Description
Book SynopsisThis book examines how Russia and Kazakhstan navigated the dilemmas associated with building regulatory state institutions on the ruins of the Soviet command and control system. The two nations developed predatory and wasteful crony capitalism but still improved their business climates and economic performance. To better understand these seemingly incompatible outcomes, the book advances a theory of authoritarian regulatory statehood. It argues that politicians use institutions of the state as a means to balance conflicting elite demands for economic rents and popular demands for public goods and economic growth. An effective balancing of the two prevents elite subversion and popular revolt in the short run and ensures elites'' continued access to economic rents in the long run. Empirical analysis of nearly a million national and regional regulatory documents enacted in Russia and Kazakhstan between 1990 and 2020 shows that formal regulatory institutions the autocrats built have a prof
Trade ReviewThis manuscript is packed with superb insights, interesting findings, innovative methods, and valuable data. It seeks to reveal the agency and discretion that bureaucrats and other regulatory actors retain and strategically deploy within authoritarian regimes and explores how their actions interact with important political economy outcomes. Above all, it shows the highly complex and conditional effects of "regulatory reforms" when they are uncritically introduced in authoritarian settings where politicians face trade-offs to retain power and distribute patronage to clients and allies. * Alexander Cooley, Claire Tow Professor of Political Science, Barnard College *
Thieves, Opportunists and Autocrats is a fascinating, rich, and complex book that makes multiple contributions to the literatures on political economy and the former Soviet Union. The study, which provides a great review of Russia and Kazakhstan's post-Soviet economic history, reveals how economic regulations, institutional politics, and business-state relations together determine the nature and effectiveness of autocratic governance with ramifications for states across the globe. * Marc Berenson, Kings College London *
Thieves, Opportunities and Autocrats is a fascinating and extremely well-researched study of how authoritarian elites use very modern bureaucratic techniques for the purposes of control and co-optation. Duvanova provides more evidence that the neoliberal model of bureaucracy, which has spread across the world in recent decades, is entirely compatible with authoritarian rule. The book is a must-read for anyone working on public policy or comparative political economy of non-democracies. * John Heathershaw, University of Exeter *
