1st Edition
When Ideas Fail Economic Thought, the Failure of Transition and the Rise of Institutional Instability in Post-Soviet Russia
Table of Contents
1 Introduction
2 The Role of Ideas in Great Transformations
Transition as functional differentiation
Constructivist institutionalism and the structure/agency-problem
What is special about Russia
What is special about Russia I: Lack of liberal underground discourses
What is specific about Russia II: The struggle between two thought collectives
What is Specific about Russia III: Deep ideational backgrounds
3 The Legacy of the Brezhnev Period: 1971-1986
Why deal with the Brezhnev period?
Self-organization versus mobilization
The economics of developed socialism
The origins of the concept
The economic mechanism
Base and superstructure
Commodity-money relations
Conclusion
4 Cracking the Protective Belt: 1987-1992
Back to the 1960s and taking it further
What was Soviet ideology?
Perestroika and the Soviet telos
Early debates in Voprosy ekonomiki, and the new textbook on political economy
The inflow of Western liberal ideas
The MEiMO debate on Western reforms
The Debates in the general interest press
The decline of Soviet ideology
Paradigm shift or continuity?
5 Towards a Precarious Consensus: 1993-1998
Western textbooks, Russian reality
The intellectual background to shock therapy
Post-industrial society and the comeback of slavophile ideas
Regulation, economic security, and the "Russian economic school"
The rise of Russian institutionalism
A new consensus?
6 In Search of a "Russian Way": 1999-2006
Taking stock of post-socialist reforms
The discussion about the stabilization fund
The nationalist turn
Biography
Joachim Zweynert is Professor of International Political Economy at Witten/ Herdecke University, Germany. He studied economics and political science at Hamburg University, Germany.
