바우처 사유화의 논리 - 러시아와 체코의 경우 비교

Abstract

This article employs the new-institutionalist perspective to illuminate the logic and subtypes of voucher privatization. The author criticizes that the existing institutionalist explanation for the divergent privatization modes across post-communist societies abuses the concept of "path-dependency," and, as a result, fails to capture the "path-shaping" nature of voucher privatization. The author suggests the scheme of "path-dependent path-shaping" as an alternative framework to analyze voucher privatization.

It is argued here that voucher privatization has been adopted by radical reformers as a path-shaping political strategy to create social bases supporting system transformation and/or to destroy the institutional bulwarks of political opponents. The implementation of the strategy, however, has been constrained mainly by political and social legacies inherited from the communist past, particularly the scope of spontaneous privatization. Difference in the degree of the path-dependency have led to different subtypes of voucher privatization. Russia represents the subtype of "insider (of enterprise) control" whereas Czech approximates that of "outsider control."

After comparing the Russian and Czech cases, the author evaluates voucher privatization as a privatization policy. The negative consequences of voucher privatization seem to overshadow its contribution in terms of quantity and speed. Even after the completion of radical and large scale privatization, the state still directly or indirectly holds at least a part of ownership in large enterprises. So the state may easily fall prey to enterprises" rent-seeking behavior. Enterprises" decision making has yet to be further de-politicized. Enterprise restructuring has also been delayed until the completion of privatization and is still very slow to occur. Moreover, the social equity, which the voucher privatization method was deemed to be able to achieve, never materialized. On the contrary, ownership concentration has been only exacerbated, which weakens the main cause of voucher privatization, that is, the creation of social bases supporting the reform toward market economy and democratic polity.