Demokratizatsiya最新文献

{"title":"The New Imperial Russia","authors":"M. Goldman","doi":"10.3200/DEMO.16.1.9-16","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3200/DEMO.16.1.9-16","url":null,"abstract":"How unsettling it was to read that President Vladimir Putin ordered the Russian air force to send its strategic, nuclear-armed Bear long-range TU-95 and Blackjack TU 160 bombers back on patrol missions around the world. It means that once again Russian bombers will be flying missions over the Arctic, Atlantic, and Pacific oceans, to the edge of U.S., Japanese, and European airspace and far from Russian borders. Moreover, just a few days earlier, Chief Admiral Vladimir Masoein, Russia's navy commander, declared that Russia would reestablish a formidable naval presence in the Mediterranean, not a sea contiguous to Russia itself.Fifteen years ago, when Demokratizatsiya made its first appearance, Russia had ceased such missions-not because it did not want to, but because it could not afford to. (If the United States keeps squandering its resources in Iraq, there may well come a time when the United States will face similar cutbacks.) Not only did the USSR disintegrate in 1991 but so had the Cold War. Putting an end to more than seventy years of confrontation, Russia under Boris Yeltsin reversed course and embraced democracy and the market, or at least its own Slavic versions. This was seen as eliminating most of the ideological differences separating East and West. As for the remaining balance-of-power issues, particularly between Russia and the United States, they were largely put aside, if for no other reason than that Russia seemed to be near bankruptcy. After the financial breakdown of August 17, 1998, when Russia defaulted on its debt and most of its banks were forced to close, Russia was indeed bankrupt. Through most of the 1990s, Russian military forces lacked the funds to fuel their planes for more than a few hours a week. The TU-95s and TU-160s were kept on the ground. Russia's inability to suppress rebels in Chechnya in 1994-96 highlighted how far Russia had fallen from its superpower status. If Russia could not put down a rebellion within its borders, how could it be expected to be any more effective outside those borders? Moreover, with widespread unemployment, a ruble few inside or outside Russia wanted, and a country sacked by rapacious oligarchs and contending mafia clans, it seemed it would be many decades before Russia would again be able to afford to fund its military and political adventures and aspirations.But sooner than anyone anticipated, the economy began to recover. Within a year after the August 1998 collapse, there were already signs of revival. In August 1999, after trying out four different prime ministers, Yeltsin finally settled on a virtual unknown, Vladimir Putin. By then, helped by the rising price of petroleum, industrial production in September 1999 began to grow at rates as high as 20 percent per year. Admittedly, this was against a backdrop of a 15 percent decline in September 1998, but in 1999, GDP for the whole year rose almost 6.5 percent.Looking back, many observers unfairly credit the turnaround in the econo","PeriodicalId":39667,"journal":{"name":"Demokratizatsiya","volume":"8 1","pages":"9-15"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72800133","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Anti-Americanism, Anti-Westernism, and Anti-Semitism among Russia's Muslims","authors":"G. Hahn","doi":"10.3200/DEMO.16.1.49-62","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3200/DEMO.16.1.49-62","url":null,"abstract":"Although many in the West do not subscribe to Samuel Huntington's view regarding a \"clash of civilizations,\" many of the world's Muslims and all Islamists do. An expression of the Islamic world's clash with Western civilization is its rabid anti-Americanism, anti-Westernism, anti-Semitism, and Islamic solidarity. Russia's Muslims are no exception. They express the same limited and prejudiced range of opinions that many Muslims around the world do toward the West. Despite this, some in the West persist in believing that even Russia's most extremist Muslims-the North Caucasus jihadists led by the Chechen hub calling itself the Chechen Republic of Ichkeriya (ChRI)-are neither jihad-ists nor militants.1 Many analysts believe the Caucasus militants compose a noble national liberation movement rightly seeking their separation from an imperial or colonial power, as they have for centuries.2 They scrupulously and relentlessly subject Russian actions to microscopic analysis and harsh criticism, but largely ignore and routinely abstain from criticizing the Caucasus jihadists' means, methods, and ideology.3In fact, the Islamist element has held sway over the Chechen militants since the summer of 2002. Islamists Shamil Basayev and Shariah Court Chairman Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev forced President Aslan Maskhadov to amend the ChRI constitution, subordinating him and the constitution to Shariah law as interpreted by Chechen and other Caucasus jihad-ists. The Chechen separatist movement expanded the war to the wider North Caucasus region and aimed to expand it to all of Russia's \"Muslim lands\" to establish an Islamic state or federation of Islamic states. The Caucasus jihad adopted the global jihadist tactics of suicide bombing and improvised explosive devices. Ideological declarations were increasingly Salafist Islamist in character, championing Shariah law, martyrdom, Islamic caliphates, and anti-infidelism over Chechen or Caucasus nationalism and independence, anticolonialism, and anti-Russian elements.4I will examine anti-Americanism, anti-Westernism, and