Reorienting the Institutionalist Analysis of State Capitalism in a Post-Socialist Context: The Vexed Case of Russia

Abstract

This article argues that there are two main roles for the authoritarian regime of state capitalism in post-socialist transition: a constructivist one, in which the state moves market-based national economy toward greater equality, democracy, and social justice, and a predatory one, in which a powerful state leverages its control over the national economy to primarily serve the political needs of the state and advance its geopolitical ambitions. Using modern Russia’s predatory order of state capitalism as a case in point, the paper situates the analysis of these differing models of state capitalism within traditional institutionalism and demonstrates the need for a careful re-evaluation of some standard institutionalist positions. More specifically, the paper advocates for constraining existing particularistic bias in favour of more robust acknowledgement of what is not culturally specific but rather universal and intrinsic to democratic institutions. Furthermore, it calls for rehabilitation of the much- maligned concept of teleology in heterodox institutionalism in order to accurately situate the analysis of potential associated with a positive vision for state capitalism and its role in constructing socially just, democratic and humanist economy.