"History of Russia in the institutional perspective" seminar series

CSID IIMS in collaboration with Laboratory for Applied Analysis of Institutions and Social Capital and New Economic School conducted a series of seminars "History of Russia in the institutional perspective" on the application of the theories and techniques of institutional economics to the analysis of key stages and problems in the history of Russian society.

A series was opened on October, 19th by a lecture by New Economic School Professor Andery Markevich entitled "Does history matter? Institutions and development". In his presentation, he described the existing approaches used to study the influence of historical choice on development, the existing research in this area, and some arising methodological problemes.

On the next workshop, held on October 26, director of the Institute for Industrial and Market Andrei Yakovlev delivered a lecture "Prospects for analysis of the Russian history from the standpoint of the concept of open / limited access orders", in which he spoke about the methodology of limited and open access orders offered by D. North and his co-authors in their recent book "Violence and social order", and its possible applications in the empirical analysis of the Russian history.

On November, 2nd HSE Professor, Head of the Laboratory of applied analysis of institutions and social capital Leonid Polishchuk continued the series of seminars with a lecture "Culture as a factor of institutional shifts." Building on the classic work in the field of economics, sociology, political science and political economy, he placed the institutional changes in the broader context of cultural transformation.

On November 6th Alexander Libman, Professor of the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management, led a seminar "Political factors proceedings in the Russian regions". His presentation focused on the results of research project on the role of informal relations in Russian courts, conducted by Alexander Libman together with Vladimir Kozlov (HSE) and Andre Schultz (Frankfurt School of Finance and Management). The study tracked career paths of the senior law enforcement officials in the regions  and the impact of shared experience on desisions in criminal cases.

Lecture series continued with the World Bank's chief economist Stephen Webb on November 8th. He presented a framework for addressing "open/limited access societies". The participants discussed the prospects and directions for research on the transformation of Russian institutions from the standpoint of this approach.

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Recommended literature

Markevich Does History Matter

Yakovlev LAO Russian Case