IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ijurrs/v38y2014i5p1678-1696.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Development by Decree: The Limits of ‘Authoritarian Modernization’ in the Russian Federation

Author

Listed:
  • Nadir Kinossian
  • Kevin Morgan

Abstract

The apparent success of state-managed market economies has challenged the conventional wisdom that liberal democracy is the norm around which all capitalist countries tend to converge. If the link between democracy and development is more tenuous than we often think, the authoritarian variety of capitalism is not without its own problems, especially with respect to political legitimacy, innovation and regional development. This article explores these issues through the prism of ‘authoritarian modernization’ in Russia. We argue that this strategy is unlikely to succeed, even in its own terms, because (1) the political system fails to create favourable institutional conditions for modernization; (2) the economic system is beset by deeply embedded structural problems; and (3) the regional policy apparatus is torn between the goals of spatial equalization and spatial agglomeration. The article focuses on the Skolkovo Innovation Centre, the main symbol of Russian modernization, to demonstrate the territorial repertoire of the mega-project, a state-sponsored development strategy to create innovation clusters from above because they cannot emerge from below.

Suggested Citation

  • Nadir Kinossian & Kevin Morgan, 2014. "Development by Decree: The Limits of ‘Authoritarian Modernization’ in the Russian Federation," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(5), pages 1678-1696, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ijurrs:v:38:y:2014:i:5:p:1678-1696
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/1468-2427.12159
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Oleg Golubchikov, 2010. "World-City-Entrepreneurialism: Globalist Imaginaries, Neoliberal Geographies, and the Production of New St Petersburg," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 42(3), pages 626-643, March.
    2. Megan Dixon, 2010. "Gazprom versus the Skyline: Spatial Displacement and Social Contention in St. Petersburg," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(1), pages 35-54, March.
    3. Adam Przeworski & Fernando Limongi, 1993. "Political Regimes and Economic Growth," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 7(3), pages 51-69, Summer.
    4. Neil Robinson, 2003. "The Politics of Russia's Partial Democracy," Political Studies Review, Political Studies Association, vol. 1(2), pages 149-166, April.
    5. Susan S. Fainstein, 2008. "Mega‐projects in New York, London and Amsterdam," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(4), pages 768-785, December.
    6. Fernando Diaz Orueta & Susan S. Fainstein, 2008. "The New Mega‐Projects: Genesis and Impacts," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(4), pages 759-767, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Brian Doucet, 2013. "Variations of the Entrepreneurial City: Goals, roles and visions in Rotterdam's Kop van Zuid and the Glasgow Harbour Megaprojects," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(6), pages 2035-2051, November.
    2. Claire W. Herbert & Martin J. Murray, 2015. "Building from Scratch: New Cities, Privatized Urbanism and the Spatial Restructuring of Johannesburg after Apartheid," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(3), pages 471-494, May.
    3. Matthew Aaron Richmond & Jeff Garmany, 2016. "‘Post-Third-World City' or Neoliberal ‘City of Exception'? Rio de Janeiro in the Olympic Era," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(3), pages 621-639, May.
    4. Nahapetyan Yervand, 2019. "The benefits of the Velvet Revolution in Armenia: Estimation of the short-term economic gains using deep neural networks," Central European Economic Journal, Sciendo, vol. 6(53), pages 286-303, January.
    5. Sobel, Andrew C., 2002. "State institutions, risk, and lending in global capital markets," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 11(6), pages 725-752, December.
    6. Lewkowicz, Jacek & Woźniak, Michał & Wrzesiński, Michał, 2022. "COVID-19 and erosion of democracy," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    7. Jian-Guang Shen, 2002. "Democracy and growth: An alternative empirical approach," Development and Comp Systems 0212002, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Ahmet Faruk Aysan & …mer Faruk Baykal & Marie-Ange Véganzonès–Varoudakis, 2011. "The Effects of Convergence in Governance on Capital Accumulation in the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Countries," Chapters, in: Mehmet Ugur & David Sunderland (ed.), Does Economic Governance Matter?, chapter 6, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    9. Myint Moe Chit, 2018. "Political openness and the growth of small and medium enterprises: empirical evidence from transition economies," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 55(2), pages 781-804, September.
    10. Antonio Ciccone & Marek Jarociński, 2010. "Determinants of Economic Growth: Will Data Tell?," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(4), pages 222-246, October.
    11. Boockmann, Bernhard & Dreher, Axel, 2003. "The contribution of the IMF and the World Bank to economic freedom," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 633-649, September.
    12. Ahmet Faruk AYSAN & Mustapha Kamel NABLI & Marie‐Ange VÉGANZONÈS‐VAROUDAKIS, 2007. "Governance Institutions And Private Investment: An Application To The Middle East And North Africa," The Developing Economies, Institute of Developing Economies, vol. 45(3), pages 339-377, September.
    13. Amir-ud-Din, Rafi & Rashid, Abdul & Ahmad, Shabbir, 2008. "Democracy, Inequality and Economic Development: The Case of Pakistan," MPRA Paper 26935, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Torsten Persson & Guido Tabellini, 2009. "Democratic Capital: The Nexus of Political and Economic Change," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(2), pages 88-126, July.
    15. Basil Dalamagas & Panagiotis Palaios & Stefanos Tantos, 2019. "A New Approach to Measuring Tax Effort," Economies, MDPI, vol. 7(3), pages 1-25, August.
    16. Andrea Asoni, 2008. "Protection Of Property Rights And Growth As Political Equilibria," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(5), pages 953-987, December.
    17. Pauline Grosjean & Claudia Senik, 2011. "Democracy, Market Liberalization, and Political Preferences," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(1), pages 365-381, February.
    18. Yongchun Yang & Deli Zhang & Qingmin Meng & Corrin McCarn, 2015. "Urban Residential Land Use Reconstruction under Dual-Track Mechanism of Market Socialism in China: A Case Study of Chengdu," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(12), pages 1-17, December.
    19. Pettersson, Jan, 2003. "Democracy, Consolidation and Growth," Research Papers in Economics 2002:16, Stockholm University, Department of Economics, revised 15 Dec 2004.
    20. Ruiz Pozuelo, Julia & Slipowitz, Amy & Vuletin, Guillermo, 2016. "Democracy Does Not Cause Growth: The Importance of Endogeneity Arguments," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 7758, Inter-American Development Bank.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ijurrs:v:38:y:2014:i:5:p:1678-1696. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0309-1317 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.