Description
Book SynopsisIn 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 littl
Trade Review
Putin's Labor Dilemma offers a historically-informed and spatially-sensitive account of economic and political change in post-communist Russia. It also offers valuable insights into understanding societal change in (post)industrial societies beyond the post-communist world. This is an excellent book, which I would recommend to anyone interested in Russian geography, current politics, or labor movements.
* Eurasian Geography and Economics *
Putin's Labor Dilemma is an invaluable resource in understanding why and how Russia's labor movements have not successfully influenced the government in many cases, but why the Russian government still rightly worries about them. Many observers have long discounted the political sway of labor in post-communist Russia. Crowley gives us good reason to keep labor politics central in our understanding how Putin navigates stability and stagnation.
* The Soviet and Post-Soviet Review *
Table of Contents1. 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 Dread 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 Dilemmas
