| How was the Western Siberian region of Tyumen, home to Russia's vast oil reserves, able to escape the highly centralized control of Moscow during the period 1970--1998? The dissertation employs a core-periphery framework to suggest that economic development in the regional "periphery" of the Russian Federation partially caused political decentralization in Russia, both prior to and after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In particular, I propose a four-stage sequential model of decentralization in Russia. First, the "core" (Moscow) identified and exploited resources in the "periphery" (Tyumen Oblast). Second, the core's investment in resource development in the periphery created, of necessity, powerful regional forces needed to direct the investment. These forces, however, eventually amassed enough power to lobby Moscow, identify and capitalize on rent opportunities in the region, and challenge the center for influence there. Third, a major economic dislocation at the core affected the level of investment in the periphery, creating a pretext for regional actors to step into the power vacuum. And fourth, economic and political reforms at the core (in this case, Gorbachev's perestroika and glasnost) altered the incentive structure of the Soviet economy and provided regional actors with the tools to seize autonomy and greater control of the assets under their supervision. To test the model, I examine the experiences of Moscow, Tyumen, Khanty-Mansi and Yamal Nenets Autonomous Okrugs, and selected oil firms during the expansion, crisis, and reorganization of the Russian oil sector during the period.;In addition, I use aggregate regional economic production data and the list of regions with bilateral treaties to show that the wealthier a region is, the more likely it is to seek autonomy from the center by negotiating a treaty with Moscow that delineates taxation authority, ownership of industrial and natural resource assets on the region's territory. Finally, I explore the experiences of The Siberian Agreement and the Republic of Sakha in their negotiations with the center. |
