Russia’s Path Dependence on the Power-Property System in the “Long Putin Era”: Its Origin and Rationale*

Yang Cheng
Center for Russia Studies, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China

 
Abstract: As Russia’s ongoing economic restructuring over the past twenty years has revealed, Russia’s exchange mechanism departs from that of an ideally standard market economy. To a large extent, the problem can be traced back to the “power-property” system established by Ivan III. That is to say, the possession of power is equivalent to the possession of property, and property becomes certain functions of power. For a long time, this system has been accepted as a natural state of society by the Russian people. Rapid economic growth under the Putin administration is characterized by the return to and strengthening of a “power property” system dominated by the state and an abandonment of “institutional transplantation”from the Western liberal market economic model in the Yeltsin era under which power and property were separated. Mr. Putin’s reelection in 2012 means that the “long-Putin era” that started from 2000 will last at least until 2018. However, with the solidification of the “power property” system, the Putin administration has been confronted with new challenges, and the prospects for Russia’s economic modernization still face great uncertainties.
Key words: Russia’s “long Putin era”, Oriental influence, power-property rights, path dependence

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