What’s Happening in Russia

Since the very beginning of Perestroika in the mid-1980s, the advocates of liberal reforms made little account (if at all) of the cultural and historical context, or sociocul-tural factors, in determining economic strategy. The actual policy of economic transformation in Russia relied on purely universalist prescriptions, putting too much faith in the market ‘‘magic’ ’ rather than considering the non-market institution-al factors of economic growth. It has been claimed that the history, the archetypes of the nation, and its culture are of no signifi-cance to the economic progress of the coun-try. The intentional centrality of thes