Publications

В центре внимания данной монографии находятся дестабилизационные процессы, протекающие в модернизирующихся социально-политических системах. Настоящая работа представляет собой попытку учесть, насколько это возможно, влияние демографических, культурных, политических и экономических факторов на дестабилизацию такого рода систем. Монография состоит из трех частей. В первой части рассматриваются теоретические аспекты модернизации стран мир-системной периферии и полупериферии, а также связь модернизационных процессов с дестабилизационными. Во второй части представлены результаты количественного анализа и моделирования социально-политической динамики модернизирующихся систем. Наконец, в третьей части анализируется социально-политическая динамика отдельных стран и регионов. Монография будет интересна не только специалистам, но и всем, кто интересуется дестабилизационными процессами и революциями, их причинами, факторами и механизмами.

Purpose: The purpose of the article is to determine the scenarios innovational development of the Russian AIC in the conditions of the EAEU and to develop a competitive model of this development. Methodology: The authors use the method of qualitative scenario analysis for determining the scenarios of innovational development of the Russian AIC in the conditions of the EAEU and the method of modeling of socio-economic processes and systems and the method of formalization (graphic presentation of the results of modeling) for creating a competitive model of innovational development of the Russian AIC in the conditions of the EAEU. Results: Three scenarios of innovational development of the modern Russia’s AIC are determined–technical modernization, ecologization, and transition to AIC 4.0–each of which envisages narrow specialization and cannot guarantee high competitiveness of the studied complex. For receiving the highest advantages from innovational development of the modern Russia’s AIC, it is offered to combine all three scenarios that have to determine the directions of this development. Due to this, the manufactured food products will be diversified and, therefore, will be less dependent on the change of consumer preferences in separate segments of the market and fluctuations of the world prices for food. This will ensure high global competitiveness of development of the Russian AIC, as the platform of the EAEU will provide export to the participants of this integration union and to the world markets. Recommendations: A competitive model of innovational development of the Russian AIC in the conditions of the EAEU is developed and recommended for practical application. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020.

The idea of state of exception and sovereignty presented by Italian political philosopher Giorgio Agamben in the aftermath of post September 11 context generated a new discourse in the realms of public law and political philosophy on how law and its protection becomes invalid under state of exception as Agamben showed how suspension of constitutional liberties within so called state of exception legally erases any status of an individual regardless international legal or constitutional norms. However, this article seeks to examine how Agamben had excluded the nature of state of emergency doctrine in colonial societies under European colonialism, where emergency regulations were frequently adopted by colonial masters in subordinating the colonized and at the same time this article will focus on the racial element appeared behind enacting state of emergency in both colonial era and modern states. The objective of this article lies in underpinning much important, yet neglected two factors in whole state of emergency scenario. The results emerging from this article will demonstrate how Eurocentric academic thinking has abandoned some real pertinent issues in constructing the notion on state of emergency

This article investigates the role of boards in founder-managed firms with concentrated ownership in emerging markets. The literature frequently suggests that in this type of companies, boards have little influence on the corporate decision making. The article conducts a case study of AFK Sistema—a large Russian founder-managed firm with concentrated ownership. We observe that, contrary to the expectations, in this company, the founder provided real authority to the board, at the same time focusing on recruiting independent (mainly foreign) members. Based on this case, we argue that selectively empowering boards in this type of ownership setting could be beneficial for the firm: Selective empowerment is a source of intrinsic motivationfor the independent board members, making them proactively search for new projects and assist in their implementation on behalf of the firm. As a result, the company can overcome a number of important barriers in its development.

It would not be an exaggeration to remark that China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has created a dazzling discourse in academia since its inception in 2013 and that the number of papers, books and monographs written on this gigantic project have shown the good, bad and ugly side of a BRI that encompasses around 70 per cent of the world population. Yet, the Chinese vision of reviving its historical legacy of the silk road and Xi Jing Ping’s dream of China’s participation on the global stage have not received quite the favourable reception it expected around the world with its implications being treated in some quarters even with a strong sense of scepticism.

Background The epidemiological transition of non-communicable diseases replacing infectious diseases as the main contributors to disease burden has been well documented in global health literature. Less focus, however, has been given to the relationship between sociodemographic changes and injury. The aim of this study was to examine the association between disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) from injury for 195 countries and territories at different levels along the development spectrum between 1990 and 2017 based on the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 2017 estimates.Methods Injury mortality was estimated using the GBD mortality database, corrections for garbage coding and CODEm—the cause of death ensemble modelling tool. Morbidity estimation was based on surveys and inpatient and outpatient data sets for 30 cause-of-injury with 47 nature-of-injury categories each. The Socio-demographic Index (SDI) is a composite indicator that includes lagged income per capita, average educational attainment over age 15 years and total fertility rate.Results For many causes of injury, age-standardised DALY rates declined with increasing SDI, although road injury, interpersonal violence and self-harm did not follow this pattern. Particularly for self-harm opposing patterns were observed in regions with similar SDI levels. For road injuries, this effect was less pronounced.Conclusions The overall global pattern is that of declining injury burden with increasing SDI. However, not all injuries follow this pattern, which suggests multiple underlying mechanisms influencing injury DALYs. There is a need for a detailed understanding of these patterns to help to inform national and global efforts to address injury-related health outcomes across the development spectrum.

