Varieties of Statehood:
Russia’s Transformation and the Energy Charter Regime (1991-2010)
Boris Barkanov
Post-doctoral Fellow, Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies
Harvard University
barkanov@fas.harvard.edu
bbarkanov@gmail.com
Draft. Please do not cite without author’s permission.
Abstract: The main theoretical traditions in political science conceptualize the state in different
ways. How states actually vary, however, and the implications for foreign policy and
international relations have not received sustained theoretical or empirical attention within IR
scholarship. This paper develops an analytical framework which brings together these competing
views and helps us understand variation in statehood and its consequences for foreign policy
making and IR. It argues that statehood varies due to changes in elite ideas about the legitimacy
of state power. These ideas shape foreign policy directly by providing a backdrop against which
the plausibility of foreign policy goals is judged. Less intuitively, they also shape foreign policy
indirectly by motivating different types of state-building projects which have transformative
effects on domestic politics and foreign policy-making by changing the structure of state-society
relations. The paper’s empirical section demonstrates the utility of the framework and the
validity of the argument through a study of Soviet/Russian Energy Charter regime policy during
the period 1991-2010, which corresponds to the late Gorbachev, Yeltsin, and Putin/Medvedev
presidencies. The framework has implications for three important themes in IR: structure-agent
relations particularly in the area of state socialization, patterns of interaction across different
levels of analysis, and the validity of inferences from cross national statistical models. The
conclusion briefly applies the framework to the case of China to understand the threat that it
poses to US leadership, and to show its utility for understanding hegemonic transitions more
generally.
While most scholars would agree that the state is a central actor in world politics,
different theoretical traditions within the international relations subfield posit sharply contrasting
visions of what a state is and its relationship to other actors. A significant obstacle to resolving
this conceptual dilemma is the tendency to deal with the question of statehood, which I define
below, through general assumptions that are disconnected from empirical research. Since J.P.
Nettl wrote his famous article almost half a century ago, comparativists have known that
statehood varies in important ways,1thus it should come as no surprise that a single ontology of
the state is inadequate for supporting a general theory of international politics. By contrast,
treating statehood as an empirical question can help us understand how and under what
circumstances the character of the state and its relationship with other actors – both domestic and
external – vary. Not only can this bring clarity to international relations theorizing by
synthesizing competing views of the state, it also advances our knowledge related to the
character of agent-structure relations in the realm of state socialization, interactions across levels
of analysis, and inferences based on cross national statistical models.
This article develops a conceptual framework for understanding how and why statehood
varies. To demonstrate its value for understanding foreign policy, the ‘varieties of statehood’
framework (VOS) is applied to the foreign policies of the late Soviet and post-Soviet Russian
states toward the Energy Charter (ECH), a multilateral regime governing the Eurasian energy
trade, during the period 1991-2010. The main argument is that different ideas about the
legitimacy of state power under the Soviet leader Gorbachev, and Russian Presidents Boris
Yeltsin, Vladimir Putin, and Dmitri Medvedev constituted different types of statehood. In terms
of micro-level causal mechanisms, these ideas (independent variable) informed different state
building projects which transformed state society relations, thus changing the structural context
for foreign policy making. In addition, they provided the backdrop against which the plausibility
of foreign policies was measured. As a result, Moscow’s capacity to behave as a unitary actor
and agenda positioning (dependent variables) changed. Agenda positioning refers to a state’s
relationship to what Aggarwal has referred to as the meta-regime2 and will be discussed in
greater detail below.
1
2
Comparative politics. Nettl, 1968; Migdal. Literature on developmental states. Evans.
Aggarwal, Vinod K. (1985) Liberal Protectionism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 18-20.
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Draft. Please do not cite without author’s permission.
Because of Moscow’s centrality within the regime, these changes partly determined why
the ECH regime evolved along a neo-liberal track. They also explain why the ECH failed to
fulfill its original purpose: to economically integrate former Cold War adversaries (USSR/Russia
and Europe) into this key sector of the international economy with the goal of tempering political
conflict and promoting pan-European peace. The ECH’s failure to integrate Russia is important
because it demonstrates how statehood shapes the processes underlying attempts to socialize and
constrain states. Despite Russia’s enthusiasm for integration during the 1990s, statehood under
Yeltsin meant that Russia lacked the capacity to prevent the partially state-owned monopoly
Gazprom from torpedoing the process. Under Putin, statehood included capacity to corral
recalcitrant domestic actors, however it was also based on norms and principles3 that conflicted
with the very idea of socialization according to the ECH blueprint. Thus, applying the VOS
framework to the ECH experience deepens our understanding of the circumstances under which
states may be successfully socialized and constrained. It also brings into relief a major
contradiction at the heart of neo-liberal socialization projects which assume a particular level of
state capacity, something that not all states enjoy. More generally, it pushes us to reconsider
assumptions about the state that are embedded in how IR scholars think about agent-structure
relations, combine the levels of analysis, and make causal inferences related to state behavior.
