Subnational Governance in Russia: How Putin Changed the Contract with His Agents and the Problems It Created for Medvedev

Abstract

This study examines federal reforms in Putin’s Russia under the framework of principal-agent model. It establishes the rationale and intended outcomes of these reforms and then describes their real consequences. The main findings bear on the nature of changes in the gubernatorial body, regional political regimes and the new challenges for the regime emerging from these reforms. The study demonstrates that (i) most governors survived this change in the first four years after the reform; (ii) the elimination of gubernatorial elections undermined political competition in the regions, forcing it away from public sphere to less transparent venues and (iii) new problems emerged as a result of reforms, particularly, the need for a systematic mechanism of cadre formation and the problem of moral hazard.

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