State capacity and regime resilience in Putin’s Russia

Published date01 January 2018
DOI10.1177/0192512117694481
Date01 January 2018
https://doi.org/10.1177/0192512117694481
International Political Science Review
2018, Vol. 39(1) 130 –143
© The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/0192512117694481
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State capacity and regime
resilience in Putin’s Russia
David White
University of Birmingham, UK
Abstract
Vladimir Putin’s state-building project, which has included a ‘war on the oligarchs’, the reining in of regional
power, the co-optation or marginalization of civil society and political opposition, and the establishment of
a ‘power vertical’, has not been based on state strengthening but has had much more to do with regime
consolidation. It is argued that, in the Russian case, the building of state capacity may not be a crucial factor
in determining the medium or even the long-term survival of the authoritarian system. Although Russia has
relatively weak state capacity, the Putin regime has remained stable. The regime’s resilience is built on the
distribution of rents among political and economic elites, the provision of social welfare, the coercion or co-
opting of civil society and political opposition, and the mobilization of public support through the provision
of economic benefits and national-patriotic appeal.
Keywords
State capacity, electoral authoritarianism, neo-patrimonialism, Russia, regime
Introduction
On the eve of Boris Yeltsin’s tearful resignation as president of the Russian Federation, Vladimir
Putin emphasized that the strengthening of state power was central to Russia’s recovery and
growth. Putin explicitly highlighted state weakness as a key problem and announced that the build-
ing of state capacity would be the centrepiece of his presidency. However, what we have witnessed
in Russia since the turn of the century has not been so much the building of state capacity but the
creation of a ‘regime of repression’ in which the coercive element of state capacity has been used
to nullify threats to the regime (Taylor, 2011: 286).
This article tackles the myth of the strong Russian state and argues that Putin’s project, which has
included a ‘war on the oligarchs’, the reining in of regional power, the co-optation or marginaliza-
tion of civil society and political opposition, and the establishment of a ‘power vertical’, has not
Corresponding author:
David White, Department of Political Science and International Studies, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston,
Birmingham B15 2TT, UK.
Email: d.j.white.1@bham.ac.uk
694481IPS0010.1177/0192512117694481International Political Science ReviewWhite
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