Difference between revisions of "Future of Russia in 2030"

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===Societal===
===Societal===
# [[Decline of the Russian population]]
# [[Decline of the Russian population]]
Name: Decline of the Russian population.


What: The population of Russia reached its peak of approximately 148,500,000 in the early 1990’s. Since then it has seen a sharp decline although this is now beginning to slow down. The 2009 growth rate was -0.467%. The current size of the population is 141,903,979. Current estimates are that Russia’s population will fall to 111,000,000 by the year 2050.
There are a number of factors that are driving the population down and these have been debated. While birthrates have remained comparable to developed countries, the mortality rate is very high.  The average life expectancy for men has also sharply declined and is now 69.
A shrinking population will have a considerable impact on Russia’s future, it will mean a smaller labor force which could in turn lead to a slowdown in the economy.
Enablers:
High mortality rate
Russia has a very high death rate of 15 deaths per 1000 people per year. This is far higher than the world's average death rate of just under 9. The death rate in the U.S. is 8 per 1000 and for the United Kingdom it's 10 per 1000. Alcohol-related deaths in Russia are very high and alcohol-related emergencies represent the bulk of emergency room visits in the country.
With this high death rate, Russian life expectancy is low - the World Health Organization estimates the life expectancy of Russian men at 59 years while women's life expectancy is considerably better at 72 years. This difference is primarily a result of high rates of alcoholism among males.
Low birth rate and fertility rate
Russia's total fertility rate is low at 1.3 births per woman. This represents the number of children each Russian woman has during her lifetime. A replacement total fertility rate to maintain a stable population is 2.1 births per woman. With such a low total fertility rate Russian women are contributing to a declining population.
The birth rate in the country is also quite low; the crude birth rate is 10 births per 1000 people. The world average is just over 20 per 1000 and in the U.S. the rate is 14 per 1000.
Some suggested reasons for the low birth rate are doubts that the population has about the future, doubts about available housing, level of medical services, low incomes and doubts regarding availability of food.
Abortion
The online news source mosnews.com reported that in 2004 1.6 million women had abortions in Russia while 1.5 million gave birth. In 2003, the BBC reported that Russia had, "13 terminations for every 10 live births."
Immigration
Immigration into Russia is low - immigrants are primarily ethnic Russians moving out of former republics (but now independent countries) of the Soviet Union. Brain drain and emigration from Russia to Western Europe and other parts of the world is high as native Russians seek to better their economic situation.
Inhibitors:
Drop in alcoholism
This can be affected by government policy. The last significant drive to battle alcoholism in Russia was in the late 80s under Gorbachev, during this time, the mortality rate was significantly lower
Immigration
Continuing problems in Africa will give rise to further migration into the EU. There may be a point where the EU is unable to cope and there will be spill over into former Soviet Union and eventually Russia.
Russia may begin to encourage immigration and change laws to allow more people to come in. Whether Russia would pose an attractive destination for immigrants is another question. This is unlikely but a plausible scenario.
Government Policy – currently there is a monetary incentive for giving birth “give birth to a Patriot” with cash incentives for giving birth to children via lottery.
Paradigms:
Drop in population will lead to a drop in the labor force. Current conditions in Russia will lead to further migration of skilled workers adding to the brain drain that already exists. The state of the Russian economy will be weakened by the loss of workforce as well as the loss of talent in some key industry areas.
Economically declining populations are thought to lead to deflation, which has a number of effects. However, Russia, whose economy has been rapidly growing (8.1% in 2007) even as its population is shrinking, currently has high inflation (12% as of late 2007)[10].
For an agricultural or mining economy the average standard of living in a declining population, at least in terms of material possessions, will tend to rise as the amount of land and resources per person will be higher.
Could this mean more resources for more people? Possibly lead to a better quality of life? Easier to manage the population. Give up land to China?
Experts:
Timing:
Web Resources:
http://geography.about.com/od/obtainpopulationdata/a/russiapop.htm
http://healthpolicy.stanford.edu/events/gorbachevs_antialcohol_campaign_and_the_russian_mortality_crisis/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Russia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_decline


