OLIGARCHS’, BUSINESS AND RUSSIAN FOREIGN POLICY: FROM EL’TSIN TO PUTIN
The paper investigates the role of private and state-controlled business in the formation and implementation of Russian foreign policy since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The extent to which the ‘oligarchs’ and business more generally followed their own interests in their external relations or acted as tools of the Russian state is a particular focus. Under President Boris El’tsin, Boris Berezovskii was the only one of the oligarchs to have significant influence on Russian foreign policy. President Vladimir Putin’s moves against were the oligarchs motivated partly by the desire to restrict political debate, including on foreign policy, and partly to prevent Mikhail Khodorkovskii from creating a private oil pipeline system which would have subverted Putin’s foreign policy, but the main reason was probably the desire to restore state control over key industrial sectors. Under El’tsin, business had followed its own interests, which sometimes conflicted with Russian foreign policy and sometimes reinforced it; but after Putin’s attacks on the oligarchs, business seemed more integrated into policy implementation, while still following its own interests where they did not conflict with those of the state, as is suggested by a discussion of Gazprom’s foreign policy role.
Year of publication: |
2007-10
|
---|---|
Authors: | Duncan, Peter J S |
Institutions: | Centre for Comparative Economics, School of Slavonic and East European Studies |
Saved in:
freely available
Saved in favorites
Similar items by person
-
Entrepreneurship in Transition Countries: A Review
Aidis, Ruta, (2005)
-
Granville, Brigitte, (2006)
-
Gorzynski, Michal, (2002)
- More ...