Stopping the feast in times of plague: fighting criminal corporate raiding in diverse Russian regions

Post-Soviet Affairs. 2020. Vol. 36. No. 5-6. P. 416–433.

Kazun A.

This paper analyzes the process of renegotiation of the informal contract between the regional and federal elites of Russia after the economic crisis. We use the database of Center of Public Procedures’ “Business against Corruption” to show that, after 2011, regional elites in Russia lost the preexisting opportunity to extract rents from businesses in return for favorable election results for Vladimir Putin and United Russia. We also analyze the connection between the level of corporate raiding in various Russian regions and the political competition, tenure, and ties of their governors. We show that there are two distinct models for fighting raiding in a region: an authoritarian model for suppressing negative signals and a competitive model with the creation of a new consensus among the elites. Although both models are similar in terms of the absence of negative signals, they have very different consequences in the business context of an area.

Keywords: выборы, рейдерство, регионы России, elections, governors, губернаторы, защита прав собственности, property rights protection, regions of Russia, corporate raiding, state violence, государственное насилие

Publication based on the results of: Quality of public administration: its factors and impact on economic development (2020)