Comparative Capitalism: 25 Years of the New Societies' Evolvement in Post-Soviet Eurasia

The contemporary world calls for a research program of comparative capitalisms. The paper to be delivered at the Third ISA Forum is an attempt to offer analytical tools to the study of inter-linkages between issues of institutional settings of market making and problems of a capitalist society development in the fSU countries during 25 years after the collapse of the USSR.

The paper goes beyond a purely economic analysis of market and even beyond political economy or economic sociology inquiry into reality of market institutions in the post-Soviet countries. It is oriented toward developing broad socio-historical and socio-economic theoretical construction that treats capitalism as a “total society”, a distinct form of society in which there are interrelations and interactions between the economic, political and other social institutions, and the cultural sphere. The aim is to explore into main elements in a real analysis of the nature of present-day capitalism in the fSU countries through detailed field research of everyday life social practices. It will be the study of the evolving patterns of human relationships that are concerned with the institutional framework and cultural settings. The focus will be on the nature and function of habits, routines and institutions.

The paper addresses several distinctive though interrelated problems. First, it is concerned with identifying the mechanisms by which institutional settings of capitalist society are coordinated. Second, it develops the argument that market institutions and other coordinating mechanisms of capitalist evolution are shaped by socio-political structures. The third is that the institutions are imbedded in a culture. Cultural settings of a society shape institutional configuration, technically and materially constrained them, politically defend or offend them.

The study confines great deal of attention to mapping the comparative logic and methodology of field research.