Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T03:01:49.990Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Statecraft strategies and housing financialization at the periphery: Post-socialist trajectories in Russia and Poland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2023

MIrjam Büdenbender  and
Andrea Lagna
MIrjam Büdenbender
Affiliation:
Deutscher Bundestag, Germany
Andrea Lagna*
Affiliation:
Loughborough University, UK
*
Corresponding author: Andrea Lagna, School of Business and Economics, Loughborough University, Loughborough LE11 3TU, United Kingdom. Email: [email protected].
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

A new literature on housing and financialization has emerged in recent years, but scholars have yet to examine how political actors shape national trajectories of housing financialization. In this article, we address this shortcoming by examining the cases of Russia and Poland in the 1990-2018 period. We argue that in both contexts political elites implemented a radical market-oriented reshaping of housing finance. However, by pursuing distinct statecraft strategies and modes of integrating the domestic economy into global markets, Russian and Polish political elites created two divergent trajectories of housing financialization. Russian political elites pursued patrimonial statecraft strategies and a mode of global economic integration based on raw material exports. The Putin administration channeled revenues from raw material exports into the securitization-based housing finance system and used this infrastructure as an instrument of hegemonic power. In doing so, the Russian government shielded homeowners from exposure to financial risk. In contrast, Polish political elites pursued liberal statecraft strategies and a mode of global economic integration based on foreign capital inflows. Polish political parties therefore enabled foreign banks to dominate the housing finance system and sell foreign currency mortgages, which exposed homeowners to considerable financial risk. In light of these findings we call for further research into the political factors that shape the process of housing financialization, both in the post-socialist space and beyond.

Keywords

Housingfinancializationfinancial innovationstatecraftpost-socialist capitalism
Type
Article
Information
Finance and Society , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , 2019 , pp. 105 - 125
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits noncommercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
© 2019 The Author(s)

References

Aalbers, M. (2008) The financialization of home and the mortgage market crisis. Competition and Change, 12(2): 148–66.Google Scholar
Aalbers, M. (2016) Financialization of Housing. Abingdon: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aalbers, M. (2017) The variegated financialization of housing. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 41(4): 542–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aalbers, M., Van Loon, J. and Fernandez, R. (2017) The financialization of a social housing provider. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 41(4): 572–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
AHML (2014a) Informatsionno-statisticheskaya sistema [Statistical information system]. Available at: <http://www.ahml.ru/ru/agency/analytics/statsis/>. Accessed 20 July 2019..+Accessed+20+July+2019.>Google Scholar
AHML (2014b) The Housing and Mortgage Market in 2013. Moscow: Agency for Housing Mortgage Lending.Google Scholar
Aslund, A. (2013) Russia's economic transformation. In: Alexeev, M. and Weber, S. (eds.) Oxford Handbook of the Russian Economy. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 86–101.Google Scholar
Aven, P. (2015) 1990s: Back to the USSR? The World Today, 71(3): 37–38.Google Scholar
Baldwin, D. (1985) Economic Statecraft. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Bankier 24 (2015) PiS ma pomyst na kredyty we frankach. Tymczasem w 2006 roku… [PiS has an idea for franc loans. Meanwhile in 2006…] Available at: <http://www.bankier.pl/wiadomosc/PiS-ma-pomysl-na-kredyty-we-frankach-Tymczasem-w-2006-roku-3271923.html>. Accessed 20 July 2019..+Accessed+20+July+2019.>Google Scholar
Bernt, M., Colini, L. and Förste, D. (2017) Privatization, financialization and state restructuring in Eastern Germany: The case of Am südpark. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 41(4): 555–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
BIS (2015) Credit to the non-financial sector. Available at: <https://www.bis.org/statistics/totcredit.htm>. Accessed 20 July 2019..+Accessed+20+July+2019.>Google Scholar
Blackwell, T. and Kohl, S. (2019) Historicizing housing typologies: Beyond welfare state regimes and varieties of residential capitalism. Housing Studies, 34(2): 298–318.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bohle, D. (2014) Post-socialist housing meets transnational finance: Foreign banks, mortgage lending, and the privatization of welfare in Hungary and Estonia. Review of International Political Economy, 21(4): 913–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bohle, D. (2018) Mortgaging Europe's periphery. Studies in Comparative International Development, 53(2): 196–217.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bohle, D. and Greskovits, B. (2012) Capitalist Diversity on Europe's Periphery. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Buckley, N. (2015) Beware Hungary's cure for the Swiss franc mortgages hangover. Financial Times, 28 January. Available at: <https://www.ft.com/content/b481107a-a6e9-11e4-9c4d-00144feab7de>. Accessed 20 July 2019.. Accessed 20 July 2019.' href=https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Buckley,+N.+(2015)+Beware+Hungary's+cure+for+the+Swiss+franc+mortgages+hangover.+Financial+Times,+28+January.+Available+at:+.+Accessed+20+July+2019.>Google Scholar
