Governing Regions with Outsiders: Subnational Cadre Rotations and Centralization in Post-Soviet Russia

Although centralization gives autocrats formal power over entire regions of their countries, weak institutions and the vast size of the territories prevent them from effectively managing local affairs without the support of local elites. This book project sheds light on centralization reforms in Russia and how these reforms have changed the political interactions between federal, regional, and local elites.

Based on information gathered during eleven months of intensive fieldwork in several Russian regions, it is shown that several Kremlin agents are struggling to involve local elites in centralization reforms. Statistical analyses of a variety of data, such as the career patterns of governors and heads of municipal executives, methods of selecting heads of municipal executives, and election results, support the theories presented in the case studies.

The main findings suggest that informal interactions among local elites play a crucial role even in centralized autocracies. Although autocracies successfully centralize power through formal institutional reforms, new informal interactions between central and local governments emerge within the framework of the new institutions.