The Impact of State-Controlled Banks on the Russian Banking Sector

A senior Russian economist examines the structure, governance, and balance sheets of state-controlled banks in Russia, which accounted for over 55 percent of the total assets in the country's banking system in early 2011. The author offers a credible estimate of the size of the country's state banking sector by including banks that are indirectly owned by public organizations. Contrary to some predictions based on the theoretical literature on economic transition, he explains the relatively high profitability and efficiency of Russian state-controlled banks by pointing to their competitive position in such functions as acquisition and disposal of assets on behalf of the government. Also suggested in the paper is a different way of looking at market concentration in Russia (by consolidating the market shares of core state-controlled banks), which produces a picture of a more concentrated market than officially reported. Lastly, one of the author's interesting conclusions is that China provides a better benchmark than the formerly centrally planned economies of Central and Eastern Europe by which to assess the viability of state ownership of banks in Russia and to evaluate the country's banking sector.     

Resource Rent from the Oil and Gas Sector and the Russian Economy

Three specialists on Russia's oil and gas sector examine the process whereby resource rent has been extracted from oil and gas production and distributed within the Soviet (and later Russian) economy. A particular focus is on changes in the way such rent now is collected and allocated to different levels of the territorial-administrative hierarchy as a result of a transition from command to market economic relations. Special attention is devoted to the introduction of new taxation regimes and other mechanisms of rent extraction and redistribution. 4 tables, 42 references.     

The Meanings of Conversion: Treaty Law,State Knowledge,and Religious Identity among Russian Captives in the Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Empire

This article examines the role of religious conversion in the rules worked out, on paper and in practice, between the Ottoman and Russian empires for the return of captives following their frequent eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century conflicts. The author shows that the abolition of ransom led the Ottoman state to take the central role in the liberation of captives in private hands in its territories. For cultural and fiscal reasons, this required the state to define a test for captives’ conversion to Islam, a matter which had previously been communally and religiously defined. The author traces the changing conversion tests used, and the ways they were manipulated by both captors and captives for their own ends, arguing that the legal definition of conversion undermined official trust, and perhaps community trust more broadly, in conversion's social role. This discussion sheds light on the connections between state knowledge, centralisation, and identity, while suggesting that Ottoman state intervention in matters of slavery and conversion, which has previously been seen as a product of the consciously reforming nineteenth-century Tanzimat, emerged earlier as a pragmatic result of Ottoman participation in the international arena.     

The Russian social contract and regime legitimacy

The social contract in Soviet and post‐Soviet Russia has concerned not classical political rights but socio‐economic issues. Loyalty is accorded to the powers‐that‐be partly from fear of repression, but also in return for new opportunities of advancement—whether resulting from social upheaval or from educational expansion—and for modest improvements in living standards. The Soviet era ended when such benefits could no longer be delivered, on account of lower oil prices, arms‐race burdens and lagging productivity and innovation. After the turmoil of the 1990s, the contract was re‐established under Putin in the early 2000s. Public opinion accepts relatively authoritarian rule if economic stability appears guaranteed in return. Moreover, world events from 2008 onwards have dampened economic expectations. Nonetheless, the sustainability of the present contract is doubtful, with economic modernization likely to prove elusive in the absence of effective democratic institutions.     

The semiotics of Russian culture

The seventeenth century was one of scientific fervour and of fundamental change in how the natural world was to be approached. With increased voyages abroad, the world was being drawn into Europe and each country wanted to be the first to capture the ‘Codex Naturae’. French physician/naturalists were examining and dissecting nature and Jesuit missionaries were documenting day-to-day life of First Peoples in the New World. The interplay between an ethnogeography and a scientific knowledge including an environmentally orientated medical geography illustrate the contrast of approaches to health, humanity, and place.     

对俄国自由主义的理论探讨

自由主义首先是一种政治思潮,其次是一种社会政治运动,再次是某种政治制度和管理原则的总和。自由主义是古代西欧明的创造,于近代形成为体系,并蔓延到东欧国家。俄国自由主义大体上是从外部引进的,并在发展过程中出现了许多的类型和派别,其中最重要的是立宪主义。俄国自由主义在实质方面与西方自由主义相同,但它的形成与发展过程困难重重,缺少相应的社会环境。俄国自由派脱离人民,成为一种“少数人的运动”,并且由于诸多原因最终走向失败。     

俄国斯拉夫派的政治思想

斯拉夫派是 19世纪中期“俄国与西方”问题的历史性的大争论中 ,强调俄国历史道路的特殊性 ,与西方派对立的派别。斯拉夫派的主要代表人物有 :霍米雅科夫、基列耶夫斯基、阿克萨科夫兄弟和尤·萨马林等。作为倡导俄罗斯民族独特精神的思想体系 ,斯拉夫派思想———斯拉夫主义 ① 在俄罗斯思想发展的长河中占有独特而重要的地位。斯拉夫主义的哲学世界观的突出之处是以精神整体性反对西方唯理主义 ,以东正教的聚合性对抗西方的个人主义 ;斯拉夫主义的社会政治理想是保持村社和地方会议的君主制社会的和谐有机发展 ;斯拉夫主义的经济观点表现…     

The Stolypin Variant of Russian Modernization

Petr Stolypin developed an effective reform program for Russia, well tailored to the country’s past experience and need to transform from an agrarian to an industrial society. He should not be blamed for others’ failure to implement his program after his assassination.     

俄国史学中的“国家学派”

国家学派是19世纪中期到20世纪初俄国众多史学流派中最有影响的一个学派。本文主要论述了国家学派的形成与特点,国家学派所涉及的主要问题及其历史观念,以及俄国史学界在不同时期对它的总体评价。