CBR (2019) Housing (mortgage) loan market. Available at: <http://www.cbr.ru/eng/statistics/pdko/Mortgage/>. Accessed 20 July 2019..+Accessed+20+July+2019.>Google Scholar
Diamond, D. (2002) Comments on the Bauspar system and proposal for Lithuania. Available at: <http://pdc.ceu.hu/archive/00001144/01/19.pdf>. Accessed 20 July 2019..+Accessed+20+July+2019.>Google Scholar
DOM.RF (2017) Strategiya razvitiya zhilishchnoy sfery—Rossiyskoy Federatsii na period do 2025 goda [Housing development strategy for the Russian Federation in the period up to 2025]. Available at: <https://A0M.pΦ/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/DomRF_brochure-3.0-Dec10.pdf>. Accessed 20 July 2019..+Accessed+20+July+2019.>Google Scholar
Dübel, H. (2014) Mortgage Lending Boom-Bust and Regulation in Response in Transition Countries: Results of a Six Country Study. Berlin: Finpolconsult.Google Scholar
EMF (2010) A Review of Europe's Mortgage and Housing Markets: Hypostat 2009. Brussels: European Mortgage Federation.Google Scholar
EMF (2018) A Review of Europe's Mortgage and Housing Markets: Hypostat 2018. Brussels: European Mortgage Federation.Google Scholar
Ericson, R. (2009) The Russian economy in 2008: Testing the market economy. Post-Soviet Affairs, 25(3): 209–231.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fernandez, R. and Aalbers, M. (2016) Financialization and housing: Between globalization and varieties of capitalism. Competition and Change, 20(2): 71–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fernandez, R. and Aalbers, M. (2017) Capital Market Union and residential capitalism in Europe: Rescaling the housing-centred model of financialization. Finance and Society, 3(1): 32–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fields, D. (2017) Unwilling subjects of financialization. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 41(4): 588–603.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fields, D. (2018) Constructing a new asset class: Property-led financial accumulation after the crisis. Economic Geography, 94(2): 118–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
FRED (2014) Consolidated foreign claims of BIS-reporting banks to GDP for Poland. Available at: <https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DDOI12PLA156NWDB>. Accessed 20 July 2019..+Accessed+20+July+2019.>Google Scholar
FRED (2019a) Homeownership rate for the United States. Available at: <https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N>. Accessed 20 July 2019..+Accessed+20+July+2019.>Google Scholar
FRED (2019b) Mortgage debt outstanding, all holders. Available at: <https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MDOAH>. Accessed 20 July 2019..+Accessed+20+July+2019.>Google Scholar
Gotham, K. (2006) The secondary circuit of capital reconsidered: Globalization and the U.S. real estate sector. American Journal of Sociology, 112(1): 231–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Groendahl, B., Strzelecki, M. and Arons, S. (2019) Deutsche Bankjoins call to stop Polish mortgage levy. Bloomberg, 19 February. Available at: <https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-19/deutsche-bank-said-to-join-call-to-block-polish-mortgage-levy>. Accessed 20 July 2019..+Accessed+20+July+2019.>Google Scholar
Gustafson, T. (1999) Capitalism Russian-Style. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hakim, D. (2015) Homeowners in Poland borrowed in Swiss francs, and now pay dearly. New York Times, January 28. Available at: <www.nytimes.com/2015/01/29/business/international/polish-homeowners-feel-the-weight-of-a-heftier-swiss-franc.html>. Accessed 20 July 2019..+Accessed+20+July+2019.>Google Scholar
Halawa, M. (2015) In new Warsaw. Cultural Studies, 29(5-6): 707–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hanson, P. (2010) Managing the economy. In: White, S., Sakwa, R. and Hale, H. (eds.) Developments in Russian Politics. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan: 188–205.Google Scholar
Huskey, E. (2010) Pantouflage a la Russe: The recruitment of Russian political and business elites. In: Fortescue, S. (ed.) Russian Politics from Lenin to Putin. Basingstoke: Palgrave: 185–204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
IFR Russia (2008) Safe and securitised. Available at: <http://www.ifre.com/safe-and-securitised/559721.article>. Accessed 20 July 2019..+Accessed+20+July+2019.>Google Scholar
Impavido, G., Rudolph, H. and Ruggerone, L. (2013) Bank funding in Central, Eastern and South Eastern Europe post Lehman: A new normal? IMF Working Paper 13/148.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, J. (2000) A Fistful of Rubles: The Rise and Fall of the Russian Banking System. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Khmelnitskaya, M. (2014a) Russian housing finance policy: State-led institutional evolution. Post-Communist Economies, 6(2): 149–75.Google Scholar
