0000000000359829
AUTHOR
Antonio Sánchez-andrés
Arms exports and restructuring in the Russian defence industry
The defence industry has been one of the industries most seriously affected by the Russian economic crisis since 1992. The main restructuring policy applied in the industry during the first years of transition was conversion, that is, trying to re-use military resources for productive civil ends. By the mid-1990s, however, such a policy was already considered a failure, and since 1997 the Ministry of Economy has taken over the running of the defence industry and changed the direction of reform. In the summer of 1999 the responsibility for the running of the defence industry was transferred to five independent agencies, and this remains the situation. From 1997 the aim was still to restructu…
The transformation of the Russian defence industry
TRADITIONALLY, THE DEFENCE INDUSTRY constituted the most powerful industrial lobby in the USSR, with an administrative structure at all the organisational levels where its interests could be affected. With a hierarchical and pyramidal structure, the different entities of the sector remained isolated from strictly civilian bodies. The strategic part it played within the organisation of the Soviet Union enabled the defence industry to manage a growing and important volume of resources; on the one hand, it had a special supply system which guaranteed regular high-quality provision of the most advanced technology in the country, as well as highly qualified human resources. On the other hand, th…
Restructuring the defence industry and arms production in Russia
AT THE BEGINNING OF 1997, after five years of failed reforms in the defence industry, there took place a substantial change in the administrative structure running this sector. The Ministry of Economic Affairs took over the restructuring of the defence industry and thereby defined a new way of tackling reforms in this industrial sector. Three elements stand out in the new approach: intersectorality, a predominance of civilian elements and a greater realism. This approach, therefore, represents a break with the idea in force up to that moment of the best way to tackle problems related to the defence industry, which was greatly conditioned by its Soviet heritage. Although two years later this…
Post-Soviet studies and the transition: the case of the Russian economy
The disintegration of the Soviet Union meant that an essential object of study for research analysing centralised planning disappeared and the reference point for a lot of work dealing with the comparison of economic systems was lost. It could be assumed that such a structural alteration might lead to reduced interest in Russian studies and a crisis for the scientific community involved. The purpose of this study is to test this idea and to show how the scientific community interested in post-Soviet studies has changed during the transition period.
Privatisation, decentralisation and production adjustment in the Russian defence industry
PRIVATISATION IN THE DEFENCE INDUSTRY was until 1993 characterised by two features. Firstly, it affected a small number of organisations considered not too important within the sector. Nevertheless, one must point out that, at the end of 1992, some outstanding companies from the defence sector started to be privatised, which marked the first extension of the phenomenon to this sector of the economy. Secondly, the privatisation in this early period lacked organisation and control. Legislation was passed in 1993 with the aim of establishing some order in the privatisation process in the defence industry. From that time (until 1996) the idea was to foster a broad privatisation process with a v…