Yana Zabanova

Energy As a Contested Domain: Explaining Russia's Policy Toward Foreign Direct Investment in the Energy Sector Yana Zabanova

Russia's growing influence as a major energy exporter has moved the nation's energy policy to the forefront of international attention. This book focuses on Russia's policy toward foreign direct investment in the energy sector, aiming to find explanations for the following puzzle: why, in the presence of an objective need for FDI in the sector, Russia's policy toward such investment has featured apparent inconsistencies and repeated reversals of positions? Looking beyond the usual simplified claim of "economic nationalism," the work tries to deliver a more nuanced analysis. The author explores the varied interests of domestic actors and stakeholders, highlights the connection between the opaque character of the policy and the difficult progress of the liberal reforms initiated in 2000, and examines the impact of Soviet legacies on Russia's adaptation to global challenges, as manifest in its stance on FDI. This book will be useful to policy analysts and political scientists interested in the complex nature of internal energy policy-making in Russia - a topic that has so far received little attention in the Western media.