“Bad enough governance”: state capacity and quality of institutions in post-Soviet autocracies

This article contributes to current discussions on state capacity, quality of institutions, and political regimes. Our analysis demonstrates that the J-curve argument (“good institutions” in autocracies as compared to hybrid and transitional regimes) may not be generic and is not well supported by empirical evidence from the sample of post-Soviet countries. An explanatory model of the “King of the Mountain” is instead provided. Its focus is on the monopoly of political rent as a precondition for extraction of economic rent. It demonstrates an inverse correlation between the quality of institutions and the extraction of political and economic rent, and explains why an autocrat may not have an incentive to improve institutions that may make his/her monopoly vulnerable, and rather would prefer to preserve a low quality of institutions and “bad enough governance.” An analysis of a variety of external and domestic factors that may endanger this monopoly is provided. Finally, the autocrat's alternative strategic choices are analyzed. It is argued that better payoffs for the autocrat – paradoxically – may result from partial reforms and improvement of the quality of institutions. However, for various reasons, this is not occurring in post-Soviet autocracies.     

Electoral coordination in India: The role of costly campaign communication

This article views electoral campaigns as a means of communication in the process of electoral coordination. Well-manned and well-funded district campaigns facilitate voters’ learning about the policies of competing parties; if the funds and the activist support are supplied by local constituencies, campaigning also informs voters about the relative support of competing parties in the district. Using district-level data from the 2009 general election in India, as well as the measures of the affluence of district residents obtained from the Indian Human Development Survey, 2005, an estimation was made of the effect of the affluence of electoral constituencies on the intra-district coordination. The analysis also includes the known determinants of strategic voting as control variables.     

"King of the Mountain," or Why Postcommunist Autocracies Have Bad Institutions

The authors analyze levels of democracy and state capacity (including quality of institutions) in the postcommunist countries over the past two decades and consider the theoretical implications of the relationship between these variables. In particular, they cast serious doubt on the general validity of the J-curve hypothesis. They present their own informal "king of the mountain" model.     

The securitization of democracy: Freedom House ratings of Russia

This article explores the claims of Russian officials that US assessments of economic and political developments in Russia, particularly those of Freedom House (FH), are excessively critical and often used to justify global dominance. To assess the validity of such claims, three different influences are considered: culture, power, and special interests. The article finds that all three, each with roots in the cold war, play a role in shaping assessments of Russia and help to explain why FH's analysis of Russia is more critical than the analysis of other organizations. The politics of special interests is found to be particularly influential and reflects the interests of US national security policies and priorities. Such priorities are also linked to a politics of memory derived from the cold war, which often influences perceptions of Russia as a threat rather than as a potential partner.     

Means of production versus means of coercion: can Russian business limit the violence of a predatory state?

In their most recent works, North and his coauthors (North, D. C., J. J. Wallis, S. Webb, and B. R. Weingast. 2012. In the Shadow of Violence: Politics, Economics, and the Problems of Development. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press; North, D.C., J. J. Wallis, and B. R. Weingast. 2009. Violence and Social Orders: A Conceptual Framework for Interpreting Recorded Human History. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press) name the formation of organizations capable of effectively restricting violence in society as a necessary condition for transition from developing societies to societies with sustainable economic growth. However, the mechanisms of emergence and conditions for the operation of such organizations in contemporary developing countries remain unclear. We follow the logic of formation of such organizations using the case study of collective actions of the Russian business community aimed at restricting “state violence” against business. We seek to identify the conditions leading to a shift in the choice of strategies from attempts at informal agreements with extortionists controlling means of coercion to cooperation of businessmen and trace the further evolution of organized forms of collective action. Finally, we assess to what extent the created organizations can be efficient and self-supporting in the long term.     

Reviews

Roger Manser, Failed Transitions: The Eastern European Economy and Environment since the Fall of Communism. New York: The New Press, 1993, ix + 195 pp., $22.95. UK edition, The Squandered Dividend: The Free Market and the Environment in Eastern Europe. London: Earthscan Publications Ltd, 1993.

Jacques Nagels, La tiers‐mondisation de l'ex‐URSS? Brussels: Editions de l'Université de Bruxelles, 1993.

John Murray, The Russian Press from Brezhnev to Yeltsin: Behind the Paper Curtain. Aldershot, Hants: Edward Elgar, 1994, viii + 280 pp.

James D. White, The Russian Revolution 1917–1921. A Short History. London: Edward Arnold, 1994, viii + 312 pp., £12.99 p/b.     

Social capital and support for the welfare state in Russia

Few tasks are more important in a post-communist setting than rebuilding the welfare state. We study individual preferences for increasing social welfare spending to reduce inequality. Using two surveys of about 34,000 and 37,000 Russians, we show the great importance of the “bridging” type of social capital for redistribution preferences in Russia, as it precludes possibilities of cheating and free-riding on the welfare state. Instrumenting social capital with education, climate, and distance from Moscow, we deal with endogeneity concerns and also contribute to our understanding of the deep roots of social capital in Russia. We claim that social capital in post-socialist countries could help mobilize public support for redistribution even where institutions are weak.