Regional integration in Central Asia: A firm-centered view

Regional integration remains among the main topics of international discourse in Central Asia, though the progress of international cooperation is very limited. Our aim is to understand the connection between the organization of economic institutions in Central Asia and the regional integration. The existing literature has explored the state level of integration in great detail: varying from rational choice explanations of security dilemma to the studies of social construction of the region in Central Asia. This paper, however, provides a firm-centered perspective on the regional integration. Thus, it first considers how varieties of political economies of Central Asian countries influence the regionalization process in the region through economic networks established by private actors, and how institutions are shaped by regionalization. Second, it considers how political institutions determine the impact of informal networks on formal regional integration initiatives, and looks at the potential effect of formal regionalism on regionalization process in Central Asia.Regionalization, informal integration, transition

Economic role of public administration in Central Asia: Decentralization and hybrid political regime

The aim of the paper is to understand how the organization of public administration in Central Asia shapes the results of economic development in the region. It discusses the main factors of bad quality of public administration in the region, paying particular attention to the link between political regimes and public administration. Moreover, it provides an overview of decentralization and devolution of power in Central Asian countries as one of the main channels of transformation of administration. The paper covers both formal decentralization and informal distribution of power between levels of government.Public administration, hybrid regimes, decentralization

Russia's Integration into the World Economy: An Interjurisdictional Competition View

The aim of the paper is to analyze the problems of Russia´s integration into the world economy from the point of view of the theory of interjurisdictional competition. It argues, that huge exit-effects in the Russian economy do not lead to increasing quality of institutions and economic policies. In order to explain this situation, the paper focuses on the demand and supply sides of the market for institutions and public policies. Their behavior patterns contribute to the stabilization of the inefficient equilibrium. From the normative point of view, the result of the paper is that Russia´s integration into the world economy can succeed, only if the political institutions are transformed and centers of private economic power are weakened.Economic integration, Russia, interjurisdictional competition

Essays on Asymmetric Federalism

The growing research on fiscal and political federalism in economics (as well as rational choice political science) basically shares two main assumptions regarding federal institutions: it takes democratic and symmetric federations as the reference point. Democracy means that the decision making is based on elections and/or referenda, which effectively constraint the actions of politicians. Symmetry means that the ”degree of devolution” for all regions is identical. In particular, if both federal and regional budgets are funded by a common split tax, the de-jure retention rate is identical for all states. It goes without saying that there is a multitude of models looking at economic asymmetry between regions: most federations include states or regions with significantly different economic potential, population and territory, obviously influencing both their comparative economic performance and their behavior in the federal bargaining. However, the economic asymmetry does not (necessarily) provide an identity mapping into the asymmetric devolution in terms of formal institutions and informal policy making (what I refer to as ”asymmetric federation” in this paper): this issue requires careful analysis.Federalism; decentralization; Russia.

Models of market integration in Central Asia – comparative performance

The paper considers the problem of the integration of markets in Central Asia as a main factor of economic modernization. It first identifies the potential channels of reduction of transaction costs barriers between countries (“models of integration”). Second, it looks at the emergence of these channels, and identifies two main puzzles: success of centralization in individual countries vs. failing international cooperation among them and successful informal cooperation of companies and trade networks vs. deficits of intergovernmental concerted actions. Third, it looks at the impact of the relative success of emerging models of market integration for the balance of power in Central Asia.Central Asia, regionalization, regionalism, decentralization

Government-business relations in post-Soviet space: The case of Central Asia

The aim of the paper is to understand how the structure of government-business relations influences the quality of institutions and economic development in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The paper identifies the key elements of the business community engaged in negotiations with the state, explores the consistency of formal and informal institutions and the balance of power between the state and the business and analyzes how these particular power relations and inconsistencies influence the economic development via both designing formal institutions and affecting strategies of private and public actors.Government-business relations, Central Asia, consistency of institutions

Internal centralization and international integration in the post-Soviet space

An important but often neglected factor influencing the changes in power relations in Eurasia is the development of center-periphery relations in individual countries. Domestic and international politics are never clearly separated, especially in the emerging post-Soviet states, which still maintain strong economic, cultural and political links among each other. The aim of the paper is to understand how international integration and domestic policy (re)centralization influenced each other in the post-Soviet countries. It looks at four possible combinations of the development of regionalism and decentralization observed in the CIS region over the last two decades and develops a simple framework explaining the differences between these case studies.regional integration; decentralization; post-Soviet countries; multi-level governance

Words or deeds – what matters? Experience of recentralization in Russian security agencies

Although decentralization is often modeled as an outcome of bargaining over rents and poli-cies, intuitively it seems possible that public statements, symbols and status often have a great impact on this process. The paper studies the relative importance of the “real” political actions versus the changes of symbolic nature in the bargaining over devolution and secession, using the unique laboratory of the personnel recentralization in the Russian security agencies in 2000-2007. While in the 1990s regional branches of federal ministries were mostly captured by regional governors, in 2000s Putin replaced the heads of agencies by new bureaucrats, cut-ting the connections to the region. The paper finds a robust influence of symbolic gestures made by regional governments in the earlier bargaining process on appointments, even if the actual devolution policies did not matter. Symbolic actions seem to play a crucial role in the decisions in this highly sensitive area.devolution; bargaining; fiscal federalism; transition economies

Different paths of the second transition in the post-Soviet world: a political-economic analysis

The first generation of economic reforms in the post-Soviet countries mostly resulted in formation of sustainable inefficient institutional equilibria, what may be described as the transition from “plan” to “clan”. Therefore the problem of the “second transition” from “clan” to “market” becomes especially important, turning in the centre of the transition studies. In the last years many post-Soviet states initiated the second wave of reforms, including restructuring of the banking system, of the housing and communal services and of natural monopolies, enhancing competition on markets for goods and services, as well as further reforms in the public sector. The paper aims to explain the perspectives of the “second transition” from a political-economic point of view, which considers the process of reforms as result of the interaction of different political and economic actors formed in turn of the “first transition”. The paper discusses the triggers of the second transition, choice of different scenarios of transition and its major threats.Second transition; interest groups; post-Soviet countries

Constitutions, Regulations, and Taxes: Contradictions of Different Aspects of Decentralization

The paper confronts different aspects of decentralization: fiscal decentralization, post-constitutional regulatory decentralization, and constitutional decentralization – using a single dataset from Russian Federation of the Yeltsin period as a politically asymmetric country. It finds virtually no correlation between different decentralization aspects; moreover, three processes of devolution appearing in the same country at the same time seem to be driven by different (though partly overlapping) forces. Hence, a specific aspect of decentralization is hardly able to serve as a proxy for another one or for the overall decentralization process.constitutions; deregulation; decentralization; fiscal decentralization; administrative decentralization; devolution