Economic Elites and Politics

Project duration 2002 – 2007, Contact person: Heiko Pleines
 

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Various social interest groups participate in the formulation and implementation of policy. Their interests and strategies thus have an influence on what is, or is not, achieved in politics. This understanding of politics – perceived as a regulated conflict of interests played out between different social groups, in other words a decision-making process (see also the interaction-oriented policy research of Fritz W. Scharpf) – forms the basis of the present research project.

When considering the formulation and implementation of policy, political scientists have traditionally focussed on interest groups. Within the framework of research conducted on pluralism, they accorded these self-organised groups formal recognition in that they regarded them as organisations that contributed to the formation of political will in mass democracies. In the 1970s, however, another approach took precedence, emphasizing a much closer cooperation between the state and a few powerful interest groups. It replaced the idea of a broad representation of interests with the notion of a cartel of interests. The juxtaposition of the two concepts – pluralism, on the one hand, and corporatism, on the other hand – subsequently lost its rigidity with specific interest groups being placed at various points along an axis reaching from pluralism to corporatism.

This pragmatic approach, based on empirical research, gave rise to a series of innovations in the field of interest group research. Directly responding to social-political developments, it gave rise to a broader spectrum of analytical concepts. The ever greater diversification of interest groups and the ever more individual representation of interests, moreover, led to network analysis being adopted as an analytical tool. Instead of focusing on a small number of interest groups, interest groups sharing a particular political objective and comprising a large number of actors came to be examined together. Furthermore, the process of globalisation also limited the impact national perspectives could have. Rather, it was multinational actors that came to feature in national analyses; the influence of national politics, in turn, faded and was widely cited as driving the globalisation, or rather regionalisation, of national interest groups.

At the same time, economic and political science research increasingly focussed on corruption. In this respect the influence taken on government decisions – mirroring the argument set out to justify corporatism – came to be regarded as negative. It was assumed that actors, lacking direct democratic legitimatisation, formed a cartel of interests and replaced democratic decision-making processes by relying on internal agreements. Joel Hellman and others have spoken in this context of ‘state capture’. According to this definition of corruption, businessmen, by accepting a bribe, hijack the process of political decision-making – at least in the field of economic policy.

More specifically, this project analysed the influence interest groups took on selected policy fields (agriculture policy, coal policy, privatisation, the regulation of the oil- and natural gas industry, and the regulation of the financial sector) in three post-socialist countries (Poland, Russia, and Ukraine). To this end a ‘focussed comparison’ was made, regarded as a meaningful compromise between historic and often isolated case studies and widely generalizing macro-static investigations. To quote Rod Hague and Martin Harrop: Focused comparisons ‘have proved to be the success story of comparative politics in recent decades.’


Publications

Heiko Pleines (2008): Reformblockaden in der Wirtschaftspolitik. Eine vergleichende Analyse der Rolle von Wirtschaftsakteuren in Polen, Russland und der Ukraine, Wiesbaden (VS).

Heiko Pleines (2006): Der politische Einfluss der Kohlelobbies in Polen, Russland und der Ukraine. Eine vergleichende Politikfeldanalyse, Arbeitspapiere und Materialien der Forschungsstelle Osteuropa No. 80.

Heiko Pleines (2006): Der politische Einfluss der Agrarlobbies in Polen, Russland und der Ukraine. Eine vergleichende Politikfeldanalyse, Arbeitspapiere und Materialien der Forschungsstelle Osteuropa No. 79.

Heiko Pleines (2005): Informelle Einflußnahme und Demokratie. Wirtschaftsakteure in Rußland und der Ukraine, in: Osteuropa No.10 (vol. 55), pp.99-108.

Heiko Pleines (2005): Informalisierung statt Institutionalisierung von Reformen? Zur Rolle von
Korruption, in: Hans-Hermann Höhmann u.a. (eds): Nur ein Ölboom?
Bestimmungsfaktoren und Perspektiven der russischen Wirtschaft, Münster (Lit), pp.247-259.

Heiko Pleines (2005): Ukrainische Seilschaften. Informelle Einflussnahme in der
ukrainischen Wirtschaftspolitik 1992-2004, Münster (LIT).

