http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/cup_detail.taf?ti_id=4462
OWNING RUSSIA
The Struggle over Factories, Farms, and Power
Andrew Barnes
During and after the breakdown of the Soviet Union, a wide range of
competitors fought to build new political and economic empires by wresting
control over resources from the state and from each other. In the only book
to examine the evolution of Russian property ownership in both industry and
agriculture, Andrew Barnes uses interviews, archival research, and firsthand
observation to document how a new generation of capitalists gained control
over key pieces of the Russian economy by acquiring debt-ridden factories
and farms once owned by the state. He argues that although the Russian
government made policies that affected how actors battled one another, it
could never rein in the most destructive aspects of the struggle for
property.
Barnes shows that dividing the spoils of the Soviet economy involved far
more than the experiment with voucher privatization or the scandalous
behavior of a few Moscow-based "oligarchs." In Russia, the control of
property yielded benefits beyond mere profits, and these high stakes fueled
an intense, enduring, and profound conflict over real assets. This fierce
competition empowered the Russian executive branch at the expense of the
legislature, dramatically strengthened managers in relation to workers,
created a broad array of business conglomerates, and fundamentally shaped
regional politics, not only blurring the line between government and
business but often erasing it.
Reviews
"Owning Russia is one of the best books I have read on the political economy
of the former Soviet Union. In it, Andrew Barnes analyzes the collapse of
the USSR and its chaotic aftermath in Russia not as a case of 'failed
transition to democracy and markets,' nor as a battle pitting noble,
Westernizing 'reformers' against recalcitrant 'conservatives,' but, above
all, as a prolonged ongoing high-stakes struggle to control valuable assets.
Spanning the period from Gorbachev through Putin, and encompassing both the
industrial and agricultural sectors, Owning Russia is vital reading for
everyone interested in understanding the ongoing Russian
transformation."-Stephen E. Hanson, University of Washington
"Andrew Barnes's book is a research achievement of the highest order. It
offers the first comprehensive analysis of Russia's massive transfer of
state-owned property into private hands and the striking conflicts over
assets that ensued. Barnes provides a major corrective to received views.
Owning Russia is also the first work to bring together developments in the
agricultural and industrial sectors, documenting parallel yet distinct
processes of privatization and business concentration in both. Written in a
clear and lively style, the book will become an essential reference not only
for students of postsocialist political economy but also for anyone who
needs to understand the contours of Russia's emerging corporate
giants."-David Woodruff, Harvard University, author of Money Unmade: Barter
and the Fate of Russian Capitalism
"In Owning Russia Andrew Barnes breaks with and challenges the tendency to
use prior expectations as a basis for assessments of the Russian economic
tradition. This superbly written and authoritative book attends to the
struggle over land, a topic that is usually addressed tangentially at best
in most studies of privatization and economic reform."-Rudra Sil, University
of Pennsylvania
About the Author
Andrew Barnes is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Kent State
University.
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