Corporate raiding and the role of the state in Russia

To what extent are Russian state agencies involved in predatory behavior, and what are the determinants of their activities? Analyzing a novel data-set comprising 312 cases of illegal corporate raiding (reyderstvo) between 1999 and 2010, this article identifies a shift both in the regional and sectoral distribution of raids over time, as well as an increasing participation of state agencies in criminal raiding attacks. Using panel regression analysis to look at the determinants of increasing state involvement, this article shows that election results for the ruling president and his party, as well as the degree to which elections are manipulated throughout Russia's regions, are significantly and positively correlated with the number of raids in a given region, while regions with governors that have stronger local ties are characterized by a smaller number of attacks. A potential interpretation of these findings is that the federal center may tolerate a certain degree of predatory activities by regional elites, as long as these elites are able to deliver a sufficiently high level of electoral support for the center, with the effect being weaker in regions where the governor is interested in the long-term development of the regional economy.     

Workers,state, and development in Brazil: powers of labour,chains of value

This paper examines the significance of landscape and memory in peasant–state relations in Eritrea since independence in the early 1990s. During this period, people were being resettled around cultivable land in the western lowlands as a means of recuperating land and society after prolonged warfare. Projects of statemaking in Eritrea, involving both refugee resettlement and agrarian development, have drawn from a national narrative of lost fertility and deforestation caused by generations of colonial extraction and violence. This paper explores how shared memories of environmental change, an ecological nostalgia, become a means through which people from diverse ethno-linguistic, religious, and regional backgrounds come together to imagine a collective future based in creating livelihood from farm land. However, as people reclaim remembered landscapes and face the challenges of rebuilding communities and livelihoods during a time of tense political and economic change, their ideas of a shared future diverge from state-led projects of nation-building. This article argues that ecological nostalgia legitimises state interventions into rural livelihoods but also provides a means for people to speak and critique the state under conditions of increasing fear and silencing.     

Negotiating hybridity in highland Bolivia: indigenous moral economy and the expanding market for quinoa

Scholars often highlight the capacity for cooperation and reciprocity as one of the most outstanding features of Andean peasants, but also raise concerns that these traditional strategies necessarily wither and fade as Andean people and places are increasingly incorporated into capitalist markets and processes. This study examines how non-market cooperative and reciprocal economic practices are affected as rural Bolivians expand production to meet a growing international demand for the Andean pseudo-grain quinoa. Based on the grounded experiences of rural Bolivians who are negotiating the modernisation and martketisation of agricultural production for the first time, I find that increasing incorporation into global markets need not undermine the moral economy of rural people, and may in fact strengthen their commitment to reciprocal and cooperative strategies. In contrast to claims that the spread of modern markets and technologies will weaken and ultimately replace cooperative strategies, I argue that reciprocity practices are important components in the construction of a new, hybrid economic space. Within this space, where economic strategies are based on moral sentiments as well as market logic, reciprocity provides a socially and ecologically appropriate ‘toolkit’ with which rural people negotiate their uneven incorporation into global capitalistic processes.     

Why are public offices sold in Kyrgyzstan?

Why are public offices for sale in Kyrgyzstan? To address this question, this article attempts to set out a new logic for understanding the motives, nature, and consequences of corruption in the country. Rather than securing access to a single favor through bribery, officials invest in political and administrative posts in order to obtain access to stream of rents associated with an office. Political and administrative corruption is organically linked in this system, and corruption stems not so much from weak monitoring as from being a franchise-like arrangement, where officials are required to pay continuous “fees” to their bosses. The key is to be the public official influencing the redistribution of rents as well as participating in the informal market where “public” goods are privatized and exchanged for informal payments. Thus, instead of control over the pure economic assets of the state, influence over the state's institutional and organizational framework is the dominant strategy for earning and investing in the country.     

