Big Business and State Capitalism with Russian Characteristics: State Corporations in Putin’s Russia

Panel Session: Autocracy, Corruption, the Economy and the Return of State Capitalism, at the 27th Society for Advancement of Socio-Economic Studies (SASE) Annual Meeting, July 2-4, 2015.

This study analyzes the issue of “state corporations (gosudarstvennye korporatsii)” (SCs hereafter) – state-led conglomerates established to act in a public policy capacity in key strategic sectors of the Russian economy. In particular, I focus on delineating the meaning and consequence of SCs, and argue that SCs are defining feature of capitalism Russia-style under the Putin administration because of: 1) their expected role in facilitating developmental industrial projects under Putin; 2) their informal workings with Putin’s “sistema” networks; 3) their manifestation of the state-business relations under Putin’s Russia.