The next section develops the varieties of statehood framework. The section that follows
reviews how different IR theoretical perspectives conceptualize the state to demonstrate that the
framework synthesizes the prevailing views. The discussion then turns to what the Energy
Charter regime is and the merits of studying it. This is followed by a discussion of data
collection methods and then the case studies of Soviet/Russian foreign policy which show how
ideas operated at the unit (state) level by: 1) constituting different types of statehood and 2)
producing different state behavior. Next, three alternative explanations – change in domestic
political regime, leadership, and the structure of international energy markets – are evaluated.
The sections after discuss the implications for neo-liberal integration in particular, and our
understanding of agent-structure relations in the realm of state socialization, interactions across
3
There is a literature examining the factors that impede norm adoption. However the focus is generally on social
and cultural factors. This work differs in that it explicitly connects norm adoption to fundamental state
characteristics that are based on ideas about state power. gurowtiz; Cortell and Davis 2000; Cardenas 2007; Dai
2005. Moravcsik 1995. Savery, Lynn. (2007) Engendering the State: The International Diffusion of Women’s
Human Rights. London: Routledge;
Boris Barkanov
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levels of analysis, and inferences based on cross national statistical models more broadly. The
conclusion briefly applies the framework to the question of hegemonic transitions and the threat
that China poses to US leadership.
Conceptualizing statehood
The internal dimension
In his now classic article “The State as a Conceptual Variable,” J.P. Nettl argued that
states varied in important respects, suggesting that understanding differences in statehood, as
well as their political implications should be a key research goal.4 For Nettl, statehood referred
to the “saliency of the state…in society.”5 Evans has interpreted Nettl’s understanding of
statehood as “the institutional centrality of the state.”6 However, although accurate and intuitive,
both saliency and centrality miss what is distinctive about statehood: sovereignty.
To understand statehood, I am interested primarily in what Stephen Krasner referred to as
domestic sovereignty – the formal organization of political authority within the state and the
ability of public authorities to exercise effective control within the borders of their own polity7 –
because it points our attention to the significance of authority and control. However, Krasner’s
definition also raises some conceptual and theoretical difficulties. First, authority is concentrated
spatially within the state, understood as an organization or cluster of institutions, leading to an
atomistic view of both the state and authority as conceptually disconnected from society.
Second, sovereignty relates to the functional control exercised by public officials, raising an
important theoretical question: how and why does state authority lead to control over society?
Because authority is exclusively a property of the state, either other factors have to be invoked
(such as how the state projects authority), or we have to reconsider how we understand authority
and the role it plays in connecting the state with society.
4
P.562. Also Evans, p.62
P.579
6
P.62
7
Krasner notes four common usages of the term sovereignty: international legal sovereignty, Westphalian
sovereignty, domestic sovereignty, and interdependence sovereignty. Stephen D. Krasner, Sovereignty: Organized
Hypocrisy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999), 3-4. John Ruggie uses a similar definition of
sovereignty: "the institutionalization of public authority within mutually exclusive jurisdictional domains." John
Ruggie, "Continuity and Transformation in the World Polity: Toward a Neorealist Synthesis," in Robert O.
Keohane, ed., Neorealism and Its Critics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), p. 143.
5
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Draft. Please do not cite without author’s permission.
I define domestic sovereignty in terms of authority understood as a relational concept.
Authority refers to a hierarchical relationship characterized by commands from the top of the
hierarchy being obeyed by those below. State authority means that the state exists in a
hierarchical relationship relative to society in which societal actors8 are subordinated to the state
and obey orders from state officials.9 Authority leads to control because it is recognized as
legitimate and thus elicits compliant behavior. Therefore, statehood refers to a hierarchical
relationship between the state and society that is based on the legitimacy of state authority which
constitutes domestic sovereignty. Statehood is characterized by functional control because
legitimate state authority generates societal compliance with commands from state incumbents.
