The Practices of Interaction between Entrepreneurs and Authorities in Russia’s Resource Extracting Regions: the ‘Scenes of Power’ Analytical Approach

Abstract

Sergey Levin – DSc in Economics, Professor, Department of Economic Theory and Public Administration, Kemerovo State University. Address: 6, Krasnaya St., Kemerovo, 650043, Russian Federation. E-mail: levin.sergey.n@gmail.com

Kirill Sablin – PhD in Economics, Associate Professor, Department of Economic Theory and Public Administration, Kemerovo State University. Address: 6, Krasnaya St., Kemerovo, 650043, Russian Federation. E-mail: sablin_ks@mail.ru

VladislavRutskiy – PhD in Economics, Associate Professor, Department of Economic Theories, Siberian Federal University. Address: 79, Svobodnyj Av., Krasnoyarsk, 660041, Russian Federation. E-mail: rootskey.vn@gmail.com

Citation: Levin S., Sablin K., Rutskiy V. (2018) The Practices of Interaction between Entrepreneurs and Authorities in Russia’s Resource Extracting Regions: the ‘Scenes of Power’ Analytical Approach. Mir Rossii, vol. 27, no 3, pp. 6–27 (in Russian). DOI: 10.17323/1811-038X-2018-27-3-6-27

This article presents the results of a new cycle of studies that focus on the interaction of entrepreneurs and authorities in a resource extracting region (Kemerovo). In this new cycle, the authors introduce a comparative perspective by contrasting Kemerovo region with Krasnoyarsk region, and discuss the capacity of entrepreneurs to become the primary agents of economic development in resource extracting regions. The study is based on an analytical approach, which conceptualizes the interaction between entrepreneurs and authorities as emerging in the context of specific ‘scenes of power’. The ‘scene of power’ is defined as a system of positively conditioned normative representations of entrepreneurs
about the nature of power, its purposes and tools. Each scene is determined by the dominant sphere of interaction (i.e., ‘white’, ‘gray’ or ‘black’), in which institutions are formed and which play the key role in determining the real rules of the game. Conceptualizing authority as an impersonalized actor acting in the public interest may be appropriate for countries with developed market economies, however in contrast to the similarities between the formal institutions in Russia and Western countries, the real rules of the game are qualitatively different. Approaching the interaction between the authorities and entrepreneurs in Russia exclusively from the standpoint of corrupt behavior does not take into account the fact that in
Russia authorities act as carriers of private and public interests which ensures the economic survival of territories and socio-political stability. The authors show a more comprehensive approach should encompass all of the three spheres of interaction recognizing that the key role is being played by the institutions that form in the ‘gray’ sphere.