=== Environmental Driving Forces ===
=== Environmental Driving Forces ===
# [Enforcement of Environmental policy in Russia]]
# [[Enforcement of Environmental policy in Russia]]
# [[Increasing need to clean energy]]
# [[Increasing need to clean energy]]


Revision as of 22:22, 10 September 2009

INTRODUCTION

GROUP MEMBERS

Ankit Anand
Chih-Hou Chen
Andrei Grigorian
Mark Pospisilik
Elsa Sheng

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

Economic

1. What are competitive advantages of Russia as a country?

2. Except for the nature resources, what are others strengths of the country?

3. How does Russia position itself as a country? Eg: IT cluster/ nature resources

4. For Russia, is the energy a political tool?

5. Now Russia also aims at technology development, is it a strategic goal?

6. How many resources are there left in Russia (current estimates)

7. What percentage of GDP from Russian exports goes towards infrastructure and development? Where is it invested?

8. What does the Russian federal government spend money on? What are the spending priorities?

9. Has there been any infrastructure and development in rural Russia? Has the life improved?

10. Why is Moscow one of the most expensive cities in the world?

11. Will Russia’s dependency on oil bring about the same collapse as occurred in Soviet Union?

12. Is there a free market system operating in Russia?

13. What is the degree of state control of business?

14. What is the corruption picture? What effects does corruption have on the development of countries in general and Russia in particular?

15. If there was no oil tomorrow, how could Russia compete?

16. What other promising sectors are developing in Russia? If any at all?

17. Besides oil, gas, army, what is the other big things for Russia?

18. How to the government spend the oil money?

19. What is the most important aspect of government spending? Education, Healthcare, aged population?

20. Will there be greater disparity between the wealthy and poor?


Trade and Foreign investment

23. For each of the major natural resource exports from Russia, what proportion of the global supply is controlled by Russia?

24. What is the level of foreign investment in Russia? Which industries receive foreign investment?

25. What are Russia’s biggest imports?

26. Who are Russia’s biggest trading partners?


Political

1. The wars happened between Russia and its neighbors (Georgia/ Russia)

2. Does Medvedev have any control over the government?

3. Is Putin really behind everything that goes on in Russian politics at the moment?

4. Why does Russian want to control Chechnya?

5. Look at what the relationship is with Ramzan Kadyrov.

6. What was behind the conflict in Georgia?

7. Is Russia going to continue this policy towards its regional neighbours?

8. What happened in Ukraine?

9. Why is Russia paranoid about former Soviet bloc countries being absorbed into the E.U?

10. What is Russia’s official and unofficial stance on relationship with EU, US, China, India, Brazil?

11. What is Russia’s strategic intentions?

12. Remain local power and build up a buffer?

13. Does Russia want to see a situation similar to USSR? Regain its lost power?

15. What role do Muslims play in Russian history – Kazan (example of autonomous republic)

16. Terrorism – just a tool for Russia to make more draconian laws? (US parallel)

17. Role of terrorism on development in Russia

18. Role of Stalin and personality cult today?

19. Putin’s image – personality cult?

20. Opposition to Putin/Medvedev – does it exist?

21. What has happened to opposition in the past?

22. Abramovich – What is his relationship with politicians and Putin in particular?

23. What is the foreign policy of Russia regards to China, US, EU?

24. Is Russia an autocracy?

25. What is the role of the FSB, does the governmet have control over them?

26. How many ex-KGB employees are currently serving in a public role?

27. How likely is a change in constitution?

28. Will Putin be re-elected as President?

29. How much influence does Russia have over its former satellites? What is the source of that influence?

30. How high is the level of corruption in Russia? Is it institutionalized?

Racism in Russia:

