the new russian nationalismversus profane worldview of Russian Orthodoxy (Epstein 2013).
Since the nineteenth century, one of the most prominent dichoto-
mies in Russian thought has been the division in debates over
national identity between Westernisers and Slavophiles (Engelstein
2009; Katasonov 2014). This divide has obstinately resurfaced in
successive phases of Russian history – from the Trotskyist oppo-
sition to Stalin’s ‘Socialism in One Country’ in the 1920s; to the
market reformers versus their nationalist and communist critics
in the 1990s. It continues to haunt the discussion of national eco-
nomic strategy into the twenty- first century.
The modernisation hypothesis
Modernisers recognise the inevitability of global integration and
the prevailing logic of modernity as exemplified by the leading
capitalist countries. For any country to survive and prosper it
must embrace the rules of the game of contemporary capitalism
- while hopefully taking countervailing measures to preserve
national identity and culture, in the spirit of Bertrand Badie’s
‘conservative modernisation’ (Badie 1992). One advantage of this
approach is that it is relatively straightforward to administer –
the country side- steps the problem of inadequate domestic policy
capacity by importing policies off the shelf from other countries.
A catching- up moderniser can benefit from the experience of
more advanced countries, learning what works and what does
not work. The state is the leading actor in the drive to catch up
with other countries, and gets recognition and support from the
international community in this project. This serves to legitimise
and strengthen the current rulers of the country.
The disadvantage of the modernisation strategy is that the
imported institutions and practices may cut against the grain of
the already existing ways of doing business, and the policies may
fail. If money was borrowed on the assumption that the policies
would succeed, a cycle of debt crises and currency collapses may
result. There may be a political backlash against the international
elites that are forcing the pace of change – and those perceived
as their local agents, in the form of the incumbent national
leadership.