Property, Predation, and Protection: Piranha Capitalism in Russia and Ukraine - Softcover

Markus, Stanislav

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1107459079 ISBN 13: 9781107459076

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2016

Synopsis

What threatens the property rights of business owners - and what makes these rights secure? This book transcends the conventional diagnosis of the issue in modern developing countries by moving beyond expropriation by the state ruler or by petty bureaucratic corruption. It identifies "agent predation" as a novel threat type, showing it to be particularly widespread and detrimental. The book also questions the orthodox prescription: institutionalized state commitment cannot secure property rights against agent predation. Instead, this volume argues that business actors can hold the predatory state agents accountable through firm-level alliances with foreign actors, labor, and local communities. Beyond securing ownership, such alliances promote rule of law in a rent-seeking society. Taking Russia and Ukraine between 2000 and 2012 as its empirical focus, the book advances these arguments by drawing on more than 150 qualitative interviews with business owners, policy makers, and bureaucrats, as well as an original large-N survey of firms.

About this title

Book Description

To maintain economic development and political stability, business owners must have secure property rights. What exactly are "property rights"? Which specific state actors threaten them? How can business owners protect their companies? This book provides unexpected answers to these questions, as compared to the competing literature in "new institutional economics."

About the Author

Stanislav Markus is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago. His research has been published in World Politics, Socio-Economic Review, and Polity. He is the winner of the 2014 Gregory Luebbert Article Award for the best article in comparative politics awarded by the American Political Science Association. Professor Markus received the Academy Scholar award from the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies, 2008-9 and 2011-12. He holds a PhD in government from Harvard University, Massachusetts.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1107459079
• ISBN 13: 9781107459076
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 256