Sakwa, Richard
2011
Raiding in Russia
Russian Analytical Digest
105
9-13
Raiding has become one of the characteristic features of Russia in the twenty-first century. Raiders rely on their positions of authority and typically act with government approval, and often in concert with governmental authorities, to exert an improper influence on the prosecution process, in particular with the courts and the police. Applying the model of the dual state, this article notes the salience of instances of ‘reiderstvo’ from Yukos to Hermitage Capital. The political orders associated with the constitutional and prerogative states are locked in a stalemate. Meta-corruption operates in an economy of rents and political factionalism and is beginning to create a distinct order of its own. The entwining of political and criminal activities damages government, the courts and the investment climate and impedes modernisation.