The Political Economies of Post-Communism

Session Submission Type: Created Panel

Session Description

The papers on this panel address various aspects of the state-economy nexus in broadly post-communist space. Ilya Matveev’s paper uses two case studies of large enterprises that have been taken over by the Russian state to illustrate the persistence of the neoliberal paradigm in Russia, especially at the ideational level. The analysis of the neoliberal paradigm is also the subject of Nicholas Emery’s and Mitchell Orenstein’s paper. The authors argue that market economic reforms did not have a significant impact on long-run growth. Rather, the variation in growth rates is attributable to rising oil and gas revenues and lower government spending that allowed slow reformers to converge with or surpass the reform leaders’ growth rates. Wendy Leutert and Abigail Coplin turn their attention to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as they study how firms respond strategically to dual logics of market profit and political legitimacy during China’s global economic expansion. Finally, Denise van der Kamp’s paper examines regulatory uncertainty in China’s environmental policy to see whether informal ties are always better for business, especially when business contexts are highly politicized.

Sub Unit

• Division 13: Politics of Communist and Former Communist Countries

Individual Presentations

• Industrial Restructuring and the Modalities of State Capitalism in Russia - Ilya Matveev, North-West Institute of Management RANEPA

• Performing Participation: Rethinking Chinese Firms’ Role in the BRI - Wendy Leutert, Indiana University; Abigail E. Coplin, Vassar College

• Why Slow Reformers Grow Fast - Nicholas Emery-Xu, UCLA; Mitchell A Orenstein, University of Pennsylvania

• Exit, Voice, Uncertainty? How Businesses Respond to China’s Regulatory Blizzard - Denise van der Kamp, Oxford University

Chair

• Marc P. Berenson King's College London

Discussants

• Marc P. Berenson King's College London

• Ling Chen Johns Hopkins University