Three decades of post-Soviet economies: from the myth of transition to state capitalism and beyond

Join the second roundtable of the series "1991-2021: Thirty Years After"!

During 2021, the Centre for Baltic and East European Studies (CBEES), Södertörn University, Sweden, hosts a series of international multidisciplinary roundtables devoted to transformations that followed the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. This round table is the second in the series.

Summary:
The break-up of Communism brought about a systemic economic collapse for post-Soviet states. In the 1990s, this decline was unprecedented in modern history, except for countries involved in war conflicts. Degradation of economic capacity, deindustrialisation, the rise of poverty and the emergence of a "murky" institutional environment framed by redistribution of previously state-owned assets between shadow actors were common features for most countries in the region. The promise of transition envisioned by neoliberal economists in the West and domestic reformers remained unfulfilled. Starting from the 2000s, the region has been in search of a new stable ground for recovery.

From the 2010s, the emergence of state capitalism and its practices have been such an alternative, with all its drawbacks and contradictions. While Belarus pioneered experimentation with state capitalism in the 1990s, its particular solution has been, in the end, unstable due to reliance on one political leader. For Ukraine, the 1990s' anarchy has never ended, with continued deindustrialisation, increased poverty, and oligarch groups' dominance in politics and economy. In Russia and Kazakhstan, where the inflow of hydrocarbon export income, re-nationalisations, and central political power consolidation prevented an all-encompassing economic and social degradation, a more viable state-capitalist alternative gradually emerged. The latter resembles international trends towards increased quasi-market behaviour of state corporations and banks in the largest economies of the third world, including China, India, Brazil, Turkey and South Africa. The round table discusses the diverse paths of the largest four economies in the post-Soviet realm and the results produced by this transformation by 2021.

Participants:
• Yuko Adachi (Professor, Sophia University, Tokyo, Japan): Russia
• Viachaslau Yarashevich (Humboldt researcher at Ludwig-Maximilians Universität, München): Belarus
• Yuliya Yurchenko (Senior Lecturer in Political Economy, University of Greenwich, London): Ukraine
• Yelena N. Zabortseva (Associate Professor, University of Sidney, tbc): Kazakhstan

Moderator:
Ilja Viktorov (Research Fellow, Södertörn University/Stockholm University)

Join the webinar online: https://sh-se.zoom.us/j/67743144214 External link, opens in new window.
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