Russia itself — which encompasses over 20 million Muslims — and in the newly sovereign states — all with large Russian minorities and even larger Russian-speaking populations. For the Azeris, Uzbeks and Kazaks, the repositioning of nation against a recent past of Russian dominance was significantly more problematic. In Chechnya, formally in the Russian Federation, it has reached a cathartic war. The argument here uses international human rights instruments as a litmus test of this troubled recent history. The controversial concept of Eurasia — now resurgent in Russian politics — may not necessarily mean the reinscription of Russian domination, but seeks to offer an alternative to the Atlantic Empire

Elite opinion and foreign policy in post-communist Russia

Russian elite opinion on matters of foreign policy may be classified as ‘Liberal Westerniser’, ‘Pragmatic Nationalist’ and ‘Fundamentalist Nationalist’, terms that reflect longstanding debates about the country’s relationship with the outside world. An analysis of press statements and election manifestoes together with a programme of elite interviews between 2004 and 2006 suggests a clustering of opinion on a series of strategic issues. Liberal Westernisers seek the closest possible relationship with Europe, and favour eventual membership of the EU and NATO. Pragmatic Nationalists are more inclined to favour practical co-operation, and do not assume an identity of values or interests with the Western countries. Fundamentalist Nationalists place more emphasis on the other former Soviet republics, and on Asia as much as Europe, and see the West as a threat to Russian values as well as to its state interests. Each of these positions, in turn, draws on an identifiable set of domestic constituencies: Liberal Westernisers on the promarket political parties, Pragmatic Nationalists on the presidential administration and defence and security ministries, and Fundamentalist Nationalists on the Orthodox Church and Communists

Terrorism in central Asia: Security implications for Russia

End of the cold war following the disintegration of the Soviet Union witnessed unprecedented increase in militancy and terrorism prompted by internal and external forces. This was also fuelled by factors like religious fundamentalism and ethno-nationalist chauvinism.The newly independent countries of the Central Asian region encountered myriad problems like terrorism, drug trafficking, arms trafficking, organized crime, separatism, and ethnic conflicts.Given the geographical proximity and historicity, Central Asia is regarded as Russia’s own backyard and a “soft underbelly”.The near-abroad security developments in the Central Asian republics have great influence on Russia and could create a complex environment detrimental to its security interests.The Russian approach to this challenge is of great importance for the stability of the whole area.Any negative developments in Central Asian Regions and Afghanistan would have serious security implications for Russia.A stable and friendly government in Afghanistan and Central Asian states would prove beneficial to Russian security, including the on ongoing separatist movements in Chechnya and Dagestan.Therefore it is imperative that Russia and Central Asian states act collectively to counter religious radicalism and foster regional stability.This article examines some factors responsible for breeding terrorism and religious extremism in Central Asian Republics and its security implications on Russia such as Central Asian threats, US presence in Central Asia and the Taliban in Afghanistan

Disintegration and trade flows : evidence from the Former Soviet Union

The authors study the effects of trade barriers and the persistence of past linkages on trade flows in the former Soviet Union. Estimating a gravity equation on trade among and between nine Russian regions and 14 former Soviet republics, they find that Russian regions traded 60 percent more with each other than with republics in the reform period (1994-96). By contrast, the Russian regions did not trade significantly more with each other than with republics in the pre-reform period (1987-90). The results suggest that the bias toward domestic trade in the reform period is primarily the result of tariffs. In addition, past linkages-such as infrastructure, business networks, and production and consumption chains-have limited the reorientation of trade.Environmental Economics&Policies,Trade Policy,Common Carriers Industry,Economic Theory&Research,TF054105-DONOR FUNDED OPERATION ADMINISTRATION FEE INCOME AND EXPENSE ACCOUNT

The Reasons of the Collapse of the Ruble Zone

This paper has mainly a historical character and analyzes the causes of the monetary disintegration of the FSU, stages of this disintegration, and macroeconomic consequences of this process. The second section is devoted to a brief discussion of the economic and political condition of the successful existence of the common currency area. In section 3, I describe the process of monetary disintegration that already started at the end of 1990 when the Soviet Union still existed. Section 4 illustrates the process of monetary disintegration in 1992-1993, after the dissolution of USSR. Section 5 presents a picture about the most important initiative to rebuild the ruble area in 1992-1994. Finally, section 6 contains the discussion on macroeconomic and other consequences of continuing the common currency despite the political disintegration.Monetary Policy, Ruble, transition economies