University of Vaasa - Vaasan yliopisto

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national-level plans to construct a hydro-electric dam, Evenkijskaya Hydro-Electric
Station (EHES) on the Lower Tunguska river. Primary data derived from a variety of
sources allow us to assess the impact of the two sets of stakeholders.
Accordingly, the remainder of the paper unfolds as follows. Section 1 provides a
brief overview of the development of economic and political institutions in the
Russian Federation, as the context for public CSR policy and private practice.
Section 2 offers a conceptual framework for the paper. Section 3 presents findings
concerning the two case studies. In section 4, we return to our underpinning research
questions and draw some conclusions.
The Russian Federation
The Soviet State
Russia has existed as a state for more than one thousand years, having been the
largest of the fifteen republics, in terms of geographical scale and population, which
formerly comprised the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). For most of
the past century, Russia has been at the centre of this economic and political union,
which has exhibited a distinctive trajectory. It is a history (during the 20 th century)
marked by revolutions, civil war, and the introduction of far reaching state control of
the economy leading to collectivisation and nationalisation (Brown 2001; Remington
2004; White et al. 2001). This is a history in which the state has dominated public
and private life and in which civil society has been largely impotent or merely an
extension of the state (Evans 2005).
Post-communism developments: Gorbachev, Yeltsin and Putin
By the 1980s, it had become apparent that the USSR’s economy was lagging behind
the growth rates of western Europe, having been founded on defence and heavy
industries at the cost of consumer goods and services (Waller 2005: 8). At the same
time, questions also began to surface about the political structures and processes in
place. During the 1980s 46 and 1990s, the then Russian leader, Gorbachev, who had
recognised the importance of the exogenous and endogenous economic and political
forces began to initiate reforms known as glasnost (openness) and perestroika
(restructuring) culminating in the creation of the Russian Federation in 1991.
The processes unleashed by Gorbachev can be seen as the antecedents for the
processes of ‘democratization’, ‘marketization’ and ‘international integration’
subsequently pursued by Yeltsin and Putin. Marketization, the process of
restructuring of economic interests, called for a transition from the state-owned
centrally-planned economics of the Soviet system to a market economy (the declared
final objective of marketization). However, the results to date could be said to more
closely resemble an ‘administered economy’ or ‘quasi-market system’ (Brown 2001;
46 For example, this led to regulatory changes such as the 1986 law (that made privately remunerated work legal)
and the Law on Co-operation (that permitted the establishment of cooperative enterprises inexpedient of the
state) and the 1988 Law on State Enterprise that freed enterprises from the ministries that had previously
controlled them allowing them to become quasi-government corporations and some degree of independence.