Post-Soviet Social by Collier Stephen J.; Collier Stephen J. J.;

Author:Collier, Stephen J.; Collier, Stephen J. J.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2011-09-20T16:00:00+00:00

NEOLIBERALISM BEYOND THE WASHINGTON CONSENSUS

This chapter outlined a rough genealogy of structural adjustment. It showed that the “marketizing” variant of structural adjustment that took shape during the 1980s should not be understood as the pure expression of neoliberal ideology. Instead, it was an assemblage of elements that combined policies oriented to correcting distortions in domestic economies with a particular lending modality that was initially forged as a pragmatic response to the debt crises of the 1970s and 1980s. This convergence emerged from a new problematization of economic crisis that focused not on “external” balances but on the flexibility of domestic economies. I also identified a dynamic tension in this problematization of economic crisis: as liberalization went “deeper” it encountered areas of governmental activity that could not be addressed exclusively through “stroke of the pen” reforms that simply removed state controls. Instead, adjustment required a more complex interweaving of market mechanisms, existing substantive features of Russian cities, and the social welfare goals of government. Thus, in post-Soviet Russia, a project of adjustment initially conceived in purely formal terms, increasingly ran up against, and had to reflect upon and try to manage, the substantive reality created by city-building.

It bears noting that this evolution in the problematization of adjustment coincided with a significant shift in the alignment between national politics, economic processes, and the reform agenda in post-Soviet Russia. For much of the 1990s, it seemed possible to portray structural adjustment as an imposed project that enriched a tiny few while immiserating the great mass of Russians. External support appeared to be aimed, as much as anything, at propping up unpopular domestic reformers, from the Grand Bargain to Yeltsin’s reelection in 1996 to the desperate attempts to stave off devaluation of the ruble in the summer of 1998. But these dynamics changed. The ruble did collapse in August 1998, despite an ill-fated $22.6 billion bailout whose failure turned out to be the coup de grâce for the Western-backed project of transition in Russia. Devaluation was initially seen as a disaster. But the shift in the terms of trade—and a contingent rise in world oil prices—contributed to rapid economic recovery that, among other things, eased the pressures on government finances. One important consequence was a marked loosening of the relationship between the government and IFIs. By the early 2000s, the Russian government had little use for aid from Washington, and Washington’s influence in Moscow was, correspondingly, reduced.37 If in the 1990s critical observers imagined a coherent neoliberal project backed by the United States and the IFIs, then by the early 2000s the specter of the “Washington Consensus” had faded from the scene.

So what has been the fate of neoliberalism in Russia after the devaluation? The presidency of Yeltsin’s successor, Vladimir Putin, scrambled the categories that made sense of the 1990s. His policies have been aggressively centralizing and in important respects authoritarian. Putin undermined the autonomy of local and regional governments, curtailed press freedoms, attacked members of the oligarchy that was so crucial to Yeltsin’s

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.