Heiko Pleines (2004): Aufstieg und Fall. Oligarchen in Rußland, in: Osteuropa
No. 3 (vol.54), pp.71-81

Pleines, Heiko (2004): Social partners and captors. The role of non-state actors in economic policy-making in Eastern Europe, in: Romanian Journal of Political Science 4:1, 51-65.

Pleines, Heiko (2004): Der politische Konflikt um die Restrukturierung der russischen Kohleindustrie, in: Osteuropa Wirtschaft 49:1, 49-62.

Heiko Pleines (2004): The political economy of coal industry restructuring in
Ukraine, KICES Working Papers No.1.

Heiko Pleines (2003): Der politische Einfluß der Wirtschaftseliten im Rußland der
Jelzin-Ära, in: Christian Meier u.a. (eds): Ökonomie – Kultur – Politik.
Transformationsprozesse in Osteuropa. Festschrift für Hans-Hermann Höhmann,
Bremen (Edition Temmen), pp.325-338

Heiko Pleines (2003): Sozialpartner, Oligarchen und graue Eminenzen. Zur Rolle nicht-staatlicher Akteure in wirtschaftspolitischen Entscheidungsprozessen, in: Hans-Hermann Höhmann, Heiko Pleines (eds): Wirtschaftspolitik in Osteuropa zwischen ökonomischer Kultur, Institutionenbildung und Akteursverhalten. Russland, Polen und Tschechische Republik im Vergleich, Bremen (Edition Temmen), pp.225-245

Stefanie Harter, Jörn Grävingholt, Heiko Pleines, Hans-Henning Schröder (2003): Geschäfte mit der Macht. Wirtschaftseliten als politische Akteure im Russland der Transformationsjahre 1992-2001, Bremen (Edition Temmen).

Heiko Pleines (2003): Wirtschaftseliten und Politik im Rußland der Jelzin-Ära, Münster (LIT).

Heiko Pleines (2003): Der politische Einfluß von Wirtschaftseliten in Rußland. Die Banken in der Ära Jelzin, Arbeitspapiere und Materialien der Forschungsstelle Osteuropa No. 43.

Tina Kowall, Kerstin Zimmer (2002): Der politische Einfluß von Wirtschaftseliten in der Ukraine. Nationale und regionale Oligarchen, Arbeitspapiere und Materialien der Forschungsstelle Osteuropa No.42.

Heiko Pleines (2002): Der politische Einfluß von Wirtschaftseliten in Rußland. Die Öl- und Gasindustrie in der Ära Jelzin, Arbeitspapiere und Materialien der Forschungsstelle Osteuropa No. 41.

Heinrich, Andreas / Kusznir, Julia / Pleines, Heiko (2002): Foreign investment and national interests in the Russian oil and gas industry, in: Post-Communist Economies 14:4, 495-507.

Heiko Pleines (2002): Verhaltensmuster russischer Unternehmer und Bürokraten als wirtschaftskulturelle Probleme für die Steuerreform, in: Hans-Hermann Höhmann (Hg.): Wirtschaft und Kultur im Transformationsprozeß, Bremen (Edition Temmen), pp. 199-220

Pleines, Heiko (2000): Gazprom als Sponsor der virtuellen Wirtschaft? Zur Rationalität eines russischen Wirtschaftsakteurs, in: Osteuropa Wirtschaft 45:3, 308-315.

Heiko Pleines (2000): Corruption networks in the Russian economy, in: Slovo 2000 (special issue), pp. 104-120

Heiko Pleines (2000): Large-scale corruption and rent-seeking in the Russian banking sector, in: Alena Ledeneva / Marina Kurkchiyan (Hg.): Economic crime in Russia, The Hague (Kluwer), pp 191-207

Heiko Pleines (2000): Down, out and forever desperate? The role of coal miners‘ protests in Russian politics, in: Stefanie Harter et.al. (eds): Shaping the economic space in Russia, Aldershot (Ashgate), pp. 127-146.

Heiko Pleines, Kirsten Westphal (1999): Rußlands Gazprom. Die Rolle des Gaskonzerns in der russischen Politik und Wirtschaft, Bericht des BIOst No.33.

Heiko Pleines (1999): Die post-sowjetische Strukturkrise der russischen Kohleindustrie, Bericht des BIOst No.19.