State Interventions in Developing Economies

After the liberalization reforms of 1990s, economic activism on part of the state became a common phenomenon in the post-Soviet countries. State interventions range from taxation and fiscal policies to re-privatization and greater state ownership. Apart of formal tools, state officials place the pressure and/or coordinate economy informally. The reach of a state across the economy differs, however. While the core sectors (e.g., energy) are heavily targeted by state interventions, the sectors of economic periphery still enjoy the freedoms of liberalization and market economy; so called ‘dual economy’ develops.

State interventions might be both - tools of a developmental or a predatory state. The presence of the state as both principal actor and arbiter of the economy may contribute to the emergence of a Developmental State highly committed to economic growth. The use of state powers may also advance corporate and political interests of the ruling elite and convert economic interventions into self-serving power resources.

The research aims to map government activism in Central Asia and the Southern Caucasus. In particular, it aims to elaborate formal and informal tools of exercised economic policy in the core and peripheral sectors of the respective economy. Furthermore, the research seeks to elaborate the particular alloy and interactions of formal and informal state interventions and institutions and their effects of the emergence of predatory and developmental states.