anti-Semitism-all of which for purposes of brevity I refer to at times as anti-infidelism-among Russia's various Muslim orientations as reflected in the jihadists' and the moderate Muslim elite's discourses on global affairs. Anti-American messages from the outside Muslim world, Russia's Islamic media and elite, and non-Islamic Russian media are among the factors that foster such sentiments among Russia's Muslims. I focus on Muslim articulations because Western media and think tanks have covered anti-infidelism extensively, while coverage of Russia's Muslims has been nonexistent. The Islamic political elite, as the Muslims' leadership and as potential and kinetic ethnoconfessional entrepreneurs, are of pivotal importance for the direction that many of Russia's re-Islamizing ethnic Muslims might take in the future, particularly in relation to jihad against Russian or other infidels. The Islamic elite play the k","PeriodicalId":39667,"journal":{"name":"Demokratizatsiya","volume":"19 1","pages":"49-60"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75994081","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Still 'treading air'? Looking at the post-enlargement challenges to democracy in the Baltic States","authors":"D. Galbreath","doi":"10.3200/DEMO.16.1.87-96","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3200/DEMO.16.1.87-96","url":null,"abstract":"In the novel Treading Air by Estonian novelist Jaan Kroos, the character Ullo shares his story about changes during the Soviet occupation following World War II.1 Ullo concentrates on the changes brought about by Sovietization and uses the metaphor \"treading air\" to illustrate working hard for no return. With the Soviet occupation, political, economic, and cultural life was transformed in the Baltic region. Likewise, Europeanization is reshaping Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Of the post-Soviet states, the Baltic states have outshone all others in terms of democratic and economic transition. Even in terms of Central and Eastern Europe, the Baltic states have done well alongside countries such as the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland. Nevertheless, they still have challenges to democracy, like all states. Never have politicians in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania considered enlargement to be the solution to all of their problems, but rather a strategy for improving their ability to deal with these challenges. Over three years on from European Union (EU) enlargement, I look at the persistent challenges to democracy in the Baltic states and ask the question, are they still \"treading air\"?As a way of teasing out these challenges, I concentrate on two areas prevalent in the three Baltic states, to lesser and greater degrees. The first issue is the state of political corruption. Corruption still dogs Baltic politics, especially in Latvia and Lithuania, although Estonia is not immune. Most recently, questions of corruption have developed surrounding the Ventspils mayor and new Latvian president, Valdis Zatlers, who has confirmed taking bribes in his past job as a medical doctor. Although no country is free of corruption, the Baltic states still experience particular opportunities for corruption that are largely to do with economic and political transition. Second, I look at the status of the social integration projects in Estonia and Latvia. Each state has chosen similar but varied paths to dealing with the large Russian-speaking communities in their midst. With the recent \"bronze solider\" riots in Tallinn in mind, I examine whether the social integration projects are working. Before I look at these challenges in the Baltic context, I discuss how far the Baltic states have come.From One Union to AnotherEstonia's, Latvia's, and Lithuania's trails from Soviet republics to EU member states are quite remarkable. While the Baltic states experienced interwar independence, the three societies largely had to build new states from scratch. Even before the end of occupation, the Baltic Republics, along with the rest of the Soviet Union, began to experiment with electoral democracy. The democratically elected \"people's fronts\" led the way to Baltic independence and to three burgeoning democracies. In Estonia and Latvia, the moderate \"people's fronts\" vied for political power with the nationalist \"citizen's com-mittees.\" In both states, the \"Fatherland\" parties, I","PeriodicalId":39667,"journal":{"name":"Demokratizatsiya","volume":"16 1","pages":"87-96"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69881838","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Russia and China in the Global Economy","authors":"H. Balzer","doi":"10.3200/DEMO.16.1.37-48","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3200/DEMO.16.1.37-48","url":null,"abstract":"In mid-December 2004, Baikal Finanz, a previously unheard-of Russian firm with no offices and no known officers, won a nontransparent auction to buy Yuganskneftegaz, the major oil production asset of Yukos, Russia's most efficient oil company. The same week Lenovo, a computer firm established twenty years earlier as a venture of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, purchased IBM's personal computer division. Most people looking at Russia and China when Mao died in 1976 assumed that Russia1 was better positioned to become a major player in global technology industries. The Soviet Union was participating in the Apollo Soyuz joint space missions and enjoying the benefits of detente and stability (not yet visible stagnation) under Brezhnev. The USSR was a superpower with many of the \"requisites\" for development. In literacy levels and