Khmelnitskaya, M. (2014b) The tools of government for the development of the Russian housing sphere. Public Administration Issues, 5: 96–111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, L. (2002) Postcommunist divergence: A comparative analysis of the transition to capitalism in Poland and Russia. Studies in Comparative International Development, 37(3): 3–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, L., and Szelényi, I. (2005) Postcommunist economic systems. In: Smelser, N. and Swedberg, R. (eds.) Handbook of Economic Sociology. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press: 206–32.Google Scholar
Kolasa, A. and Liberda, B. (2015) Determinants of savings in Poland: Are they different from those in other OECD countries? Eastern European Economics, 53(2): 124–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kotz, D. and Weir, F. (2007) Russia's Path from Gorbachev to Putin: The Demise of the Soviet System and the New Russia. Abingdon: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kozak, S. (2013) Consolidation of the banking sector in Poland in 1989-2013 in comparison with the structural changes of the banking sector in the USA and the EU. NBP Working Paper 166.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kryshtanovskaya, O. and White, S. (2005) The rise of the Russian business elite. Communist and Post-Communist Studies, 38(3): 293–307.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kudrin, A. and Gurvich, E. (2015) A new growth model for the Russian economy. Russian Journal of Economics, 1(1): 30–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lane, D. (2002) Russian Banking: Evolution, Problems and Prospects. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lane, D. (2010) Post-socialist states and the world economy: The impact of global economic crisis. Historical Social Research/Historische Sozialforschung, 35(2): 218–41.Google Scholar
Łaszek, J. (2006) Development of housing-finance system in Poland: Lessons learned. Economic Annals, 51: 62–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Łaszek, J., Augustyniak, H. and Olszewski, K. (2015) FX mortgages, housing boom and financial stabilit: A case study of Poland (2005-2015). Available at: <https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2841636>. Accessed 20 July 2019..+Accessed+20+July+2019.>Google Scholar
Lea, M. (2000) Global Model for Funding Housing: What is the Best Model for Poland? Washington, DC: Urban Institute.Google Scholar
Lewicki, M. (2013) Financialization of Polish mortgages. Annual Conference of SASE, Special Section on Finance and Society, 27-29 June. Milan.Google Scholar
McGivern, B. (1997) Recommendations on carrying out social housing policy in the city of Novocherkassk. Brussels: European Commission TaCIS.Google Scholar
Mendel, M. (2013) Residential developers as actors of urban transformation in post-socialist Warsaw. PhD Thesis, Polish Academy of Sciences Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization, Warsaw.Google Scholar
Monaghan, A. (2011) The Russian vertikal: The tandem, power and the elections. Available at: <https://www.chathamhouse.org/publications/papers/view/175813>. Accessed 20 July 2019..+Accessed+20+July+2019.>Google Scholar
Myant, M. and Drahokoupil, J. (2011) Transition Economies: Political Economy in Russia, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia. Hoboken: Wiley.Google Scholar
NBP (2015) Assets and liabilities of monetary financial institutions. Available at: <http://www.nbp.pl/homen.aspx?f=/en/statystyka/zobowiazania.html>. Accessed 20 July 2019..+Accessed+20+July+2019.>Google Scholar
NBP (2016) Financial system in Poland 2014. Available at: <https://www.nbp.pl/en/systemfinansowy/fsd_2014.pdf>. Accessed 20 July 2019..+Accessed+20+July+2019.>Google Scholar
Nesvetailova, A. (2004) Coping in the global financial system: The political economy of nonpayment in Russia. Review of International Political Economy, 11(5): 995–1021.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nesvetailova, A. (2015) The offshore nexus, sanctions and the Russian crisis. Available at: <http://www.iai.it/sites/default/files/iaiwp1524.pdf>. Accessed 20 July 2019..+Accessed+20+July+2019.>Google Scholar
OECD (2002) Housing Finance in Transition Economies. Paris: OECD.Google Scholar
OECD (2005) Housing Finance Markets in Transition Economies: Trends and Challenges. Paris: OECD.Google Scholar
Orlowski, W. (2011) Post-accession economic development of Poland. Eastern Journal of European Studies, 2(2): 7–20.Google Scholar
Ost, D. (2006) The Defeat of Solidarity: Anger and Politics in Postcommunist Europe. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pereira, A. (2017) Financialization of housing in Brazil: New frontiers. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 41(4): 604–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pis'mennaya, Y. (2008) Finansovaya vertikal [Financial vertical]. Available at: <http://www.vedomosti.ru/newspaper/articles/2008/10/21/finansovaya-vertikal>. Accessed 20 July 2019.. Accessed 20 July 2019.' href=https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Pis'mennaya,+Y.+(2008)+Finansovaya+vertikal+[Financial+vertical].+Available+at:+.+Accessed+20+July+2019.>Google Scholar
