Governing the Russian Food sector: Between International Commitments, Institutional transformation and Economic Behaviour.

The main research question that has been driving the research is; to what extent is Russia adopting and implementing policies to achieve self-sufficiency for the different parts of the food sector, and are these policies producing an effective governance system towards the desired development of the Russian food industry? The RUSFOOD project focus on the food industry as a strategic sector of the Russian economy, and analyse Russia's capacity to govern its food sector, and also to what extent it has changed over time. One aspect of this is to study what kind of food policies has been adopted and implemented in Russia, and how these policies related to the increasing pressure towards more open policies and implementation of its international commitments and the effects of trade liberalisation. This includes the behaviour of industrial actors operating in the Russian food market. An interesting situation that gave some new dimensions to the work was the introduction of the trade embargo between Russia and the West from August 2014. This new situation changed the development and policy preconditions for both Russia's officials and the business actors alike. The analysis and investigation has of course been adjusted to include the situation. More than twenty years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, post-Soviet Russia still is in economic, social and institutional transition. In the Post-Soviet era, comprehensive reforms have been initiated and the Russian economy has become significantly deregulated and more open. While the Soviet Union pursued an autarkic economic policy, Russia is becoming more integrated in the global economy. At the same time, there have been many setbacks with regard to the progress of reforms. For instance, the raise of the state-controlled share of the economy, increased use of public support, increased taxes and tariffs and the introduction of various import restrictions seem somewhat at odds with economic modernization and trade liberalization. However, the Russian government is aiming to reduce the trade imbalance through a series of different measures. One of these, the so-called national priority projects for the agricultural sector, aquaculture and the fisheries sector, is intended to rebuild Russia's food production capacity. Ambitions in relation to self-sufficiency are highly vital in current post-Soviet policies. One concrete sign of this is the fact that the Russian authorities recently established a food security doctrine as a part of the national security concept which aims to make Russia self-sufficient in food production. During 2001-2013 Russia pursued a dual policy toward food imports. On the one hand, a relatively open trade policy allowed a healthy growth in imported food. The dollar value of food imports increased from $7.4 billion in 2000 to a high of $43.2 billion in 2013 before declining to $39.7 billion in 2014 as a result of Russia's food embargo against certain countries (Ministry of Agriculture 2015) High levels of food imports reflected government willingness to allow imports to satisfy the desires of Russia consumers, particularly for meat and meat products. In August 2014 Russia and the West entered into the trade embargo regime caused by the dispute related to the Russian annexation of Crimea. Since then, Russian food policy has become more restrictive and the food security dimension has been amplified. The direct and very visible implication of the embargo has been increased import restrictions and import substitution measures. By restricting food imports, the Russian government argues, the country becomes more food secure. After signing the extension of the food embargo in 2015, Putin said the countersanctions would be good for domestic food producers, and this sentiment was backed by Minister of Agriculture Aleksandr Tkachev. The Russian government has invested considerable political capital maintaining the narrative that Russia is food insecure. The idea that food security is a component of national security was bolstered by Western sanctions and Russia's retaliatory food embargo. The embargo in turn spawned additional emphasis on self-sufficiency and import substitution. Russian food insecurity, therefore, may be understood as a political variable that can be manipulated by the leadership as it sees fit. Restrictive food trade policies are offered as the solution to this national security problem. The implications of the Russian variant of food security are twofold. First, at some point Western sanctions and the Russian food embargo will end. Once the embargo ends, it is likely that Western countries will find more limited access to the Russian food market, partly a result of a stronger agricultural sector in Russia and the unbreakable link between food security and national security. Once Russia becomes more food self-sufficient, it is unlikely to go back to the perceived vulnerability of high food imports.

The RUSFOOD-project will focus on the food industry as a strategic sector of the Russian economy, and analyse how the capacity of Russia to govern its food sector has changed over time. What kind of food policies have been adopted and implemented by Russia, and how are these policies dealing with the increasing pressure towards more open economic policies and implementation of its international commitments on the one hand, and pressure to counter the effects of trade liberalization on the other hand? Furthermore, RUSFOOD will assess the effects of observed policy changes for industry development and the behaviour of industry actors operating in the Russian food market. In order to explain and possibly foresee the behavior of decision-makers, a key challenge is to understand strategic choices made in a time of fundamental and comprehensive institutional change in the Russian Federation. This involves developing a clearer picture of decision-making processes and the institutional framework forming decisions. Institutional change may be seen as a multistage process where each stage offers unique and different institutional environments and logic (Greenwood, Suddaby et al. 2002). The role and significance of the different institutional pillars may thus, also be different and change over time as the environment and the governance capacity changes. For instance; At the early stages of the transition period in Russia organizations faced a situation with incomplete legal frameworks and ambiguous norms, while later stages was characterized by increased coherence but at the same time introduction of new structures and systems inspired by western market-based economies (Gelbuda, Meyer et al. 2008). The institutional framework for governing the food sector has changed substantially over the period from the dissolution of the Soviet Union and till today.