23 resultados para Living Standards
em Archive of European Integration
Resumo:
The annexation of Crimea has brought the Russian authorities significant dividends, in particular on the domestic stage: it has resulted in an unprecedented social and political consolidation, and strengthened Vladimir Putin’s position after several years of decline in social support for him. It has provided Russia with strategic benefits, giving it broad access to the Black Sea and the military infrastructure on the peninsula, as well as access to natural gas and crude oil reserves. Russia has also taken over numerous assets (including the tourist infrastructure) previously owned by the Ukrainian state. However, the decision itself concerning Moscow’s annexation of Crimea was taken off the cuff, with no calculation of the costs of integrating it with the Russian legal, political and socio-economic space. Russia took over a region that required subsidies from the Ukrainian budget; moreover, the annexation struck at the most important industry of the Crimean economy – tourism. Crimea’s integration with Russia will be a complex process that entails high costs, financial, organisational and social, including multi-billion dollar investments in the modernisation and development of infrastructure, covering the region’s budget deficit, and paying out social benefits. For reasons of prestige and political significance, Moscow is treating Crimea as a showcase region. Russia is determined to prove that the Crimean incorporation will be beneficial for the region’s economy and will raise people’s living standards. However, the expenses triggered by Crimea’s integration will coincide with a deteriorating economic situation in Russia, aggravated by US and EU sanctions, and this may force Russia to postpone or even give up some of its ambitious investments in the peninsula. Some of the integration costs will have to be borne by other Russian regions, even though they already face serious financial problems that have forced them to reduce their own investment programs. Another issue that has come into question is the fulfilment of the Crimean people’s’ expectations concerning the improvement of their living standards, due to the tourist sector’s problems (small-scale tourist services used to be one of the local people’s main sources of income), the rising costs of maintenance, and finally, restrictions of civil rights after the introduction of the more restrictive Russian legislation.
Resumo:
The regions of the Russian Federation are immensely diverse economically and geographically as well as when it comes to their national identity, civic awareness and political activity. We are in fact dealing with a ‘multi-speed Russia’: along with the post-industrial regions with their higher living standards and a need for pluralism in politics, there are poverty-stricken, inertial regions, dependent on subsidies from the centre. As a result of the policy of centralisation pursued by the Kremlin since 2000, the autonomy of the regions has been reduced fundamentally. This has affected the performance of the regional elites and made it difficult for the regions to use their natural advantages (such as resources or location) to their benefit. One of the effects of this policy has been the constantly decreasing number of the donor regions. The current model promotes the role of the region as a passive supplicant, for whom it is easier to seek support from the central government, offering loyalty in exchange, than to implement complex systemic reforms that would contribute to long-term development. Moscow’s control (political, economic and administrative) over the regions is currently so thorough that it contradicts the formally existing federal form of government in Russia.
Resumo:
Even though the economic crisis proved harmful to the Russian economy and people's living standards, it has nonetheless failed to make the elite revise its policy. Despite some problems, the government has managed to sustain economic and political stability, thanks to the reserves it amassed in the times of prosperity, and to the propaganda campaign that protected it, above all Vladimir Putin. The crisis failed to force the elite to implement deeper structural and political reforms. Moreover, it has actually reinforced existing tendencies, such as state control over the economy and its oil-oriented character, the elite's economic expansion at the expense of private businesses, and the preservation of political power. Thus, the crisis has so far failed to dismantle Putinism, indeed quite the reverse - it has in fact contributed to its becoming 'set in stone'.
Resumo:
The most recent official statistics reveal that over a quarter of Egypt’s population still live in poverty, a third of its youth are unemployed and three out of five children are malnourished. Much of the criticism of Egypt’s human rights record, particularly after the Arab Spring, remains focused on the country’s civil and political rights, and freedoms with an intentional (or unintentional) disregard to socioeconomic rights, fuelling widespread poverty, deteriorating living standards, socioeconomic exclusion and unequal and/or degrading treatment. This paper examines the socioeconomic policies of exclusion that are still undermining the enjoyment of basic citizenship rights in Egypt.