numbers of scientific, technical, and other specialists with advanced education, Russia was far ahead of China's overwhelmingly peasant society just emerging from the chaos of the Cultural Revolution and accompanying isolation.Since Mao's death China has generated high economic growth rates for three decades, fostering internationally competitive industries and lifting a significant number of people out of poverty. Beginning in the late 1980s, Russia experienced severe economic dislocations, and economic growth resumed only after a fall in living standards and the 1998 financial crisis. Most of the growth in Russia since August 1998 is attributable to the ruble devaluation and increased oil prices, raising questions about its sustainability. Despite windfall oil revenues, Russia's growth rate since Vladimir Putin became president has been among the lowest in former USSR countries.Growth based on industry has helped China overtake Russia on a range of human capital and development indicators. Internet and cell phone use among China's urban population is now roughly equivalent to that of Russia's city dwellers. Spending for education and reserach and development as a proportion of national budgets is at least equal. China is an important global player in a growing number of technology industries and in the international economic system, things Russian leaders merely talk about.What accounts for an outcome that contradicts most people's expectations? My argument emphasizes differing approaches to integration with the international economy. China has embraced economic globalization and integration on a scale surpassing many other Asian countries, while Russia remains wary and peripheral. Russia's economy is open, but selling natural resources and arms generates few linkages leading to higher value-added production. Russia's economic integration is \"thin.\" China's integration is \"thick,\" involving participation in technology chains and participation in entire product cycles. China vastly overperforms in producing value-added products given its level of development; Russia markedly underperforms relative to the industrial base, e","PeriodicalId":39667,"journal":{"name":"Demokratizatsiya","volume":"164 1","pages":"37-47"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83246620","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Out of Order: Russian Political Values in an Imperfect World","authors":"B. Wilkening","doi":"10.5860/choice.45-0501","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5860/choice.45-0501","url":null,"abstract":"Out of Order: Russian Political Values in an Imperfect World, Ellen Carnaghan. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2007. 330 pp. $55.00.Ellen Carnaghan's Out of Order looks at Russians' understanding of democracy through a series of intensive interviews. Carnaghan's primary target is the thesis that Russian culture is somehow inimical to democracy and that this cultural straitjacket has hindered democratic consolidation. Various surveys have indicated that Russians hold ambivalent attitudes toward democracy and free markets. Carnaghan's argument is that such attitudes are not evidence of hostility among Russians toward democracy per se, but rather indicate dissatisfaction with the functioning of existing institutions. For Carnaghan, political values are more likely to be a function of the perceptions of one's own social environment than they are of any deep-rooted cultural legacies. Her goal is \"to show that it is the disorderly nature of social life-not inherited authoritarianism-that best explains the nature of Russian social and political values\" (39).In chapter 3, Carnaghan reviews the main limitations of mass surveys and lays out the research design. She conducted in-depth interviews with sixty Russians between 1998 and 2003. She appears to have maximized variance among her respondents as best as she could and also conducted similarly structured interviews with a smaller set of American respondents for a comparative perspective.Chapters 4-8 constitute the empirical core of the book. Chapter 4 looks at responses to questions about legislative and executive institutions. Her respondents registered many complaints about the State Duma, a finding that is echoed in much of the mass survey literature. Carnaghan argues that this does not represent disdain for representative institutions but instead demonstrates dissatisfaction with the way that Russia's parliament has operated. Indeed, many of her respondents acknowledged the essentiality of a legislature that acts as a check on the president's power. Much of the cultural-determinist literature that is skeptical of the prospects for democracy in Russia centers on the assumption that Russians have a preference for strong, authoritarian leaders who will provide stability. Many of Carnaghan's Moscow-based respondents voice such preferences through their praise of Mayor Yuri Luzhkov and their measured praise of Putin. However, Carnaghan argues that the popularity of Luzhkov and Putin does not reflect the authoritarian impulses of her respondents. Instead, these leaders were praised for their effectiveness. Overall, she found a great deal of overlap between her Russian and American respondents in terms of their criteria for effective presidential leadership, and her Russian respondents did not evince any notable enthusiasm for authoritarian rulers. …","PeriodicalId":39667,"journal":{"name":"Demokratizatsiya","volume":"1 1","pages":"456"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82892579","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Unified Energy Systems of Russia (RAO-UES) in Central Asia and the Caucasus: Nets of