Re-scaling the debate on Russian economic growth: Regional restructuring and development asynchronies

Abstract

This article provides a critique of the literature on Russian economic growth and argues that broadening the growth debate to include regional perspectives may cast new light on economic processes at work in the varied geographical context of Russia. The article shows that growth in Russia's regions is much more comprehensive than often realised in the West and is closely associated with rising levels of industrial production in the overwhelming majority of regions. This contradicts the perception that resource dependency is the only formula of success within Russia. The author also provides a close examination of Leningrad oblast', once declining but recently one of the fastest growing regions in the Russian Federation. However, although the general vector of development has changed radically, the case of Leningrad oblast' demonstrates that the growing economy perpetuates the landscape of unevenness. New technologically intensive loci of development have paralleled ‘underinvested’ areas—despite being situated within the same administrative and political context. Nevertheless, growth continues to trickle down to less advantageous areas, both buttressing and spurring national growth as a whole.

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