How Russia Is Not Ruled (Paperback)

Allen C. Lynch

ISBN 10: 0521549922 / ISBN 13: 9780521549929

Published by Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2005

About this Item

Paperback. The state remains as important to Russia's prospects as ever. This is so not only because, as in any society, an effectively functioning state administration is necessary to the proper functioning of a complex economy and legal system, but also because, in Russian circumstances, factors of economic geography tend to increase costs of production compared to the rest of the world. These mutually reinforcing factors include: the extreme severity of the climate, the immense distances to be covered, the dislocation between (European) population centers and (Siberian) natural resource centers, and the inevitable predominance of relatively costly land transportation over sea-borne transportation. As a result, it is questionable whether Russia can exist as a world civilization under predominantly liberal economic circumstances: in a unified liberal global capital market, large-scale private direct capital investment will not be directed to massive, outdoor infrastructure projects typical of state investment in the Soviet period. How important is the state to Russia's prospects, even as Russia tries to work out the contours of a stable and productive market-based economic system? What kind of political order corresponds to the challenges that Russia faces? This book argues that geography is important to these questions. This item is printed on demand. Shipping may be from our UK warehouse or from our Australian or US warehouses, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9780521549929

Bibliographic Details

• Title: How Russia Is Not Ruled (Paperback)
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
• Publication Date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0521549922
• ISBN 13: 9780521549929
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

As Russia tries to establish the foundations of a stable and productive market-based economic system, it must determine the importance of the state to its prospects. What kind of political order corresponds to the challenges that Russia faces in the post-Soviet period? This analysis argues that geography matters a great deal and the state remains central in compensating for the austere implications of economic geography for Russia's economic prospects under market circumstances.

About the Author

Allen C. Lynch is the Director of the Center for Russian and East European Studies and Hugh S. and Winifred B. Cumming Memorial Professor of International Affairs at the University of Virginia. He is the author of numerous books, including The Soviet Study of International Relations (Cambridge, 1987), which was the winner of the 1988 Marshall D. Shulman Award of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies and The Cold War is Over-Again (1992). He is also the author of numerous articles on Russian and Slavic studies.