Aleynikov, A. V., Osipov, I. D. Government and Entrepreneurship in Russia: Experience of Historical and Cultural Analysis of Institutional Trajectories. Article 1

Abstract: The present article is devoted to the historical and cultural peculiarities of genesis of Russian entrepreneurship as well as the main parameters of the dominating model of the relationship between Russian entrepreneurship and the government. Based on the analysis of numerous historical resources, the authors of the article try to cover system characteristics of a specific socio-cultural composition of relations between society, business and government. The central element of Russian institutional structure or «matrix» which was very well described by Vasily Klyuchevsky as the «development of industry at public institutions and ivory tower» is the government’s exceeding the scope of regulation of entrepreneurial activity and regulating access to scarce resources. The process of establishment and evolution of the Russian model of the relationship between business and government can be properly understood based on the integrated cultural and historical approach to analysis of particular «cases». This approach offers a system view of the problem, i. e. genesis of entrepreneurship is included in an extensive institutional and socio-cultural system. In Russia the genesis of patrimonial-political capitalism is associated with the institutional procedure of «giving away» which causes resentment of population towards Western values and ideas of free entrepreneurship. In Russia entrepreneurship acquires new features that do not correspond to any models that are known and relations between society, business and government have a very specific composition. The fact that in Russia there are no conditions for «free competition» other than governmental protectionism or forced or criminal activity has a historical background and at the present time hinders from development of an «independent business man».

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