Obviously, statehood understood as a hierarchical relationship based on legitimate
authority is an ideal type. Not all historical states enjoy this kind of relationship to society. As
Nettl noted, for real states, statehood ranges from high to low. Where statehood is low,
hierarchical relations are displaced by heterarchical relations, and the basis for the state’s
superordinate position in terms of command and obedience is absent. Rather, authority is diffuse
across many actors that compete with one another for control. In political terms, this means that
the state lacks the distinctiveness associated with domestic sovereignty and is just one of many
actors.
However, a state with low statehood is still a state if it enjoys legal sovereignty, which
according to Krasner “refers to the practices associated with mutual recognition, usually between
territorial entities that have formal juridical independence which comes from recognition by the
international community.”10 Thus, a state that has low statehood is still a state because of its
recognition as such by other states.11 However, a state that enjoys only legal, and not domestic
sovereignty, does not enjoy the authority based, hierarchical relationship to societal actors that is
characteristic of high statehood.
For the purpose of this exercise, the term ‘state’ refers to the central state. In federal states, sub-federal state actors
are considered societal actors because their positioning with respect to international relations is closer to that of
private actors than the central state.
9
Fish on Durkheim
10
Krasner, ibid.
11
Legal sovereignty is analytically independent of domestic sovereignty. A state can have legal but no domestic
sovereignty or domestic but no legal sovereignty. Usually, the two are related empirically: a state that has legal
sovereignty can leverage this to create domestic sovereignty, and a state that has considerable domestic sovereignty
presents a compelling case for legal recognition. It follows that either legal or domestic sovereignty are sufficient
for be considered a state according to this framework.
8
Boris Barkanov
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A given state’s level of statehood can be ascertained empirically. However, since it is
based on legitimate authority, it is produced through subjective factors. In other words, the
socially held belief that state authority is legitimate leads to compliance with state commands
and state control, generating a hierarchical relationship with society, domestic sovereignty, and
high statehood.
Finally, Nettl was largely comfortable with the idea that the character of statehood in the
domestic sphere, what we might call internal statehood, is not particularly significant for
international relations, noting that, “…whatever variation we may find in the degree of
[statehood]…the effective extrasocietal or international role is not affected…”12 Pointing to the
United States and Great Britain, “where the notion of state is very weak,” he was confident that
states would “…make special differentiated provisions accordingly,”13 to compensate for
whatever they lacked in internal statehood in order to function effectively in the international
sphere. However, as the empirical sections of this article will demonstrate, variation in internal
statehood can also affect foreign policy behavior. For this reason, Nettl’s insights about
variation in statehood merits attention from IR scholars.
The external dimension
Although he equated international relations with Hobbes’ state of nature,14 Nettl was
already aware of the ways in which international politics were changing to move beyond merely
“…random, unsystemic relations of collision and collusion”15 between states. Particularly after
the end of the Cold War, the nascent processes that Nettl identified appear to have borne their
fruit. The “…growing limitations – normative, collective-integrative, pluralist-integrative – on
the notionally absolute sovereignty and autonomy of states in the international field,” have
arguably resulted in a different type of international system. This system witnesses not only
states with varying levels of internal statehood (relationship to domestic society), but also states
with different types of external statehood, which refers to how a given state relates to the
international system.
12
P.564
P.564
14
P.563
15
P.564
13
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Draft. Please do not cite without author’s permission.
How does external statehood vary? Because we are interested in the ECH, it makes sense
to think about variation in external statehood in regime terms. To keep things simple, we might
identify two modes through which a state relates to the international system: a state can either be
a regime-maker or a regime-taker. The most important distinction between regime-makers and
regime-takers is associated with a state’s agenda positioning or relationship to the meta-regime.
Specifically, regime-makers tend to propose norms and principles that are formative vis-à-vis the
meta-regime, while regime-takers’ demands fall within an accepted framework and are thus
conformist.
While the existence of regime-makers is consistent with an anarchic international system,
regime-takers are anomalous since they suggest relations that are hierarchical. From this
perspective, world politics today does not sit well with Nettl’s 1968 vision of a Hobbesian state
of nature characterized by sovereign and autonomous states engaged in an all-against-all
struggle. Rather, regime-takers suggest an international system characterized by zones of
hierarchy that are embedded in a larger international system which nevertheless remains
anarchic.
