Carnegie Moscow Center

About: Carnegie Moscow Center is a other organization based out in Moscow, Russia. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Government & Business sector. The organization has 8 authors who have published 9 publications receiving 382 citations.

Does foreign ownership matter? The Russian experience

Abstract: The paper both compares productivity of Russian firms that have foreign direct investments with productivity of fully domestically owned firms and analyses spillovers from foreign-owned firms to domestic firms. Foreign firms are found to be more productive than domestic ones, but productivity of the former is negatively affected by slow progress of reforms in the regions where they operate. It is also found that there are positive spillovers from foreign-owned firms to domestic firms in the same industry, but negative effects on domestic firms that are vertically related to foreign-owned firms. The stock of human capital in regions where foreign firms operate is one of the factors which help domestic firms to benefit from the entry of foreign firms.

Three dilemmas of hybrid regime governance: Russia from Putin to Putin

Abstract: This article investigates how hybrid regimes supply governance by examining a series of dilemmas (involving elections, the mass media, and state institutions) that their rulers face. The authors demonstrate how regime responses to these dilemmas – typically efforts to maintain control while avoiding outright repression and societal backlash – have negative outcomes, including a weakening of formal institutions, proliferation of “substitutions” (e.g., substitutes for institutions), and increasing centralization and personalization of control. Efforts by Russian leaders to disengage society from the sphere of decision-making entail a significant risk of systemic breakdown in unexpected ways. More specifically, given significantly weakened institutions for interest representation and negotiated compromise, policy-making in the Russian system often amounts to the leadership's best guess (ad hoc manual policy adjustments) as to precisely what society will accept and what it will not, with a significant possibi...

Russia under Putin: Titanic looking for its iceberg?

Abstract: December 2011 protests in Russia, the largest after the collapse of the Soviet Union, shattered the status quo that had taken shape over the last decade and signaled that Russia is entering turbulent waters. Russia found itself caught in a trap: the 2011–2012 elections perpetuate a personalized power system that became the source of decay. The top-down rule and its “personificator” – Vladimir Putin – are already rejected by the most dynamic and educated urban population. However, no clear political alternative with a broad social support has yet emerged to replace the old Russian matrix. In terms of strategic significance, Putin's regime will most certainly unravel in the foreseeable perspective. But it is hard to predict what consequences this will have: the system's disintegration and even collapse of the state, growing rot and atrophy, or the last grasp in the life of personalized power and transformation that will set Russia on a new foundation. One thing is apparent: transformation will not happen in the form of reform from above and within, and if it does occur, it will be the result of the deepening crisis and society's pressure.

Russia’s Policy Toward China: Key Players and the Decision-making Process

Abstract: Russia’s core interest groups vis-a-vis China are as follows: the central civil bureaucracy, Putin, a player in his own right, the army and the intelligence community, managers of state-owned companies, and owners of private companies, as well as the military-industrial complex and the regional governments. Every company is trying to secure a loan in the PRC, to attract Chinese investors to its projects, to find customers, and to develop a working relationship with decision makers in China. Yet, the state of China-related expertise is near-complete illiteracy. Important decisions are made by Putin, but the views and interests of other players may influence policy. Personalization, bureaucratic overlap, rent-seeking behavior of well-connected bosses of SOEs, and lack of professional expertise on China can explain the awkwardness of attempts to exploit China’s growth for national interests.

A Less Ideological America

Abstract: As the United States gets closer to electing its 44th president, there is a keen sense of interest in Russia in the outcome of a most thrilling race for the White House, but also a palpable feeling of detachment about the possible implications for Russian-U.S. relations. There is a consensus that, after eight years of George \V Bush, America will enter a period of major foreign policy adjustment, but Russia will not be a t the heart of it. No one seriously expects a magical transformation of U.S. foreign policy, but there is a hope that the state of world affairs will make the next U.S. administration less ideological and more pragmatic. Ideally, from a Russian perspective, the next administration will act on the basis of US. interests, avoiding slipping into the fundamentalism of democratic ayatollahs or the antiauthoritarian crusades of the new cold warriors. Having rejected any kind of ideology as an impediment and having embraced pragmatism themselves, Moscow sees \Vashington’s talk of values as essentially disingenuous, thoroughly compromised by double standards, and serving the purpose of global expansionism. Thus, Russia’s calls to the United States to restrain its ideological fervor are in fact calls to drop its pretense to hegemonic leadership. This is not to say that Russia would welcome U.S. withdrawal into itself, which is unrealistic in any case. Moscow even accepts a degree of leadership coming from \Vashington, provided that it is enlightened. In this more ideal arrangement, the United States would be anything but hegemonic. It would no longer insist on its moral superiority and the universality of its values. It