27. Does it play a role in politics? If so, what?

28. Racism in Russia – how advanced is it?

29. How do you explain resurgence of fascism in a country which fought against Nazism?

Technology

1. What is the science and technology focus for Russia, military weapons?

2. Does Russia have any globally recognized technology clusters? Centers of research excellence?

3. Does Russia have any federal initiatives to develop/import technologies?

Demographics

5. What is the rate of alcoholism in Russia?

6. Death rate?

7. Is the population getting smaller?

8. What impact will this have on the country?

9. Role of Muslim population in Russia?

10. Is the population of Russia getting less?

11. Immigration policy? Laws to do with immigration.

12. What is the median age of Russia?

13. Is there net immigration to Russia? Net emigration from Russia? Where to? Or where from?

14. What is the level of internet usage/penetration in Russia?


Miscellaneous

1. Is Russia becoming a superpower in 2030?

4. What do Russian people most need in 2030? Better Income, health, or other?

5. How highly ranked are Russian educational institutions?

6. How much interaction/contact do Russian researchers/students have with foreign researchers/students?

LINKS

Putin's Russia: past imperfect, future uncertain 

By Dale Roy Herspring

http://books.google.nl/books?hl=nl&lr=&id=4Y9_fYt9iagC&oi=fnd&pg=PR11&dq=Russia+future&ots=nvGBWNl5X6&sig=sK9ZU5Q7eIwYv1JTDj3GXtIfeSc#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Russia: continuity and change 

By Gerald Hinteregger, Hans-Georg Heinrich, Hans-Georg Heinrich (Univ.-Doz. Dr.)

http://books.google.nl/books?id=1YGJDLpLYWEC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Russia+future&lr=&source=gbs_similarbooks_s&cad=1#v=onepage&q=Russia%20future&f=false

Website*****

http://www.plausiblefutures.com/ Just type Russia in as a keyword and it will give any related news

Chances for a Reset in Russian Politics "Russia in Global Affairs". № 2, April - June 2009 By Dmitry Badovsky http://eng.globalaffairs.ru/numbers/27/1274.html

REFERENCE

http://eng.globalaffairs.ru/ A journal on foreign affairs and international relations

http://www.weforum.org/pdf/GCR09/GCR20092010fullreport.pdf 2009-2010 the Global Competitive Report, take a look at pg.210-pg211

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/rs.html

DRIVING FORCES

Political

Societal

  1. Decline of the Russian population


Environmental Driving Forces

  1. Enforcement of Environmental policy in Russia
  2. Increasing need to clean energy

Economic Driving Forces

  1. Increasing value of Nature Resource (Oil, Natural Gas) in Russia

Technological Driving Forces

DIAGRAMS

SCENARIOS

One Possible Axis of a Driving Force relating to individual and democratic freedoms:


One extreme of the axis defined by: Greater Individual Freedom, Greater Democratic Freedom and participation, Greater Freedom of Expression


Scenarios at this end of the axis will exhibit:

- Utilization of natural resources for the benefit of the population

- Innovation

- Entrepreneurship

- Greater recognition minority views

- More dissent

- Greater difficulty reaching consensus

- More public deliberation and therefore relatively slow implementation of national policies

- Emphasis of public benefit relative to national strategic interest

e.g. less effectiveness in leveraging resources for national strategic interest; greater use of natural resources for public benefit

e.g. greater difficulty in implementing difficult/controversial/unpopular policies


The other extreme of the axis defined by: Lack of Individual Freedom, Non-Democratic, less democratic participation, Censorship


Scenarios at this end of the axis will exhibit:


- Utilization of natural resources for the benefit of the an elite

- Less innovation

- Less entrepreneurship

- Less recognition of minority views

- Less toleration of dissent

- Greater ease in reaching consensus

- Less public deliberation and therefore relatively quick implementation of national policies

- Emphasis of national strategic interest relative to public benefit

e.g. greater effectiveness in leveraging resources for national strategic interest; less use of natural resources for public benefit

e.g. greater ease in implementing difficult/controversial/unpopular policies

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