The Concept of the Power Markets as a Methodology to Study Modern Russian Economy and Society Institutional Organization

Abstract

Characteristics of the post-Soviet institutional transformation of the economy and society in Russia based on using power market methodology are highlighted in the article. The methodology is a variant of the political-economic approach. The article substantiates its advantages in comparison with other political-economic approaches, such as North-Wallis- Weingast concept of social orders, and J. A. Robinson and D. Acemoglu model of inclusive and extractive political and economic institutions. Detailed characteristics of the conditions formation of hybrid political-administrative market in the post-Soviet Russia are given as well as its actors are highlighted and their motivation is analyzed. The specificity of the presented approach is the characteristic of institutional development in the conjunction with the historically formed resource and sectoral structure of the Russian economy. From our point of view, the historically formed character of these interconnections of the resource-sector and institutional organization of the Russian economy is the basis for the path dependence and lock-in effects. The fulfilled analysis showed that the path dependence effect was manifested in the fact that hybrid political-administrative market was formed instead of institutional system that built on the separation and interaction of economic and political markets in Russia, and hybrid political-administrative market has its centralized variant. The criterion for lock-in effect is that the projects of transition from enclave dual economy to integrated economy in Russia have actually failed.

Keywords

• path dependence effect
• lock-in effect
• power markets
• hybrid politicaladministrative market
• enclave dual economy
• integrated economy