The disadvantage of material advantage: Privatization, extractive industries and the regions of the Russian Federation.

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Privatization was Russia's flagship policy to decentralize political, economic and social relations; to extract the state from economic life. Central reformers, acting under counsel from Western advisors, undertook a fast and furious policy to redefine the nature of property rights in the Russian Federation, introduce private property as the fundamental institution of the new Russian Economy, and re-establish a limited role for the state in property ownership.
The implementation of this policy was not uniform across the regions of the Russian Federation. This dissertation seeks to address why some regions introduced ambitious privatization policies while others inhibited privatization and preserved state owned shares. The fall of the Soviet Union, the collapse of a system based on a highly centralized institutional structure, and the construction of new political and economic institutions, provide unprecedented opportunities to investigate questions on the nature of change and when and why political leaders undertake daring and innovative reform.
This dissertation argues that the decision to inhibit the decentralization of property rights was influenced by the dominant economic sector of a given region. Specifically, regions dominated by extractive industries are <italic> least</italic> likely to adopt radical privatization policies, while regions without the advantages these resources provide are propelled into radical and innovative change. This relationship is mediated by the institutional structure of the Russian Federation: Leaders in republics played by a different set of rules than leaders in oblasts. As a result, republic leaders had increased opportunity to concentrate property rights in the hands of the regional government.
The chapters of the dissertation develop and support this argument with explanations of Russian Federalism, the influence of mixed property, a quantitative investigation, and two case studies (the Republic of Bashkortostan and Vladimir Oblast). The conclusion investigates the emerging role of the Russian State and implications of the findings for future economic growth.