Authors

Andrey Yakovlev¹;  ¹ Davis Center Harvard University, United States

Discussion

The paper considers the concept of variety of capitalism and its evolution during the last 20 years. It shows how the focus of this theory moved from discussion of competition between liberal (LME) and coordinated (CME) market economies to the analysis of dependent market economies (DME) and later to the study of patrimonial market economies (PME) and state-permeated market economies (SME). From the point of view of this theoretical framework the paper considers the changes in the approaches to the development of a market economy in Russia. It explains why the attempts undertaken in 1990s and 2000s to introduce LME and SME in Russia failed and why the economic model formed after all institutional changes should be classified as a mix of PME and DME. The paper describes a new direction in the transformation of the Russian economy after 2012, provides analogies with ‘resistance economy’ in Iran (with critical assessment of long-term prospects of such economic model) and argues that war with Ukraine initiated by Vladimir Putin in February 2022 is сonsequential outcome of such model.