Interdependence","authors":"T. Sabonis-Helf","doi":"10.3200/DEMO.15.4.429-444","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3200/DEMO.15.4.429-444","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: Most Central Asian and Caucasus countries have, to some extent, transformed and privatized their electricity sectors using the World Bank's advice. In recent years, the Russian parastatal Unified Energy Systems of Russia (RAO-UES) has purchased much of the generation and transmission assets that were made available. This article examines the transformation of the post-Soviet electricity sector. The author explores how RAO-UES became the most important foreign investor, even in states that have problematic relations with Moscow, the advantages and disadvantages of RAO-UES participation for the successor states, and the energy security implications of the grid as it now exists for these southern states. Keywords: Caucasus energy, Central Asia energy, electricity sector restructuring, politics of electricity, RAO-UES, Russian electricity grid Introduction Although oil and gas have received the most attention from the international community, something remarkable has been happening in Russian electricity generation. In the fall of 2003, the former Soviet republics began operating on a parallel, integrated grid for the first time. (1) This long-dreamed-of goal of Soviet planners was finally accomplished under the corporate leadership of the Russian Joint-Stock Company--Unified Energy Systems of Russia (henceforth RAO-UES). Synchronization of the grid means that the electrical generators across the post-Soviet space are operating in coordination with each other and that shortfalls in one area can be made up with surpluses from another. The coordination has been maintained by the eleven states of the CIS Electric Energy Council but led by RAO-UES. Since coming under RAO-UES's leadership, the member states have seen an increase in the quality and reliability of their electricity. But in several states the energy security implications continue to raise concerns. The Russian idiom for an electricity network is \"net\" rather than the English \"grid.\" Are the successor states of the Soviet Union becoming caught up in a net of electricity dependency? This article examines the reasons for the ascendancy of RAO-UES in Central Asia and the Caucasus--regions where acquisitions have been recent and extensive. It will also examine the ways in which each of the concerned states has attempted to constrain RAO-UES or to allow the corporation to pursue acquisitions while safeguarding the state's own interests. RAO-UES RAO-UES has not merely synchronized the grid covering the former Soviet space. The corporation has reorganized and, in large measure, purchased it. With ownership of an installed capacity of 157.7 million kilowatts and 2,479,000 kilometers of transmission lines, (2) the RAO-UES Holding Company has an enormous footprint. By comparison, Electricite de France--the largest electricity company in Europe--has only 130.7 million kilowatts of installed capacity. (3) RAO-UES is a parastatal corporation in which the Russian state holds controlling shares. A","PeriodicalId":39667,"journal":{"name":"Demokratizatsiya","volume":"71 1","pages":"429-444"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75863502","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Energy Dependence and Political Power: Some Paradoxes","authors":"G. Quester","doi":"10.3200/DEMO.15.4.445-454","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3200/DEMO.15.4.445-454","url":null,"abstract":"A normal view of international power politics and related issues of economics is that an energy supplier will hold tremendous power and influence over an energy user. This strikes most people as merely common sense.But the opposite can also be true, as the user acquires power and influence over the supplier. The complexities of an increasingly interdependent world may thus present surprises on all sides, with the location of political power being more difficult to sort and predict, and with the joint gains of exploiting economic exchanges, perhaps coming out ahead of considerations of relative power.1There are a number of examples. The initial impression of the relationship between OPEC and oil recipients was that the OPEC states would be free to do as they chose, dictating policy changes to the advanced industrialized democracies.2 But the realization soon set in in Iran and Saudi Arabia and the various Emirates that they needed oil-dependent economies and the advanced products and technologies that could only come from such economies. Rather than holding back oil output to achieve maximum revenue and maximum reserves for the future, these oil exporters thus kept output at higher levels. If the West did not get the oil it wanted, Riyadh might not have all the air conditioners it would need in the future. (A more classic constraint on monopolies also applied because the Saudis had to fear that if oil supplies were cut too much their normal customers would find regular sources of higher-priced oil elsewhere or develop other sources of energy.)A similar kind of debate pertained in the early 1980s to the question of whether Western European countries should invest in a pipeline connecting them to Soviet sources of natural gas.3 The Reagan administration counseled against this, arguing that Moscow would be able to dictate all kinds of policy changes to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries by threatening to hold back natural gas whenever its foreign policy requests were ignored. It was forecast to be another form of \"Finlandization,\" where the Western Europeans would