PhD Project: The Political Economy of Unevenness and Industrial Policy in the Post-Soviet Context: The Case of Georgia
Salome Topuria, University of Kassel and HWR Berlin
Supervisors: Prof. Dr. Christoph Scherrer, University of Kassel and Prof. Dr. Hansjörg Herr, HWR Berlin
About
The uneven nature of capitalist development often constrains small countries' ability to choose industrial strategies. Therefore, implementing industrial policy in ‘developing’ countries is not only a matter of a national agenda but is generally determined by global power relations and economic asymmetries.
Many studies have focused on Latin America and East Asia, exploring the economic and political circumstances under which these countries have achieved or failed to realize economic catch-up. The post-Soviet area has received much less attention. Though there have been macroeconomic improvements and integration into world markets, a rigorous Washington Consensus agenda resulted in harsh socio-economic contexts in Georgia. The hasty introduction of economic principles stipulated by the Structural Adjustment Programs and various international institutions didn’t materialize into a promised, prosperous capitalist model. Instead, a peripheral, debt-driven, and import-dependent model emerged in the aftermath of the post-Soviet transition. Against this backdrop, the following research questions are proposed:
How to understand economic development in the post-Soviet context?
How to understand economic development programs in post-Soviet Georgia?
Why was industrial policy not a part of such programs?
To grasp the case, it is not enough to analyze the technical and industrial capacities of Georgia as a post-Soviet economy. Rather a critical analytical framework that allows the understanding of the specific nature of Georgia as a post-Soviet state should be executed. The examination of a new state and capitalist class fractions that emerged during the transition period of the 90s holds critical clues to solving the research puzzle.