Is Russia a militocracy? Conceptual issues and extant findings regarding elite militarization

The dominant paradigm for understanding contemporary Russia holds that Vladimir Putin's tenure in office has been accompanied by a massive influx of former KGB and military personnel – so-called “siloviki” – into positions of power and authority throughout the polity and economy. Claims of extensive elite militarization, however, are largely based on the analyses of only one research program and, moreover, the validity of the estimates produced by that research program is open to question on numerous grounds. In this article, we review existing research on elite militarization in Russia; discuss a series of conceptual and empirical issues that need to be resolved if valid and meaningful estimation of military–security representation is to be achieved; introduce new findings; and evaluate the totality of existing evidence regarding whether the Russian state under Putin deserves to be labeled a militocracy. We find that the most straightforward reading of existing data indicates that the percentage of siloviki in the political elite during Putin's first two terms as president was approximately half of that which has been widely reported in both scholarship and the media, and also declined during the Medvedev presidency. In addition, our analysis of a broader cross section of the elite estimates military–security representation during the Putin presidency to have been lower still. Overall, existing data paint a less alarming picture of the depths to which siloviki have penetrated the corridors of power since 2000 than has been commonly portrayed and thereby cast doubt on Russia's status as an “FSB state.” On the other hand, past trends also provide some basis for expecting that the numbers of siloviki will once again rise during Putin's current presidential term.     

The Seattle Teamsters and the procedural state, 1935–1942

The Teamsters Union often clashed with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in Seattle between 1935 and 1942. At times the Seattle Teamsters resisted the NLRB, yet in other cases the union worked within the agency's procedures to expand. In the years after the Wagner Act, the Teamsters exploited the NLRB to block employees from choosing their own union. This article uses archival records to explore cases where the Seattle Teamsters successfully adapted to federal regulation of collective bargaining between 1935 and 1942. Seattle workers opposed to the Teamsters bravely fought to protect their right to organize, yet these employees faced a union skilled at working with the procedural state. These cases show the increasing ability of the Seattle Teamsters to enroll workers wary of the union by complying with NLRB rules.     

The nature of political advising to prime ministers in Australia,Canada, New Zealand and the UK

Political advisors to heads of government occupy such a privileged sphere of influence that their role is a source of consternation among democratic idealists. Interviews with advisors to prime ministers of Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the UK inform a small body of comparative literature about political advising in the Commonwealth. The authors find that first ministers consider input from many advisors and therefore the counsel of any one advisor is of limited impact. Further research is needed to understand the extent to which these agents project the power of the executive office and make decisions on the principal's behalf.     

Chinese state capitalism and neomercantilism in the contemporary food regime: contradictions,continuity and change

ABSTRACT

A significant proportion of critical agri-food literature has, to date, focused on the uneven relations of power between the Global North and the Global South, and the neoliberal characteristics of the corporate food regime. This literature has often overlooked the nuances in varieties of capitalism, particularly in East Asia. China is re-emerging as a powerful state actor in an increasingly multipolar global food system. It is also an important hub of capital, facilitating agribusiness mergers and acquisitions, as well as new East–South and South–South flows of agri-food trade, technology and capital. This paper aims to contribute to understanding state-led capitalism in China and neomercantilist strategies in the agri-food sector. The paper provides a critical analysis of a case study of China's state owned agri-food and chemical companies ‘going global’. It contends that the current food regime is in a period of transition or interregnum – a period of fluidity separating the continuity of successive regimes. Arguably, the analytical contours of a contemporary food regime in transition cannot be adequately comprehended without recognising the incipient importance of state-led capitalism and neomercantilism, and how contemporary socio-political and economic dynamics are reshaping relations of power in the global political economy of food.     

Pitirim Sorokin’s contribution to rural sociology: Russian,European and American milestones of a scientific career

ABSTRACT

The whole of Pitirim Sorokin’s fascinating and difficult scientific life led to his fundamental works on urban–rural relationships being expressed in the terms ‘rural–urban continuum’ and ‘rurbanism’. However, only a few special studies have been devoted to different aspects of his biography and scientific interests. The legacy of Sorokin as a rural sociologist has not yet become a subject of special studies in Russian social science. This contribution considers the key stages of Sorokin’s scientific career as contributing to the development and institutionalization of rural sociology as a discipline closely connected with urban sociology.     

芬兰二战后经济发展与社会保障的特点与启示

作为一个北欧小国,从自然禀赋上看,芬兰不具备优势,除林业资源和渔业资源外,现代经济发展中关键的煤和石油奇缺。但进入21世纪以来,在世界经济论坛每年所做的全球经济竞争力的排名中,芬兰一直名列前茅,甚至有4次名列榜首,成为最具有经济竞争力国家,这则更加体现出较好的研究和参考价值。芬兰在二战后独特的混合经济体制以及社会保障福利国家体系,构成了芬兰在二战以来经济和社会诸多方面的发展特点。这些特点对中国和其他发展中国家未来的发展道路有着较强的启示和借鉴作用。