Reciprocity in the Russian Labor Market: Its Role in the Transition from State Socialism

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This is a study of the Russian labor market, using this empirical case to develop fresh theoretical propositions on the role of social networks in changing labor markets. Research on the transition from state socialism to a "market" economy has stressed centralized allocation of goods and services and the shift to allocation by market exchange. The work of Karl Polanyi is often cited in this connection. Polanyi argued that there are three fundamental ways that goods and services are allocated, each supported by an institutional structure: redistribution, supported by strong central governments, exchange, supported by free markets, and reciprocity, supported by symmetrical social groupings which include social networks. Existing research slights the role of reciprocity, typically invoking social networks as supports for redistribution or exchange, but not clearly grasping their role as supporting reciprocity. This project explores the possibility that reciprocity is in fact important both in market and in state socialist societies, and that during complex transitions such as those occurring in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, it takes on an especially vital role. This study examines how working people in Russia have coped with the tumultuous changes in the labor market brought on by dramatic restructuring of both private and public enterprises, and the virtual disappearance of many long-standing employers, accompanied by the rise of new organizations and organizational forms. It will conduct a substantial survey in Samara, a large industrial city in the Russian heartland, which will provide the first systematic picture of how productive organizations and workers are being matched under the conditions of transition. By studying a probability sample of both firms and the workers themselves who find work in these firms, the study will investigate the significance of restructuring, the origins of workers who enter the newly developed private sector, the fate of workers cut loo se by the shrinking of the public sector, and the strategies by which people may survive and under some circumstances prosper, amidst these unprecedented changes. The research focuses upon how labor market allocation is influenced by previously existing ties between workers and employers, the continuing role of kinship networks in directing workers to one or another work situation, and the extent to which ties to previous or new political authorities results in influence that has labor market consequences. Analysis of these survey results will give the first full account from the ground up of how individual Russians have coped with transition, and thus will help construct a fuller theoretical account of how economic, political and social institutions are linked following the collapse of state socialism.