Socio-economic restructuring and prospects for economic diversification in peripheral single-industry resource communities of the Russian North

• Main Author: Suutarinen, Tuomas
• Other Authors: Kotilainen, Juha, University of Helsinki, Faculty of Science, Department of Geosciences and Geography, Doctoral Programme in Political, Societal and Regional Changes, Helsingin yliopisto, matemaattis-luonnontieteellinen tiedekunta, Poliittisten, yhteiskunnallisten ja alueellisten muutosten tohtoriohjelma, Helsingfors universitet, matematisk-naturvetenskapliga fakulteten, Doktorandprogrammet i politisk, samhällelig och regional förändring, Löytönen, Markku, Rautio, Vesa
• Format: Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Helsingin yliopisto 2018
• Subjects: Russian North
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10138/244512

Resource communities offer a valuable understanding of the unique industrial, cultural, geopolitical, and positional dimensions which are ignored in mainstream core-centric economic geography. Until recently resource communities throughout the world have faced a growing neoliberalism which has decreased state participation in local socio-economic development. This has required resource communities to promote viability through various mechanisms of adaptation and resilience. This study focuses on resource communities in the Russian North. Resource communities and their major enterprises in Russia have faced significant socio-economic problems since the collapse of the Soviet Union: diminishing population, volatilities of world market prices of their mining commodities with direct impacts to their economic well-being. At the local level the deterioration of the post-Soviet social sphere has resulted in such communities’ residents’ dissatisfaction. Globalisation and the volatility of global resource prices have directly affected the sustainability of local resource industries. This has forced resource communities to re-evaluate their economic basis and to promote economic diversification to boost their long-term viability. Furthermore, the heightened political tension between Russia and the West since 2014 has highlighted the importance of the impact of external forces and state-level policies in local development. Both the volatility of the resource economy and the volatility of higher level politics have affected the development of resource communities in Russia. This is an indication of the relatively strong driftwood effect of resource communities on the world economy and politics. This study positions itself into locality research tradition with a case study of local socio-economic restructuring. This study contextualises the topic into discussion of problems of peripherality, generally shared by remote resource communities and single-industry towns. The study approaches the problems of restructuring in ...