The paper investigates the impact of an electoral support for president for short- and long-term transfers between national and provincial governments in tutelary regimes. The research uses the case of Iran; the database covers 330 observations for 30/31 provinces for 2005-2015. The results show that Iranian presidents target short-term transfers for disloyal provincial elites, while long-term transfers do not show political connection with voting patterns. The results also allow for assuming that the key factor for the logic of distribution is a political competition.

What characteristics of firms give them the confidence to invest in settings rife with expropriation by local officials? Empirically, firms in the developing world often face the threat of expropriation from local agents of the state rather than a centralized autocrat. Because policing local officials is costly, the state cannot easily credibly commit to doing so. This has negative consequences for investment. We argue that one solution is to allow firms to approach the state directly to ask for intervention. Not all firms are equally able to successfully get the attention of the state, however, so this mechanism only works for some. We develop an argument about the firm-level characteristics – large-scale employment, political connections, foreign ownership, and business association membership – that should make the central state more attentive to calls for help. Because firm with these characteristics are more likely to secure intervention against predatory bureaucrats, the latter are less likely to try to expropriate them. These firms’ investment decisions should be less sensitive to local expropriation than other firms. We test this argument using data on cases of decentralized expropriation across Russia’s regions and firm-level data from a cross-regional, large scale survey of Russian firms.

Like all empires, the Soviet Empire was also based on the distinction centre–periphery. Although the Soviet Empire no longer exists, relationships between centres and peripheries still shape realities in the region. The book analyses the relevance of this distinction for the understanding of political, economic, and cultural realities in the post-Soviet space. Case studies provided by scholars from different countries of the former Soviet Union explore the potential of the distinction in historical as well as in economic and political perspectives.

 

В статье рассматриваются вопросы прогнозирования микроклимата городов и ветроэнергетического потенциала жилых зданий применительно к России, Северной и Восточной Европе. В исследовании проанализирована климатическая структура крупного города, биоклиматический комфорт, а также представлен климатический анализ на примере Москвы. Уточнена взаимосвязь ветрового режима с климатическими и градостроительными факторами. Представлены возможные подходы к оценке ветроэнергетического потенциала здания. Проанализирован зарубежный опыт и классификация факторов, влияющих на размещение ветроэнергетических установок. Отмечена возможность детализации данных микроклимата по ветровому режиму для размещения ветроэлектростанций с учетом благоустройства и озеленения городов. Рассмотрен вопрос первичной привязки ветроэнергетических установок в строительстве на основе ветроэнергетического потенциала зданий и территорий. Концепция "Умного города" рассматривается с целью формирования системы управления ветроэнергетическим потенциалом в городском строительстве и оценки комфортности аэрации для пешеходов с интеграцией в градостроительное энергетическое моделирование (УБЭМ).

A review of the book Margin of Trust. The Berkshire Business Model from Lawrence A. Cunningham and Stephanie Cuba (2020).

 

Accountability—constraints on a government’s use of political power—is one of the cornerstones of good governance. However, conceptual stretching and a lack of reliable measures have limited cross-national research on this concept. To address this research gap, we use V-Dem data and innovative Bayesian methods to develop new indices of accountability and its subtypes: the extent to which governments are accountable to citizens (vertical accountability), other state institutions (horizontal accountability), and the media and civil society (diagonal accountability). In this article, we describe the conceptual and empirical framework underlying these indices and demonstrate their content, convergent, and construct validity. The resulting indices have unprecedented coverage (1900–present) and offer researchers and policymakers new opportunities to investigate the causes and consequences of accountability and its disaggregated subtypes. Furthermore, the methodology provides a framework for theoretically driven index construction to scholars working with cross-national panel data.

The chapter 1) introduces the latest volume of the conference proceedings of HSE's annual German conference "Welt und Wissenschaft", 2) reviews emerging trends in policy-responses to the Corona epidemic, and 3) highlights two recent publications on the German-Russian relationship.

Corporate volunteering is a type of an organized prosocial behavior which is often defined as the dedication of time, knowledge, or skills by an employee through a planned activity for an external social purpose, nonprofit, charitable group, or organization (Grant 2012; Rodell et al. 2016). Corporate volunteering is organized, encouraged, supported, and/or facilitated by an employer during company time or in an employee’s own time without additional compensation or direct personal remuneration (de Gilder et al. 2005). Employees volunteer with other parties, including local, domestic, or within the international community on behalf of the employer. Employees are the core target audience of corporate volunteering, but it sometimes incorporates their relatives, retired employees, suppliers, clients or business partners, and other stakeholders.

