Wade, I

English

UCL Discovery

64    REVIEWS   Russia: The Challenges of Transformation. Edited by PIOTR DUTKIEWICZ and DMITRI TRENIN.  New  York:  New  York  University  Press.  2011.  $45.  Cloth.  ISBN: 9780814785003.  This volume is an ambitious, multi-disciplinary compilation, which argues that the way Russia solves its pressing challenges has global significance. The fifteen essays (plus foreword, introduction and afterword) are written by a wide range of leading policymakers, diplomats, and academics from Russia and elsewhere. Setting itself an ambitious goal, the book aims to ‘re-think Russia’. It strives to give a comprehensive overview of the economic, political, and social challenges that ‘modernizing’ Russia faces, and to put these challenges in a global perspective. It disputes two widely-held perspectives:  that  the  country  has  failed  in  its  transition  from  communism  to democracy, and that it is faring well in the first decade of the twenty-first century. The impact of the 2008 global economic crisis called into question these opposing views. The crisis and its implications for Russia justify the timing of the volume’s publication.  The contributors write on a wide range  of topics, including the theoretical reinterpretation  of  Russia  as  a  developing  country,  historical  interpretations  of Russia’s  modernization,  the  state  bureaucracy,  dynamic  changes  in  politics  and society,  elites,  leadership,  the  implications  of  higher  education  for  the  country’s innovation potential, healthcare, and foreign relations with the European Union, the United  States,  Central  Asia,  and  Asia.  The  volume’s  comprehensive  analysis  of transformation and modernization in Russia is impressive.  The  book’s  multi-disciplinary  approach  is  commendable,  encompassing sociology, history, political science, economics, management, and other disciplines. It offers a number of interesting discussions. Vladimir Popov convincingly disagrees with Andrei Shleifer and Daniel Treisman’s much-cited 2004 thesis that Russia is a normal  middle-income  country  following  fifteen  years  of  transformation  and recession. Popov argues that Russia has not recovered to 1989 GDP levels even after twenty  years  because  of  weak  institutional  capacity,  which  he  calls  a  ‘binding 65    REVIEWS   constraint  of  growth’.  Popov  concludes  pessimistically  that  Russia  –  an  ‘illiberal democracy’ – has ‘fewer reasons to be successful in its catch-up development than other regions of the developing world’.  The discussion of modernization is of particular interest. What is meant by modernization? The concept is often used very broadly in the literature and in policy. No  single  definition  is  specified  at  the  outset  of  the  book,  and  the  term  is  used differently  in  each  chapter.  For  example,  Georgi  Derlugian  writes  about democratization  and  ‘de-democratization’  cycles  throughout  Russia’s  history.  The volume  focuses  on  the  implications  of  Russia’s  current  modernization  cycle  for ‘ordinary’ people. Modernization has been a political buzzword in Russia for several years. Many ‘ordinary’ Russians doubt it will lead to real changes in the economy or society.  For example, analysts have noted Medvedev’s nickname ‘nano-president’ in the  liberal  media,  online  blogs,  and  social  networking  sites  in  reference  to Medvedev’s nanotechnology and innovation projects. In fact, as the book reminds us, processes of modernization have occurred repeatedly over the past few centuries in Russia and throughout the world. The introduction analyses the historical context of successful and less successful modernization in Russia, such as reforms led by Peter the Great, Pyotr Stolypin, and Mikhail Gorbachev. References to Joseph Schumpeter regarding  the  idea  of  Russia  periodically  catching  up  in  quick  bursts  of  ‘creative destruction’ are notable. The volume’s editing is imperfect. It contains wrong page numbers (chapters 13 and 14) and the quality of the binding is unsatisfactory. Nonetheless, Russia: The Challenges  of  Transformation  makes  a  thought-provoking  contribution  to  the  ever-growing literature on Russian economics. It offers a similar message about Russia’s need to modernize as Trenin’s latest book, Post-Imperium: A Eurasian Story. The book will be of interest to a general audience due to its comprehensive approach and to specialists for the wealth of primary and secondary sources analysed.  School of Slavonic and East European Studies,  University College London IMOGEN WADE  

Russia: The Challenges of Transformation. Edited by PIOTR DUTKIEWICZ and DMITRI TRENIN. New York: New York University Press. 2011. $45. Cloth. ISBN: 9780814785003

Russia: The Challenges of Transformation. Edited by PIOTR DUTKIEWICZ and DMITRI TRENIN. New York: New York University Press. 2011. $45. Cloth. ISBN: 9780814785003

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