Bringing the Corporation Back in: How Russian Companies are Adapting to Sanctions and De-Globalization

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Russia’s response to the barrage of sanctions introduced since 24 February 2022 is the subject of ongoing scrutiny. Although we know much about the macro-level mechanisms that have allowed the Russian economy to stay afloat, much less work has focused on how individual Russian companies have managed the shock. This talk presents in-depth case studies of two major private corporations – Lukoil and Rusal – to show how international commodity exporters have adapted to survive and grow in a geopolitically fraught environment. Such strategies have included expanding foreign ties, reorienting their domestic market presence and lobbying the Kremlin to obtain specific benefits and improve the overall business environment. These findings complicate the simple labels often applied to the Russian economy, such as ‘state capitalism’, ‘political capitalism’, ‘kleptocracy’ and ‘crony capitalism’.

Ilya Matveev is a researcher focusing on Russian and comparative political economy. He is currently a Visiting Scholar at UC Berkeley. His academic work has appeared in South Atlantic Quarterly, Journal of Labor and Society, Europe-Asia Studies, East European Politics and other journals. He has contributed to Jacobin, openDemocracy and other media outlets. He is a member of the Public Sociology Laboratory, a group of Russian social scientists studying post-Soviet societies from a critical perspective. Ilya is also an affiliate of the Alameda Institute, a new research network of left-wing intellectuals.

David Szakonyi is co-director of PONARS, Associate Professor of Political Science at George Washington University, and co-founder of the Anti-Corruption Data Collective. His academic research focuses on corruption, corporate governance, and clientelism in Russia, Western Europe, and the United States. His most recent book — Politics for Profit: Business, Elections, and Policymaking in Russia (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics, 2020) — examines why businesspeople run for political office and how their firms benefit. In addition to his academic work, he has led numerous investigations into political corruption and opacity in the private equity and real estate industries published in the Washington Post, Foreign Policy, the Daily Beast, and Le Monde, among other many outlets.