Join PONARS for a talk with Dinissa Duvanova on the Russian regulatory state. This talk is part of the New Voices on Russia speaker series. 

In the Putin era, the Russian state redefined its role in the economy. In sharp contrast to the 1990s, today, Russia presides over a high-capacity regulatory state that uses formal, albeit often objectionable, administrative mechanisms of economic governance. But what factors promote state regulatory effectiveness in increasingly autocratic Russia? Duvanova investigates formal rules governing bureaucratic institutions as the major source of regulatory quality and argues that unlike some other components of the regulatory state, statutory controls can lead to better quality regulation even when the traditional mechanisms of public accountability are absent. By tracing the evolving nature of Russian regulatory institutions, Duvanova identifies constraints and opportunities for the building of sound regulatory states by autocratic regimes. She argues that the conflicting incentives of autocrats can affect the extent to which the state relies upon statutory controls as a means of promoting regulatory efficiency. By treating the institutional mechanisms of state regulatory actions as being dependent on political strategies of regime survival, this research advances a nuanced and compelling theory of how the nature of authoritarianism shapes economic outcomes.

Registration is requested, and information can be found on the event page.

Speaker

Dinissa Duvanova, associate professor of international relations, Lehigh University