Russian Economy Before And After Vladimir Putin Essay

Russian Economy Before And After Vladimir Putin - Essay Example The country has implemented multifaceted foreign policy as is also recognized as the successor state of the former USSR. Till 2009, the country maintained diplomatic relations with around 190 countries as well as with around 140 embassies. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia has emerged as one of the powerhouse in the scenario of global trade. The country adopted a democratic form of government and the regime of free market. The country got its inclusion in BRIC constitution along with India, Brazil and China. The BRIC group leads the developing world in terms of growth and economic transformation. To talk about the market access, most of the goods can be freely imported to the country. The country focused intensely on joining the World Trade Organization after the presidential election of 1999. The accession of the country to the WTO is now complete. Significant amount of progress was made in the last year which paved the way for the accession. The country will benefit from t he accession in the long run on several fronts, one of the most important being the discriminatory measures held by the 30 countries against the exports of steel of Russia. It is also anticipated that the accession to the WTO drives in more foreign investments. The country follows the system of harmonized Customs. The Russian history faced difficult times in the first 20 years of the last century. The civil war ruined the country, the people starved because of the economic embargo of the governments. The government was not able to gather pace on the imports as well as exports which was the need of the time. To deal with the situation, the Russian government decided to send a trade mission to UK. The Economy of Russia The economy of the country is ranked ninth in the world in terms of nominal value while the economy is ranked sixth in terms of purchasing power parity. The economy has transformed to a market based economy from a centrally planned one after the collapse of the Soviet U nion. The reforms of the 1990 privatized many sectors while the sectors like energy and defence being the exceptions. Macroeconomic stabilization as well as restructuring of the economy can be regarded as the indicators for transition from centrally planned to an economy that is based on the market. Macroeconomic stabilization entails implementation of monetary and fiscal policies. The aim of implementation is promotion of economic growth that will pave the path for stable prices and exchange rates. Restructuring of the economy require establishment of entities like commercial or institutional. These entities will allow the operation of the economy in an efficient fashion. One of the footsteps to achieve this goal is to open up the domestic market to foreign trade. The economy thus gets linked with the rest of the world. The bid of the country to join WTO faced a hurdle on the issues of low rate of domestic energy consumption and the closeness of the market for the foreign competito rs. The member countries of WTO expressed the view that the country should charge equal prices for oil and gas even domestically. The accession process was boosted as Russia worked out the disagreements on prices of energy as well as agricultural subsidies with European Union. In the year 2003, WTO estimated that the country is positioned 17th in the rank of largest exporters of the world. The minister of trade announced that the country has the potential to gain thousands of dollars once it has access to the regime and the world markets. As the pressure to resort to

Justification of Political Authority Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 7500 words

Justification of Political Authority - Essay Example However, some thinkers do not perceive the attitude of subjects toward such authority as the decisive factor. Thus, Thomas Hobbes and John Austin argue that political authority in the de facto sense simply amounts to the capacity of an individual or community to maintain public order as well as secure the obedience of most people by issuing commands backed by sanctions. Consequently, the legitimacy of authority as perceived by subjects is not important and any entity that is de facto performs the function of authority is always justified (Hobbes 1668). Another essential aspect of the authority debate is its distinction from political power. In politics it is a common practice to use the terms power and authority interchangeably though the meaning of these terms is different. The difference lies mainly in the fact that 'authority' involves a claim of justification and legitimate right to exercise power over the subjects while 'power' implies a mere ability to achieve certain goals and does not necessarily involve a claim of justification and/or legitimacy (Arendt, 1968). Thus, political power relates to the state's ability to get citizens to act in a certain manner even despite their reluctance. Furthermore, political power does not require a positive attitude from the subjects and does not depend on its actual success at securing public order. Threats and offers are the key elements of political power: "Evidently, for the state to have de facto authority or legitimate authority requires that the state have the power to compel those subjects who do not wish to go along. This is necessary for the state's ability to maintain public order and to assure those who do see it as an authority that it will be able to do what it is supposed to do" (Zalta, 2004). Therefore, the term 'authority' in the meaning of political authority is more applicable for the purposes of this paper. There are a number of different discourses on the nature, legitimacy and justification of political authority. Normally, three fundamental types of conceptions about legitimacy of political authority: political authority as justified coercion, political authority as the capacity to impose duties, and political authority as the right to rule (Zalta, 2004). The first conception relies on the moral aspect in justifying a political authority which coerces the subjects. The essence of this conception is that a political authority might have the justifiable moral right to coerce its subjects. For example, a group of people may be morally justified in engaging in just a few actions of coercing others. Or a group may be morally justified in engaging in coercion more generally as in the case of a morally justified military occupation. This notion of authority does not necessarily involve duties on the part of the coerced people: on the contrary, avoiding or escaping coercion may be justified. One example of such situation could the situation of a military occupation of a state justified under the pretext of using such occupation as a tool to prevent a third power from engaging in morally unjustified aggression. Although this conception relies on moral justification of coercion used by political authority, the authority in this case is not able to either issue commands or make laws: it is justified on