The Decline of Regionalism in Putin’s Russia: Boundary Issues by J. Paul Goode (review)

This is a valuable contribution to the study of regional politics. What distinguishes Paul Goode’s book from other work on Russian regions is the emphasis on boundary issues, drawing on theories and concepts above all from anthropology. The gist of this approach is that it reorients one’s attention to the regions themselves as active participants in the political process of determining who controls what. It focuses on a number of aspects including not just geographic borders, but regional identities and institutional jurisdictions. The author includes an extensive review of the concept of regionalism and its various meanings (chapter two). “Regionalism” is a term that is used with different meanings in different contexts. Goode defines it as “the politics of maintaining, defending, moving, or contesting regional boundaries” (25).

One important question runs through the volume: What allowed Putin to make a radical redistribution of power between regions and the center? In other words, why did “regionalism” decline so quickly after having achieved such a strong position during the 1990s? Why were regions unable or unwilling to resist the encroachment on their powers by the center? Other studies tend to ignore this as a research question, instead just accepting that it happened or else relying on explanations that are limited to political institutions in the center.

Much of this study is based on fieldwork in four Russian regions. Two are republics—Buriatia and Karelia—and two are oblasts—Tiumen’ and Perm’. Interviews with scholars and officials in each region at the time of implementation of Putin’s policies (interviews were conducted between 2001–04) provide insights on how they were perceived and carried out in these regions. The author also seeks to define patterns from these cases, contrasting regions and republics. Given the total number of Russian regions (83 at present) and wide variations in regional governance, two examples of each can be useful to formulate hypotheses about the relative impact of centralization on oblasts and republics. More definitive conclusions about broader patterns would, of course, require coverage of a significantly greater number of regions. In his concluding chapter Goode extends his analysis to Ukraine, demonstrating how regional politics there can also be profitably examined through a boundaries approach.

To set the stage, Goode examines previous patterns of regional boundary-making, from Czarist times through Brezhnev (chapter three). He makes clear that today’s internal Russian boundaries are a relatively recent phenomenon, and that previous regimes “created and manipulated the provincial grid in order to facilitate resource extraction, development, and political control” (56). By the Brezhnev era, attempts to redraw internal borders were mostly abandoned in favor of establishing loyal native elites in the provinces. By so doing, Brezhnev legitimized decentralization pressures as regional party secretaries pushed for regional interests in their dealings with the center. These regionalist tendencies grew as the state weakened, reaching their apogee in the Yeltsin era.

Three of the book’s chapters present applications of the boundary approach to specific elements of the Putin recentralization project. One key chapter looks at the response of regions to the creation of the seven federal districts in 2000, a centerpiece of Putin’s effort to form the “vertical of power.” The author finds, as have others, that the new presidential representatives lacked the power and resources to make much of a difference in regional governance. Nevertheless, the new federal districts did disrupt traditional regional identities of many regions, thus increasing their susceptibility to influence from the center. Other aspects of the change appealed to personal interests of regional leaders: new opportunities for promotion and upward mobility emerged, and the reform provided a useful template for governors to control subregional actors. One question that arises here is that, if the changes produced by the creation of federal regions were less important than initial predictions suggested, was there any basis for governors to think that similar changes within their regions would be more effective? In other words, did the...