be forced to agree, more than they wanted to, with the Soviet view of the world. It would not be because of the threat of a Soviet conventional invasion or a nuclear attack, but because of the threat of an economic punishment.The West European countries took some elementary precautions to prepare for the threat of such a cutoff-for example, by requiring new industrial plants to be of a multifuel variety so that the heating for the elderly in German cities would not have to be turned off even if Soviet natural gas were cut off. The Western Europeans went ahead with the pipeline. The ensuing years did not see a noticeable Finlandization of the NATO countries. Instead there was a Western victory in the Cold War. The Berlin Wall came down, Germany was unified, the Warsaw Pact collapsed, and the Soviet Union broke into pieces.One can find yet another example in the economic ","PeriodicalId":39667,"journal":{"name":"Demokratizatsiya","volume":"1 1","pages":"445-454"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90898003","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Russia and the United States: No Longer Rivals, Not Yet Partners","authors":"R. H. Matzke","doi":"10.3200/DEMO.15.4.371-378","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3200/DEMO.15.4.371-378","url":null,"abstract":"At the start of the twentieth century, consumer oil supplies were almost entirely controlled by Russia and the United States. Today, the market is much less monopolistic: there are major oil export centers in the Middle East, North and West Africa, South America, and the North Sea. But Russia remains a leading oil supplier to the global market. In 2006, it became the world leader in deliveries, surpassing Saudi Arabia. The United States, on the other hand, has, over the past century, become the world's largest oil importer. Half of the oil used in the United States is brought in from other countries.Despite the changes that have taken place, the former rivals have not become strategic partners. In looking for alternatives to Persian Gulf oil supplies, the United States is inclined to West Africa. Seeking to reduce its dependence on the European market, Russia is increasing its cooperation with the countries of the Asia-Pacific region.Although they need each other, Russia and the United States are nonetheless moving in opposite directions. This is regrettable, particularly if you consider that the world is on the threshold of creating a global natural gas market.Beginning of the Twentieth Century: The Rise and Fall of Baku OilFor Russia, the beginning of the twentieth century was marked by the active development of the Baku oil industry. In 1901 the area produced 220,000 barrels per day (bpd), more than half of the world's output. As in the United States, the main role in the development of the Russian oil production sector was played by private capital.However, in the United States this capital came from within the country. The founder of the famous Standard Oil Trust was John Davison Rockefeller, the son of a doctor from New York. Investors in Russian oil production were not only domestic companies (the Nobel Brothers Petroleum Company and the Russian General Oil Corporation) but also French (the Rothschilds) and later Anglo-Dutch (Royal Dutch/Shell).The 1917 revolution and subsequent nationalization changed the direction of development of the Russian oil industry.For American and European companies, the 1920s and 1930s were a period of active international expansion. In 1928 the managers of Royal Dutch/Shell, Standard Oil of New Jersey (the future Exxon), and the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (the future BP) reached an agreement on joint measures to explore and develop deposits in the world's main oil-producing regions. They were later joined by Standard Oil of California (the future Chevron), Standard Oil of New York (the future Mobil), Texas Company (the future Texaco), and Gulf Oil. The informal association came to be called the \"Seven Sisters.\" The consortium's coordinated actions allowed it to monopolize oil production and supply on the world markets for several decades.At the same time, the Soviet Union was making efforts to restore production-which had decreased considerably because of the civil war and the nationalization of the oil industr","PeriodicalId":39667,"journal":{"name":"Demokratizatsiya","volume":"5 1","pages":"371-378"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82066138","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Energy Reform in Russia and the Implications for European Energy Security","authors":"R. F. Price","doi":"10.3200/DEMO.15.4.390-407","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3200/DEMO.15.4.390-407","url":null,"abstract":"The Russian natural gas and power industries are currently undergoing a reform that has potentially far-reaching consequences for Europe's gas supply and energy security. After fifteen years of subsidizing domestic industry through the regulation of natural gas and electricity prices, the Russian government has embarked on an ambitious program of price deregulation that will result in free market pricing for domestic industrial consumers by 2011. This program has involved many politically difficult decisions about the best use of Russia's comparative advantage in indigenous energy resources and the state's responsibility for the support of the national economy through the subsidy of domestic industry. It has also highlighted a complex identity within Gazprom and revealed that its relationship with the Kremlin is not as harmonious as one might expect.Conceived as a national champion company by the Russian government, which holds a majority of