9781800082694
9781800082700
Distributed for UCL Press
The Ambivalence of Power in the Twenty-First Century Economy
Cases from Russia and Beyond
An interdisciplinary perspective on the use and abuse of power in political economy.
This book explores the ambivalent nature of power as wielded in economic practices from an empirical perspective. It offers a collection of country-based cases and critically assesses the existing conceptions of power from a cross-disciplinary perspective. Analyzing power at the macro, meso, and micro levels allows the volume to highlight the complexity of political economy in the twenty-first century. Each chapter addresses key elements of a given political economy (from the ambivalence of the cases of former communist countries that do not conform with the grand narratives about democracy and markets to the dual utility of new technologies such as face-recognition), thus providing mounting evidence for the centrality of understanding ambivalence in the analysis of power.
This book explores the ambivalent nature of power as wielded in economic practices from an empirical perspective. It offers a collection of country-based cases and critically assesses the existing conceptions of power from a cross-disciplinary perspective. Analyzing power at the macro, meso, and micro levels allows the volume to highlight the complexity of political economy in the twenty-first century. Each chapter addresses key elements of a given political economy (from the ambivalence of the cases of former communist countries that do not conform with the grand narratives about democracy and markets to the dual utility of new technologies such as face-recognition), thus providing mounting evidence for the centrality of understanding ambivalence in the analysis of power.
Table of Contents
Series Foreword List of figures List of tables Contributors Acknowledgements Preface Alena Ledeneva 1 Introduction Zoya Kotelnikova and Vadim Radaev Part 1: Interdependency of political power and economic governance: a macroperspective. 2 Interrelation between economic freedom and democracy: the case of post-communist countries Marek Dabrowski 3 The pitfalls of rent-seeking: alternative mechanisms of resource rent collection in Russia and Venezuela Aleksei Pobedonostsev 4 Contradictions of centralisation: four models of interaction between Russian rural communities and government and agribusiness Alexander Nikulin and Alexander Kurakin 5 Legitimation of innovation: the case of AI technology for facial recognition Leonid Kosals Part II: Power struggles in the economy: an organizational perspective 6 Power of non-compliance: inter-firm opportunism in the Russian consumer markets Vadim Radaev 7 Abusive supervision in organizations: power, dependency, and employee voice in labor relations Evgeniya Balabanova 8 Beyond the state and digital platforms: (in)formalization of freelance contracting in Russia Andrey Shevchuk and Denis Strebkov 9 Power struggles and quality construction in the market for municipal rental housing in Sweden Elena Bogdanova 10 Private authority in regulating markets: power dynamics around Free Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) in forestry and the oil industry in Russia Maria Tysiachniouk, Sara Teitelbaum, Andrey Petrov and Leah Horowitz 11 Depriving counterfeiting of legitimacy: how brand holders enforced their intellectual property rights in Russia between the early 2000s and late 2010s Zoya Kotelnikova 12 Academic excellence through homogenization? Gaining legitimacy from the strategic positioning of top ranked universities Ivan Pavlyutkin and Anastasiia Makareva 13 One man’s pill is another man’s poison. Ambivalence of definitional power: the case of breast cancer drugs in Russia Elena Berdysheva 14 ‘Russian Parmesan, even better than the original’: an exploratory research of organic farmers’ valuation strategies Tamara Kusimova Part 3: Resistance to domination and empowerment in the economy: an individual perspective 15 Everyday politics of consumption: why cynical consumers are disappointed citizens. The case of Moscow during the economic crisis of 2014-2017 Regina Resheteeva 16 Childbirth with doulas in Moscow: between empowerment and responsibility Maria Denisova 17 Empowerment of the disempowered: assessing the impact of young Muscovites through ecological practices Daria Lebedeva Index