 

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is not as new a phenomenon for Russia as it is considered to be. Despite the prevalence of CSR among Russian corporations and considerable budgets, the number of corporate foundations is limited to a few tens. This chapter develops explanations for a narrow prevalence of corporate foundations as a tool of CSR. The chapter is based on the available statistical information, corporate social reports and interviews with representatives of the corporate foundations. Three aspects are examined. The first is a statistical portrait of the subsector of corporate foundations: its size, funding models, payouts, projects being funded, etc. The second point is an institutional context: the current legislation on foundations and CSR, and the tax regulations. The third aspect to be covered is a hybrid role of corporate foundations, their operation in the social policy and the non-profit sector. The chapter concludes with a discussion on comparative advantages and weaknesses of corporate foundations in an emerging Russian market.

The Arctic Council is well-positioned to play a leadership role in better understanding the impact of Covid-19 in the Arctic and spearheading activities to respond to the pandemic in the short-, medium- and longer-term. This briefing document was prepared to inform initial discussions regarding the coronavirus pandemic in the Arctic at the Senior Arctic Officials’ executive meeting (SAOX) on 24-25 June 2020. It draws together available information – to date (June 2020) – about the impact of Covid-19 in the Arctic: Briefing Document for SAOs June 2020 For public release Page 10 of 83 Covid-19 and the actions taken to respond in the Arctic region. The document draws from a wide spectrum of sources, reflecting the complex and intricate nature of how Covid-19 affects Arctic peoples and communities, including national and subnational statistical databases and tools, peer-reviewed articles, policy statements, technical guidelines, field surveys, and local observations from Arctic communities.

How and when are governments able to encourage firms and schools to work together to develop workers’ skills? Upgrading the quality of human capital in the workforce is widely seen as a key challenge faced by countries looking to escape the “middle income trap.” Growing attention has been paid to public-private partnerships (PPP) between individual firms and schools as a powerful tool for meeting this challenge, but key facilitators of PPP thought crucial in existing studies – strong, independent employers’ associations and labor unions – are often missing in such settings. To explore the emergence of PPP in skill development in the developing world, we draw on recent reform experiences in Russia’s regions that have led to a surge in complex, costly forms of PPP despite weakly developed business associations and unions. We argue that variation in the administrative capacity of regional governments and their political accountability explains this surge. Strong administrative capacity reassures all parties that regional authorities can monitor their counterparties’ compliance with agreements, while political accountability creates incentives for authorities to do so. We test our argument using original data on the existence and content of firm-school partnerships across all Russia’s regions for 2013.

The paper introduces the concept of energy periphery to interrogate place-based perspectives on the co-production of uneven geographical development, energy vulnerabilities and low carbon transitions. Energy periphery is defined as places that are systematically disadvantaged through the whole energy system due to their inferior position within the asymmetrical spatial distribution of material, economic, political and symbolic resources and capabilities. Within an energy periphery, energy-related factors are combined with other place-based conditions to subject their communities to a compound and circular effect of precarious energy experiences. The notion of energy periphery is underpinned by insights from the spatial justice, core-periphery and energy justice theories. Using the case of Wales, the paper demonstrates the multi-dimensional and multi-scalar character of energy peripheralization, including political underrepresentation, the absence of economic agglomeration advantages, and dependence on off-grid fuels, energy inefficient homes and other ‘backward’ technologies and practices. Social and spatial contingencies of end-use energy vulnerability factors are outlined. Contrary to common discourses, energy transition further disadvantages energy peripheries and reproduces a fragmented socio-spatial landscape. The study overall demonstrates the importance of considering energo-socio-spatial relationships to better understand uneven energy transitions and social change more generally.

Conference proceedings of the V. annual German conference at the National Research University Higher School of Economics in Moscow, April 17, 2019.

Background While there is a long history of measuring death and disability from injuries, modern research methods must account for the wide spectrum of disability that can occur in an injury, and must provide estimates with sufficient demographic, geographical and temporal detail to be useful for policy makers. The Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 2017 study used methods to provide highly detailed estimates of global injury burden that meet these criteria.

Methods In this study, we report and discuss the methods used in GBD 2017 for injury morbidity and mortality burden estimation. In summary, these methods included estimating cause-specific mortality for every cause of injury, and then estimating incidence for every cause of injury. Non-fatal disability for each cause is then calculated based on the probabilities of suffering from different types of bodily injury experienced.

Results GBD 2017 produced morbidity and mortality estimates for 38 causes of injury. Estimates were produced in terms of incidence, prevalence, years lived with disability, cause-specific mortality, years of life lost and disability-adjusted life-years for a 28-year period for 22 age groups, 195 countries and both sexes.

Conclusions GBD 2017 demonstrated a complex and sophisticated series of analytical steps using the largest known database of morbidity and mortality data on injuries. GBD 2017 results should be used to help inform injury prevention policy making and resource allocation. We also identify important avenues for improving injury burden estimation in the future.