Putin's Labor Dilemma : : Russian Politics between Stability and Stagnation / / Stephen Crowley.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Cornell University Press Complete eBook-Package 2021
• VerfasserIn: Crowley, Stephen,
• Place / Publishing House: Ithaca, NY : : Cornell University Press, , [2021]; ©2021
• Year of Publication: 2021
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (306 p.) :; 3 b&w halftones, 13 charts

In Putin's Labor Dilemma, Stephen Crowley investigates how the fear of labor protest has inhibited substantial economic transformation in Russia. Putin boasts he has the backing of workers in the country's industrial heartland, but as economic growth slows in Russia, reviving the economy will require restructuring the country's industrial landscape. At the same time, doing so threatens to generate protest and instability from a key regime constituency. However, continuing to prop up Russia's Soviet-era workplaces, writes Crowley, could lead to declining wages and economic stagnation, threatening protest and instability. Crowley explores the dynamics of a Russian labor market that generally avoids mass unemployment, the potentially explosive role of Russia's monotowns, conflicts generated by massive downsizing in "Russia's Detroit" (Tol'yatti), and the rapid politicization of the truck drivers movement. Labor protests currently show little sign of threatening Putin's hold on power, but the manner in which they are being conducted point to substantial chronic problems that will be difficult to resolve. Putin's Labor Dilemma demonstrates that the Russian economy must either find new sources of economic growth or face stagnation. Either scenario—market reforms or economic stagnation—raises the possibility, even probability, of destabilizing social unrest.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- List of Abbreviations -- Note on Transliteration and Currency -- 1. The Political Consequences of Russian Deindustrialization -- 2. Russia’s Peculiar Labor Market and the Fear of Social Explosion -- 3. Russia’s Labor Productivity Trap -- 4. Monotowns and Russia’s Post-Soviet Urban Geography -- 5. Labor Protest in Russia’s Hybrid Regime -- 6. Downsizing in “Russia’s Detroit” -- 7. The Specter of a Color Revolution -- 8. Russia’s Truckers and the Road to Radicalization -- 9. How Different Is Russia? The Comparative Context -- Conclusion: Overcoming Russia’s Labor Dilemma -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index