Varieties of statehood
The foregoing has argued that states vary in ways that merit our attention because this
variation is significant for world politics. To capture this variation, I identify two dimensions of
statehood, an internal and external one. The former refers to a state’s relations with its domestic
society, while the latter refers to a state’s relationship to the international system. Combining
these two dimensions generates a four-fold typology of what states look like if we think about
them in these terms.
Boris Barkanov
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Figure 1: Varieties of statehood (international regime context)
Regime-maker
Regime-taker
High
Master
Disciple
Low
Internal dimension: domestic
sovereignty
External dimension: relationship to international system
Pretender
Apprentice
Each of the four cells above represents a particular type of state that comes into view
when we consider statehood in terms of its internal and external dimensions. For the sake of
expedience, I have assigned each state an anthropomorphic name. Masters are states that have
high domestic sovereignty (hierarchical relationship with their domestic society). In an
international regime context, they are regime-makers, and the meta-regime (norms and
principles) that they promote depends largely on domestic considerations. In terms of behavior,
these states are likely to be unitary actors and their agenda positioning is likely to be formative.
Like masters, disciple states also have high sovereignty. At the same time, their
international relations are characterized by hierarchy in the sense that they accept the normative
and cognitive principles promoted by other states; they are regime-takers. In terms of behavior,
these states are likely to be unitary actors while their agenda positioning is likely to be
conformist.
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Draft. Please do not cite without author’s permission.
The external statehood dimension of apprentice states mirrors that of disciple states and
their agenda positioning tends to be conformist. However, these states have low domestic
sovereignty in the sense that they exist in a heterarchical relationship with domestic societal
actors. As a result, state officials have to compete with domestic actors to promote, and indeed
even define, the state interest. Generally speaking, domestic actors can veto state foreign policy.
In consequence, these states are less likely to behave as unitary actors.
Finally, pretenders combine the external statehood characteristics of a master (regimemaker) and the internal statehood properties of a disciple (low sovereignty). These states defy
international norms and principles even though their domestic situations are quite precarious.
Behaviorally, these states are less likely to be unitary actors, but their agenda positioning is
formative.
Statehood, unitary action, and agenda positioning in IR theory
Realist approaches
The main research programs in IR have paid surprisingly little theoretical attention to
questions of statehood, unitary action, and agenda positioning. In his classical statement on
structural realism, Waltz was not particularly concerned with statehood as a changing empirical
phenomenon, assuming instead that the imperatives of a punishing anarchic system leave little
room for variation in the character of the state.16 The combination of a lethally dangerous
international system and a primordial state concern for maximizing security and political
autonomy had the logical corollary of states’ being unitary actors that enjoyed hierarchical
relations with their domestic society as a functional necessity of survival.
International hierarchies are possible but they are a product of the distribution of power
and interests understood in material terms, rather than of fundamental state characteristics.17
16
Waltz notes that in principle, states could vary according to a division of labor that is analogous to what we see in
the domestic economic sphere. As we shall see, to reduce state variation to complementary economic activity is
exceedingly narrow. In any case, he claims that what he refers to as ‘functional differentiation’ is not possible under
anarchy.
17
For an explanation of policy convergence (or divergence) that focuses on the importance of material factors, see
Drezner, Daniel. 2005. Globalization, Harmonization, and Competition: The Different Pathways to Policy
Convergence. Journal of European Public Policy 12 (5):841–59; Krasner (on the pareto frontier)
Boris Barkanov
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Thucydides’ famous dictum that, “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they
must,”18 captures perfectly how realists see relations between states in the context of regime
creation: powerful states put forward meta-regimes to promote their interests, while weaker
states are forced to accept them in order to survive. Thus, agenda positioning can also be
explained by the distribution of power: stronger states make formative demands that suit their
interests, while weaker states make conformist demands as an expression of bandwagoning,
hegemony,19 or free riding. Waltz’ framework has been inherited by contemporary offensive
realists20 who assume that all states are masters and are skeptical that statehood varies in the way
suggested by the typology above.
Like offensive realists, defensive realists, and neo-classical realists more broadly, will be
dubious of the claim that external statehood varies. However, although they accept Waltz’
characterization of the international system as anarchic, they differ concerning the state’s
relationship with domestic society. In an attempt to explain why state behavior does not always
conform to structural realist expectations, these researchers acknowledge that states can
experience difficulty in mobilizing domestic actors and extracting resources.21 This suggests that
state-society relations can be heterarchical and that internal statehood can vary. The existence of
states with low sovereignty means that the international system is also populated with pretenders,
who are sub-optimal incarnations of the master. However, this research has not fully probed the
implications that domestic challenges to state authority have for unitary action and has no
theoretical account of how and under what circumstances states can successfully get their “troops
in line.”
