Paradise lost: Russian multinationals under deglobalization, 2014–2021

While globalised capitalism has enabled emerging market multinational enterprises (MNEs) to pursue ambitious internationalisation strategies, current deglobalization trends are calling these strategies into question. In this article, we examine how Russian MNEs have adapted their internationalisation efforts to the new climate of geopolitical conflict. Geopolitical factors have acted as a ceiling, forcing Russian MNEs to ‘bounce down’ and refocus on their home base. However, by examining the cases of Lukoil, Russia’s second largest oil company, and Rusal, the monopoly producer of aluminium, we show that these companies managed to transform, rather than simply scale down, their internationalisation efforts. The changes involved a geographic reconfiguration of foreign ties and, in the case of Lukoil, a pattern of cooperation with Western oil majors in non-Western countries. In addition, both Lukoil and Rusal engaged in domestic lobbying to fill the institutional gaps that had driven them to internationalise in the first place.