Redefining Business Values in Russia: The Boundaries of Globalisation and Patriotism in Contemporary Russian Industry

Abstract

In the aftermath of Russia's accession process to the World Trade Organization in 2011, an extensive public debate emerged on the modernisation of the economy. Enhanced state intervention and authoritarian modernisation were promoted as suitable options for Russia by opponents to neo-liberalism. Medvedev's liberal alternative was promptly discredited in the course of the political competition with Putin. Using ethnographic work, the present essay identifies three models of economic reform and investigates the way they have been considered by professionals in business and trade. The first model, the strategic model, contrary to conventional wisdom, is discussed in the discourse of business actors in terms of economic patriotism, public intervention and state strategic planning; second, the market model is viewed by others as a fully legitimate model; and a third model, the innovation model, combines narratives of efficiency and autonomy, which is attractive but fragile. Beyond their differences, these views have in common a concern to display the relationship of the business sector to the political sphere as a key variable for economic reform.

Notes

The author is extremely grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments. This essay is the result of a French–Russian collective research project on ‘Patriotic practices in contemporary Russia’ undertaken between 2008 and 2010. This project was financed by an International Scientific Cooperation Programme of the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) and supported by the Center for the Study of the Russian, Caucasian and Central-European Worlds (CERCEC), the Centre for International Studies and Research (CERI), the Fondation-Maison des Sciences de l'Homme (MSH), and the Russian State Fund for Fundamental Research (Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Nauchnyi Fond—RGNF).

¹ ‘The present level of the country's development inevitably implies reliance on certain elements of authoritarian modernization, not on authoritarianism without modernization though’; see ‘Russia's Economy: After Transformation, before Modernization’, Valdai Discussion Club Report, 24 January 2013, p. 60, available at: http://valdaiclub.com/publication/54040.html, accessed January 2014.

² Capital letters will be used to refer to interviewees in order to protect their anonymity, in accordance with the ethics of ethnographic work. Any details allowing for the identification of the firms concerned will be avoided, particularly the names of small towns.

³ Gosudarstvennaya programma, ‘Patrioticheskoe vozpitanie grazhdan Rossiiskoi Federatsii na 2001–2005gg’, available at: http://www.llr.ru/razdel3.php?id_r3 = 73 and Gosudarstvennaya programma, ‘Patrioticheskoe vozpitanie grazhdan Rossiiskoi Federatsii na 2006–2010gg’, available at: http://www.llr.ru/razdel3.php?id_r2 = 55, accessed 22 February 2012.

⁴ Interview with V.M., Ekaterinburg, 11 April 2011.

⁵ Interview with L.G., Ekaterinburg, 13 April 2011.

⁶ Interview with L., Urals, 14 April 2011.

⁷ Interview with P., Central Russia, 16 February 2009.

⁸ Interview with S.S., Ekaterinburg, 22 June 2010.

⁹ Interview with I.I., Ekaterinburg, 14 April 2011.

¹⁰ Interview with S.S., Ekaterinburg, 22 June 2010.

¹¹ Interview with V.M., Ekaterinburg, 11 April 2011.

¹² Interview with P., Central Russia, 16 February 2009.

¹³ Interview with L.G., Ekaterinburg, 13 April 2011.

¹⁴ Interview with S.S., Ekaterinburg, 22 June 2010.

¹⁵ Interview with I.I., Ekaterinburg, 14 April 2011.

¹⁶ ‘O poryadke osushestvleniya inostranykh investitsii v khozyaistve obshchestva imeyushie strategicheskoe znachenie dlya oborony strany i bezopasnosti gosudarstva’, Federal'nyi zakon n°57, effective from 7 May 2008, available at: http://fas.gov.ru/legislative-acts/legislative-acts_20103.html, accessed 7 November 2014.

¹⁷ Interview with B., Central Russia, 16 February 2009.

¹⁸ Interview with V.M., Ekaterinburg, 11 April 2011.

¹⁹ Interview with L.G., Ekaterinburg, 13 April 2011.

²⁰ Interview with L.G., Ekaterinburg, 13 April 2011.

²¹ Interview with I.I., Ekaterinburg, 14 April 2011.

²² Interview with L., Urals, 14 April 2011.

²³ Interview with L.R., Ekaterinburg, 15 April 2011.

²⁴ Interview with L., Urals, 14 April 2011.

²⁵ Interview with L.R., Ekaterinburg, 15 April 2011.

²⁶ Interview with P., Central Russia, 16 February 2009.

²⁷ Interview with B., Central Russia, 16 February 2009.

²⁸ Interview with G., Central Russia, 17 February 2009.

²⁹ Interview with L., Urals, 14 April 2011.

³⁰ Interview with L.R., Ekaterinburg, 15 April 2011.

³¹ Interview with V.M., Ekaterinburg, 11 April 2011.

³² Interview with I.I., Ekaterinburg, 14 April 2011.

³³ Interview with L., Urals, 14 April 2011.

³⁴ Interview with P., Central Russia, 16 February 2009.

³⁵ Interview with P., Central Russia, 16 February 2009.

³⁶ Interview with P., Central Russia, 16 February 2009.