Evolution of Post-Soviet Petrostates: Developmentalism and Predation

• In Event: Rethinking Rentierism: Global Perspectives, Changing Realities (Virtual Session)

Abstract

The paper argues that Russia’s energy sector has undergone dramatic changes in the past 20 years, becoming significantly more creative, somewhat more independent, and relatively more crisis-proof. The author argues that this was achieved by the interplay of two main factors – first, the adoption of a developmental model with an emphasis on public-private partnership that was adopted and amended since the early 2000s; and second, the effects of external pressures in the form of fluctuations in energy prices, general economic crises, and growing tensions with the West since 2008. Under these conditions, we have seen cognitive shifts accompanied by the evolution of key policies and institutions governing energy resource management and encouraging the diversification of both its supply flows and export composition. The evolutionary character of this shift becomes easier to identify when Russia’s experience and approach are compared to that of other post-Soviet petrostates that have emerged as major exporters of oil and/or gas in the global energy market. These include Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, which represent the other two cases analyzed in this paper in order to better differentiate, compare and assess the management of natural resources across post-Soviet Eurasia. All three states inherited Soviet-era energy infrastructure, yet they have had different degrees of resource difference and followed different pathways in developing their strategies for managing energy exports and the revenues generated. These comparisons point to the possibility of significant variation among petro-states despite the common Soviet inheritance and spotlight aspects of the political economy of natural resources that are often overlooked in both large-N studies or single-country studies.

Author

• Mikhail A. Strokan, University of Pennsylvania