UDC

316.422(47+57)

Authors

Maksimov Anton Mikhailovich
Institute of Social, Humanitarian and Political Sciences, Northern (Arctic) Federal University named after M.V. Lomonosov 2 prosp. Lomonosova, Arkhangelsk, 163002, Russian Federation;
e-mail: amm15nov@yandex.ru

Abstract

A critical analysis of the modernization theory as applied to the history of Russian transformations has revealed its limited methodology and application. The world-systems theory allows us to give a more convincing interpretation of the chronic problems of Russia’s transition to the society with developed democratic and market institutions. Taking the industrial development of the Russian Empire in the 1890s as an example, the author demonstrates greater research opportunities of the world-systems analysis compared to the modernization approach. In the context of Immanuel Wallerstein’s worldsystems theory, the structural position of the Russian Empire at the turn of the 19th century can be defined as semi-peripheral. The hypothesis of Russia’s semi-peripheral development helps explain both the sporadic economic growth (due to the rapid development of transport infrastructure and certain industries) and the dependence of this process on external factors, in particular the dynamics of foreign capital import and world export prices. The semi-peripheral nature of the economy in the Russian Empire can explain the high level of state participation in the economic system. In the context of limited capital accumulation inside the country and, as a result, small number of market agents, the state acts as a conductor of industrialization and related social transformations by actively intervening with the movement of goods, manpower and capital. This role of the state to some extent accounts for the persistence of authoritarian regime in Russia in the late 19th and early 20th century. The state needed centralized control of export and import operations in order to maintain foreign trade balance and of financial flows and manpower for its infrastructure projects. This hampered the development of market institutions and the political influence of Russian businessmen and the middle class. In addition, the preservation of this kind of political order put significant limitations on the economic growth and reinforced the country’s semi-peripheral status.

Keywords

modernization, world-systems theory, Russian Empire, industrialization, capitalist worldsystem, peripheral development

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