Is Russia really a normal country? A numerical taxonomy of Russia in comparative perspective

Abstract

What sort of country has Russia become since the collapse of the Soviet Union? Scholars have tracked Russia’s political economy closely for almost three decades but have yet to agree on a method for classifying it. Using cluster analysis and eleven different measures of political, economic, and social development, the article constructs a numerical taxonomy of Russia and nineteen other countries. The results show that, for the most part, Russia no longer resembles other post-communist countries, nor does it resemble the political economy of the developed West or the poorer countries of the developing world. Instead, the results indicate it increasingly approximates other rent extractive political economies, such as China, Brazil, Mexico, and Indonesia.