Copyright By Yuval Weber 2014 The Dissertation Committee for Yuval Weber Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Petropolitics and Foreign Policy: Fiscal and Institutional Origins and Patterns of Russian Foreign Policy, 1964-2012 Committee: Peter Trubowitz, Supervisor Robert Moser, Co-Supervisor Catherine Boone Patrick McDonald Rachel Wellhausen Dmitri Trenin Petropolitics and Foreign Policy: Fiscal and Institutional Origins and Patterns of Russian Foreign Policy, 1964-2012 by Yuval Weber, B.A.; M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of The Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin August 2014 Dedication Dedicated to my parents and family, teachers, committee, fellow students, the administrative staff, and friends. If it takes a village to raise a child, then it takes a megapolis to get a grad student to the finish line. Petropolitics and Foreign Policy: Fiscal and Institutional Origins and Patterns of Russian Foreign Policy, 1964-2012 Yuval Weber, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2014 Supervisors: Peter Trubowitz and Robert Moser Abstract Russian foreign policy from the mid-1960s has vacillated between periods of expansion and retrenchment in which the military and diplomatic reach of the state has extended to continents or been retracted to very modest conceptions of national defense. During this period, the financial centrality of energy exports has come to dominate the Russian economy, leading scholars and observers to draw a causal link between the two: as energy revenues go up, expansionism does as well, while declines in revenues lead Russia to behave less assertively. This dissertation outlines an alternative argument for petrostate foreign policy in which positive or negative revenue environments determine the menu of policy options available to policymakers, but that internal politics determine the content of those foreign policy choices. I argue that foreign policy choices are conditional on the mediating political institutions and circumstances existing at the time of booms and busts, namely that how energy revenue shocks affect foreign policy decision-making in a petrostate after a revenue shock depends on the political environment before the shock. The petropolitics foreign policy theory thus provides insight as to when the expansionism might occur. By focusing on revenue yet allowing politicians to retain agency, this “petropolitics” foreign policy theory links structural theories of foreign policy to leadership-driven models of political decision-making. This petropolitics theory then reassesses Russian foreign policy by analyzing leadership tenures from Leonid Brezhnev to Vladimir Putin. I show that Soviet expansionism in the Third World in the 1970s was not simply because of a positive revenue shock, but because of Brezhnev’s political weakness after his installation in a palace coup. Similarly, I show that Mikhail Gorbachev’s retrenchment of foreign policy commitments arose not solely from a lack of energy revenues, but from his political strength in light of the poor performance of his predecessors. Finally, I show that Vladimir Putin’s selective expansionism and retrenchment emerges in a skillful consolidation of domestic political strength, a fortuitous influx of energy revenues, and a willingness to change foreign policy strategies to serve a single preference of maintaining power. v Table of Contents Dedication ....................................................................................................................................... iv List of Figures .............................................................................................................................. viii List of Tables ................................................................................................................................... x Chapter 1: Oil and war is only part of the story: Windfalls and foreign policy in petrostates ........................................................................................................................................ 1 Chapter 2: Theory, Hypotheses, Place in Literature ...................................................................... 11 2.0 What Energy Means for Petrostates ............................................................................ 11 2.1 Petrostate Foreign Policy Theory ................................................................................ 14 2.1.1. Microfoundations of Petrostate Foreign Policy ........................................... 18 2.1.2. Preview of case studies ................................................................................ 25 2.2 Existing literature in International Security and Petropolitics .................................... 28 2.2.1. The War Chest: revenue volatility and foreign policy ................................ 29 2.2.2. Energy resources and International Relations literature .............................. 32 2.2.3. Energy Resources and Comparative Politics Literature .............................. 37 2.3. Existing interpretations of Russian foreign policy theory .......................................... 41 2.3.1. “Energy Impact Theory”: The War Chest and Petrostate Foreign Policy ......................................................................................................... 42 2.3.2. Personality ................................................................................................... 44 2.3.3. Groups ......................................................................................................... 46 2.3.4. Structure and Geography ............................................................................. 49 2.3.5. Ideology and Culture ................................................................................... 50 Chapter 3: Petropolitics and Overexpansion in the Brezhnev Era ................................................ 57 3.1 Institutions and political position of Brezhnev prior to revenue shock ....................... 59 3.2 The revenue shock ....................................................................................................... 65 3.3 Expansionism: policy, strategic thought, expenditures ............................................... 66 3.3.1. Failure to rein in subordinates ..................................................................... 67 3.3.2. Failure to rein in revisionist ideological thought in the military ................. 69 3.3.3. Alternative foreign policy via the International Department of the CPSU ................................................................................................... 71 3.4. Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 75 Chapter 4: Petropolitics and Selective Expansionism, 2000-2014 ................................................ 79 4.1 Institutions and political position of Putin prior to revenue shock .............................. 83 vi 4.1.1 Yeltsin’s ‘90s ................................................................................................ 84 4.1.2 Putin’s ‘90s ................................................................................................... 86 4.1.3 The President Prior to the Shock .................................................................. 90 4.2 The Revenue Shock ..................................................................................................... 94 4.3 Selective Expansionism: expenditures, policy change, and outcomes ........................ 97 Chapter 5: Petropolitics and Selective Foreign Policy Contraction from Gorbachev to Yeltsin .......................................................................................................................................... 109 5.1 Institutions and political position of Gorbachev prior to revenue shock ................... 109 5.2 The Negative Revenue Shock ................................................................................... 114 5.3 Retrenchment: policy, expenditures and the balance between ends and means ........................................................................................................................................... 116 5.4 Boris Yeltsin: political institutions at beginning of tenure ........................................ 123 5.5 Negative revenue shock throughout 1990s ................................................................ 128 5.6 To the West and Back ................................................................................................ 128 Chapter 6: Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 132 6.1 Russia Going Forward ............................................................................................... 136 6.2 The Project Going Forward ....................................................................................... 140 Appendix 1. “Putin Reaches Out to Oligarchs” .......................................................................... 145 Appendix 2. Definition and Calculation of the Russian Petrostate ............................................. 148 References ................................................................................................................................... 163 vii List of Figures FIGURE 1. POLITICAL