A Treaty for the Rich and Politically Loyal? Explaining the Bilateral Center-Region Treaties in Post-Soviet Russia

This paper studies the signing of bilateral treaties between the federal and regional governments of Russia in the period of 1994–1998. Fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis of 64 cases suggests that by signing bilateral treaties in exchange for political support President Yeltsin built a broad coalition with subnational leaders. This strategy allowed Yeltsin to win the 1996 presidential election but, in the long run, contributed to the preservation of authoritarian enclaves in Russia. The results are in line with the argument that authoritarian consolidation in Russia during the 2000s was deeply embedded in the center-region relations of the 1990s.