its stock, Gazprom has been expected not only to provide cheap supplies of natural gas to support the development of Russian industry but to secure Russian government interests in international business. However, despite their close relationship to President Putin, Gazprom's CEO, Aleksei Miller, and Chairman, Dmitry Medvedev, have been showing greater concern for Gazprom's profitability and survival and have been giving greater consideration to how macroeconomic factors influence the profitability of industry and the sustainability of economic development. Arguing that cheap electricity, and the need for an abudance of cheap natural gas to supply cheap electricity, was actually a hindrance to healthy domestic development, Gapzrom has successfully persuaded the government to abandon price regulation in favor of a free energy market. Although domestic price reform was a key recommendation of the World Trade Organization for Russia's admittance, the final program won by Gazprom is far more ambitious. Furthermore, Russia's entry still faces many hurdles and is far from imminent. It may even be delayed until after 2008 and may be deprioritized by Putin's successor. Therefore, Russia has demonstrated a great sense of responsibility in addressing its energy-wasteful practices immediately, and has demonstrated responsible recognition of its best long-term interests.Gazprom's long-term production capacity has been a source of concern both domestically and internationally. Output at Gazprom's main producing fields in the Nadym Par Taz (NPT) region-including the supergiant fields of Urengoy, Yamburg, and Medvezhe-has been in steep decline since the early 2000s. By 2015, production at these fields will be half their peak output. To replace this diminishing output, Gazprom has been developing shallow fields in the Ob and Taz Bays on the Yamal Peninsula. While these shallow fields can complement output from NPT, adequate future supplies can only be guaranteed through the development of major new fields, a move that Gazprom","PeriodicalId":39667,"journal":{"name":"Demokratizatsiya","volume":"17 1","pages":"391"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83906301","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Russia and the European Union: An Outlook for Collaboration and Competition in European Natural Gas Markets","authors":"Michael D. Cohen","doi":"10.3200/DEMO.15.4.379-389","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3200/DEMO.15.4.379-389","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: In the aftermath of recent natural gas and oil supply disruptions to European markets, Russia's long-term supply stability and Europe's natural gas market developments are of utmost concern to both the producer and the consumer. As Europe's indigenous supply declines, it will rely more on gas imports. Concurrently, Russia's domestic gas consumption is growing, its infrastructure continues to age, and Gazprom will continue to rely on both Central Asian imports and growth from independent gas producers to meet its long-term supply commitments. This article discusses a medium-term outlook for Russia and the European Union and outlines the barriers that are inhibiting competition and collaboration in the energy sphere. Keywords: competition, energy markets, energy security, European Union, natural gas, oil, Russia ********** In the past year, the security of natural gas supplies has emerged as one of the top issues of concern for countries in Europe, for the European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and even for the United States. Concerns about natural gas security reflect uncertainty about available natural gas supplies, how supplies are delivered to the market (by pipeline or by liquefied natural gas tanker), and how much is paid for these supplies. In the aftermath of natural gas and oil supply shutoffs from Russia, Europe is trying to ensure its own security of supply through diversification and energy efficiency. Russia is trying to ensure energy security by diversifying its customer base, investing in the entire value chain (not only the upstream), and ensuring adequate investment levels both in its own energy supplies and those of its Central Asian neighbors. The way in which the policies of regional and international organizations differ from the policies of individual states is hampering progress on energy market liberalization and energy efficiency programs, both of which are necessary to achieve stable market relationships between producers and consumers. To accurately frame the policy debate, one must understand the current and future role that natural gas plays for Europe's energy mix. Europe's demand for natural gas is increasing and Russia is the region's main supplier. However, Russia's ability to invest in upstream natural gas development over the next several years will directly contribute to Russia's natural gas production growth and Europe's security of supply. In the meantime, several alternative energy sources and hedging instruments are expected to mitigate Europe's dependency. For the region to best take advantage of these options, continued regional natural gas market liberalization is necessary. Europe and Russia's Natural Gas Interdependence In 2006, Europe depended on Russia for 34 percent of its natural gas imports, including European LNG imports (see figure 1). In contrast, Russia depended on Europe for 60 percent of its natural gas exports, sending the remainder via pipeline to th","PeriodicalId":39667,"journal":{"name":"Demokratizatsiya","volume":"18 1","pages":"379-389"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81282083","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}