State Management of Russia’s Strategic Companies under Putin

Panel session on “Business-State Relations in Russia in the Putin Era” at ASEEES Conference, November 21-24, 2013

This study addresses an observation regarding Russia’s state control of strategic companies in the Putin era. Since Vladimir Putin came to power in 2000, the state’s involvement in the economy has increased, and its grip – particularly on the strategic sectors of the economy – has been tightened. In this context, “strategic” requires some clarification, and the “state” includes various actors and influences. In this note, I analyse the ways in which the administration is attempting to manage strategic companies, focusing on (a) the maintenance of the list of strategic companies, which limits the sales of state assets; (b) adoption and implementation of the strategic sectors law, which limits foreigners’ access to Russian companies operating in the strategic sectors; and (c) top-down creation of strategic companies, notably State Corporations (Gosudarstvennye korporatsii) and other state-led conglomerates.