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INTERNATIONAL OIL MARKETS and POLITICAL MOBILIZATION in RUSSIA by Olga Beznosova B.Sc. N

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INTERNATIONAL OIL MARKETS and POLITICAL MOBILIZATION in RUSSIA by Olga Beznosova B.Sc. N OPPOSITION AND DISSENT IN PETRO-STATES: INTERNATIONAL OIL MARKETS AND POLITICAL MOBILIZATION IN RUSSIA by Olga Beznosova B.Sc. Novosibirsk State University, 1996 M.P.P.M., The University of Pittsburgh, 2000 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES (Political Science) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) April 2013 © Olga Beznosova, 2013 Abstract Using Russia as the main case study over a number of historical periods and Venezuela as a secondary case for comparison, this dissertation proposes an argument which links oil rents to political contestation in petro-regimes and suggests that this, along with the elites’ actions, is the key factor that helps to explain the regime type and the direction of the change in times of external economic shocks. When oil prices are high, petro-states have overwhelming incentives to expand social spending in order to ensure obedience and calm down potential political opponents, which appears to be an easy means of securing legitimacy. The state has more freedom to advance its policies and is less vulnerable to societal demands because it has access to external rents. However, the society is also affected: social groups demand the redistribution of oil wealth and engage in rent-seeking instead of establishing formal channels of interest representation. Consequently, the social contract that emerges is based on the shared understanding of the role of the state as a re-distributor of oil rents and guarantor of societal welfare. When oil prices drop, the state can no longer meet the expectations associated with its legitimacy, becomes more vulnerable to internal and external pressures; social forces tend to mobilize in response to cuts in social spending, and the social contract may break down. The pre-oil features of social organization and state-society relations shape the configuration of the resulting social contract and its disintegration. The main contribution of this dissertation is to create a compelling theory that convincingly explains the empirical observations with respect to one case, by identifying the mechanisms of how oil rent fluctuations translate into regime fluctuations and testing the hypotheses on the effect of external economic shocks on the state’s behavior and popular contentious claims, as well as the choices made by contenders to voice their political demands. Beyond that, I add another shadow case study for a substantially different polity, and demonstrate that the mechanisms I identified work very similarly in different sociopolitical systems, although the specific outcome depends on pre-existing sociopolitical features of the state. ii Preface This dissertation is an original intellectual product of the author, O. Beznosova. The fieldwork reported in Chapters 3-6 was covered by UBC Ethics Certificate number H09-00540 of March 29, 2011. iii Table of Contents Abstract .................................................................................................................................... ii Preface ..................................................................................................................................... iii Table of Contents ................................................................................................................... iv List of Tables ......................................................................................................................... vii List of Figures ....................................................................................................................... viii Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................ xi Chapter 1: Introduction ......................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Russia’s Regime Transitions ................................................................................................. 8 1.2 Explaining the Democratic Deficit ..................................................................................... 15 1.2.1 Political Culture and Mass Attitudes: Trust and Tolerance ............................................ 16 1.2.2 Weak Civil Society ......................................................................................................... 18 1.2.3 The Process of Transition ............................................................................................... 19 1.2.4 Organized Economic Interests ........................................................................................ 22 1.2.5 Reemergence of the State ............................................................................................... 23 1.2.6 Agency: Leadership of Great Men.................................................................................. 25 1.3 Some Preliminary Conclusions: What Explains Russia’s Regime Transitions? ................. 27 1.4 Russia as a Case Study of Regime Transitions in the Petro-State ...................................... 32 Chapter 2: Explanatory Framework .................................................................................. 39 2.1 Political Contestation and Regime Transitions ................................................................... 39 2.2 The Study of Contestation ................................................................................................... 42 2.3 Defining Contestation: Components and Measurement...................................................... 46 2.4 Political Opportunity Structure: Interaction with Political Regime .................................... 55 2.5 Ideas, Ideology, Cultural Symbols, and Identities .............................................................. 57 2.6 The Model of Contentious Politics ..................................................................................... 59 2.7 Hydrocarbon Resources and the Possibility of Political Contestation ................................ 61 2.8 Structural and Institutional Factors ..................................................................................... 67 2.9 Impact of Oil Revenues on the Supply Side of Political Contestation ................................ 72 2.9.1 Repression ...................................................................................................................... 72 2.9.2 Manipulation ................................................................................................................... 75 2.10 Impact of Oil Revenues on the Demand Side ..................................................................... 78 2.10.1 Social Contract ........................................................................................................... 78 2.10.2 Co-optation and Patronage ......................................................................................... 84 2.11 Timing and Path Dependency in the Argument .................................................................. 88 2.12 Method: Case Study, Within-Case Analysis, and Process Tracing ..................................... 90 2.13 Comparing Russia and Venezuela: Mill’s Method of Agreement ...................................... 92 Chapter 3: The Late Soviet Period and the Emergence of Oil Dependency ................... 95 3.1 Oil Industry and the Soviet Economy ................................................................................. 97 3.2 State Autonomy................................................................................................................. 110 3.3 Contention in the USSR .................................................................................................... 117 3.4 Impact of Hydrocarbon Rents on the Supply Side of the Opposition ............................... 126 3.4.1 Repression and Oil Rents .............................................................................................. 127 iv 3.4.2 Manipulation of Society ............................................................................................... 132 3.4.3 Cooptation .................................................................................................................... 134 3.5 Impact of Oil Rents on the Demand Side of the Opposition ............................................. 135 3.5.1 Patronage, Rent-seeking, and Corruption ..................................................................... 137 3.5.2 Soviet Social Contract .................................................................................................. 141 3.5.3 Two-Level Ideology ..................................................................................................... 147 3.6 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 150 Chapter 4: Gorbachev’s Perestroika and the Collapse of the Regime, 1985 – 1991 .... 153 4.1 Political Economy of Oil and Structural Features of the State ......................................... 156 4.1.1 Decline in Oil Prices and Looming Scarcity ................................................................ 157 4.2 Gorbachev: A New Hope? ................................................................................................ 164 4.3 State Autonomy Reduced, Both Internally and Externally ............................................... 172 4.4 Coercive Capacity and Military Expenditures Reduced ..................................................
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