Raviv, O. (2008) Chasing the dragon east: Exploring the frontiers of Western European finance. Contemporary Politics, 14(3): 297–314.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robinson, N. (2011) Russian patrimonial capitalism and the international financial crisis. Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, 27(3-4): 434–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Romainville, A. (2017) The financialization of housing production in Brussels. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 41(4): 623–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ronald, R. (2008) The Ideology of Home Ownership: Homeowner Societies and the Role of Housing. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosstat (2015) Regiony Rossii. Sotsial'no-ekonomicheskiye pokazateli [Russia's regions. Socioeconomic indicators]. Available at: <http://www.gks.ru/free_doc/new_site/region_stat/sep_region.html>. Accessed 20 July 2019.. Accessed 20 July 2019.' href=https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Rosstat+(2015)+Regiony+Rossii.+Sotsial'no-ekonomicheskiye+pokazateli+[Russia's+regions.+Socioeconomic+indicators].+Available+at:+.+Accessed+20+July+2019.>Google Scholar
Rusipoteka (2015) Ipoteka statistika [Mortgage statistics]. Available at: <http://rusipoteka.ru/ipoteka_v_rossii/ipoteka_statitiska/>. Accessed 20 July 2019..+Accessed+20+July+2019.>Google Scholar
Schoenberger, E. (1991) The corporate interview as a research method in economic geography. The Professional Geographer, 43(2): 180–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schwartz, H. and Seabrooke, L. (2008) Varieties of residential capitalism in the international political economy: Old welfare states and the new politics of housing. Comparative European Politics, 6(3): 237–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Seawright, J. and Gerring, J. (2008) Case selection techniques in case study research: A menu of qualitative and quantitative options. Political Research Quarterly, 61(2): 294–308.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shevtsova, L. (2009) Reading Russia: The return of personalized power. Journal of Democracy, 20(2): 61–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stanley, B. (2012) From periphery to power: The trajectory of Polish populism, 1989-2012. In: Bachrynowski, S. (ed.) Populism in Central and Eastern Europe: Challenge for the Future. Warsaw: Green European Foundation: 10–20.Google Scholar
Stephens, M., Lux, M. and Sunega, P. (2015) Post-socialist housing systems in Europe: Housing welfare regimes by default? Housing Studies, 30(8): 1210–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Struyk, R. (ed.) (2000) Homeownership and Housing Finance Policy in the Former Soviet Bloc. Washington, DC: Urban Institute.Google Scholar
Sutela, P. (2008) Russia's response to the global financial crisis. Available at: <http://carnegieendowment.org/files/russia_crisis.pdf>. Accessed 20 July 2019.. Accessed 20 July 2019.' href=https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Sutela,+P.+(2008)+Russia's+response+to+the+global+financial+crisis.+Available+at:+.+Accessed+20+July+2019.>Google Scholar
Tanas, O., Kravchenko, S. and Kuznetsov, S. (2014) Russia extends hold on pension savings for budget through 2015. Bloomberg, August 5.Google Scholar
Thelen, K. (2004) How Institutions Evolve: The Political Economy of Skills in Germany, Britain, the United States and Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thies, C. (2002) A pragmatic guide to qualitative historical analysis in the study of international relations. International Studies Perspectives, 3(4): 351–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trzeciak, S. (2011) Poland's EU Accession. Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
USAID (1999) Evaluation Report: The Russian Housing Sector Reform Project Phases I and II. Available at: <https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/Pdabs542.pdf>. Accessed 20 July 2019..+Accessed+20+July+2019.>Google Scholar
Vernikov, A. (2009) Russian banking: The state makes a comeback? Bank of Finland Discussion Paper 24/2009.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vihavainen, R. (2005) Housing in Russia—policies and practices. Available at: <https://blogs.helsinki.fi/respublica/files/2008/08/rp05_interim_housing.pdf>. Accessed 20 July 2019..+Accessed+20+July+2019.>Google Scholar
Viktorov, I. and Abramov, A. (2015) The state capture of russian non-bank financial institutions and markets after the 2008 crisis. Competition and Change, 20(1): 3–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wijburg, G., Aalbers, M. and Heeg, S. (2018) The financialisation of rental housing 2.0: Releasing housing into the privatised mainstream of capital accumulation. Antipode, 50(4): 1098–119.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
World Bank (1992) Poland: Housing Project. Washington, DC: World Bank.Google Scholar
World Bank (2003) Developing Residential Mortgage Markets in the Russian Federation: Final Report. Washington, DC: World Bank.Google Scholar
World Bank (2008) Russian Economic Report. Washington, DC: World Bank.Google Scholar
Zavisca, J. (2012) Housing the new Russia. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar