The Northern fisheries of the Russian Federation. Institutions in transition

Abstract

The existing management system in the Russian fishing industry was created as a result of the political, economic and institutional transformations that took place in Russia after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1990. This thesis analyses the processes in the fisheries that led to the establishment of the existing institutional and management practice. The study seeks to find out how the existing system of fisheries management has formed as a result of the economic reforms and institutional changes taking place, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. A special focus of the study is on the division of the management authority between the federal centre and the regions, and the influence of this on the institutional changes in the fisheries. The analysis discusses the validity of hypothesis based on the assumption that the interests, norms, and values of the federal authorities versus those of the regional authorities are the driving forces of the institutional changes in the northern fisheries of the Russian Federation. The study concludes that in addition to the processes that took place inside the fisheries complex the overall transformation of the political and economic order that occurred in Russia was a driving force of the institutional changes in the Russian fisheries.