Liberal approaches
For liberals22 and neo-liberal institutionalists,23 the state does not have an existence that is
independent of society. Thus, the state is not a “real” actor,24 but rather an analytical device25
18
Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, translated by Richard Crawley, Book 5, Chapter 17. Downloaded
August 6, 2012 at: http://classics.mit.edu/Thucydides/pelopwar.mb.txt
19
Charles P. Kindleberger, The World in Depression, 1929-1939 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973);
Robert O. Keohane, After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1984)
20
Mearsheimer, Posen.
21
Rose; Lobell
22
Moravscik
23
Keohane; Nye
10/47
Draft. Please do not cite without author’s permission.
that captures what are in practice a succession of governments, collection of bureaucratic
organizations, and incumbent officials. Crucially, these are animated by their relations with
various domestic actors, be they electors, various domestic constituencies, lobbyists, etc….
State-society relations are fundamentally heterarchical. The state interest is an aggregation of
societal interests and can change depending on various domestic political factors, changes in
aggregating institutions, or when deeper structural shifts produce new interests. Whether or not
the state is a unitary actor depends on the emergence of a dominant coalition and the
effectiveness of domestic institutions (usually laws and state enforcement agencies) in keeping
other actors in line. Although certainly not the only significant factor, regime type is particularly
important within the liberal tradition and some liberals implicitly see unitary action as a causal
outcome of authoritarian (as opposed to democratic) regimes.26
Liberal researchers allow for the emergence of interstate cooperation under anarchy,
particularly when domestically determined state interests converge internationally. For neoliberal institutionalists especially, cooperation takes the form of welfare-enhancing international
institutions. However, the content of the meta-regime, as well as the power that underpins it,27
are not part of their empirical and theoretical focus. As a result, that cooperation entails the
acceptance by some states of norms and principles promoted by others, and that this represents a
hierarchy of regime-making/taking does not come into relief. Like the realists discussed above,
this community of scholars is skeptical that regime-making/taking can be a fundamental property
of the state; international hierarchies, as well as the character of states’ agenda positioning, are
seen as a product of systemic (material) power configurations, to the extent that they examine
them explicitly. 28
Constructivist approaches
24
Wendt on state as person
Whether states are actually real actors is not problematic since the “as if” assumption of their existence is
sufficient from a positivist perspective, as long as the predictions generated by this assumption are supported by
empirical evidence.
26
Garriga, 2008; Mansfield
27
Realists are more likely to focus on the power that underpins regimes. See for example, Kindelberger, Krasner.
However, because of their positivist inclinations, they are less likely to be interested in the relationship between
power and norms and principles.
28
See for example David A. Lake, Hierarchy in International Relations (Cornell University Press: Ithaca): 2009.
25
Boris Barkanov
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Because constructivism emerged as a critique of neo-realism, early work is more aptly
characterized as liberal constructivism. Research has concentrated on cooperative rather than
conflictual outcomes, and sub-state and trans-national actors29 rather than the state. Like
positivist liberals, most constructivists are skeptical that the state is real, and would generally
accept the liberal view that states ultimately can be reduced to societal actors. Similarly, they see
the structure of domestic politics as fundamentally heterarchical, and state interests and policy
are a product of the political and social interaction between domestic and transnational
individuals and groups.30 Like neo-classical realists, these researchers have not examined the
consequences of heterarchy for state unitary behavior. At the same time, whereas liberal
positivists invoke a convergence of domestic interests and institutional effectiveness to explain
unitary action, there is no distinctly constructivist explanation of why capacity for unitary action
might vary. Concerning the external dimension of statehood, constructivists can accept that
some states are regime-makers31 while others are regime-takers.32 At the same time, there is no
constructivist explanation for why the external dimension of statehood varies.
Overall, none of the main IR approaches can provide an adequate conceptual framework
for understanding how statehood varies in international relations, nor a full theoretical account
for why it varies across different cases. Structural realists and liberals have blank spots
concerning the external dimension of statehood (states’ relations to the international system)
claiming that international hierarchy can be reduced to (material) power and interests, and that
the distinction between regime-makers and regime-takers is not theoretically necessary. As a
result, they cannot account for agenda positioning that is inconsistent with systemic (material)
power considerations. Although constructivists can accept the distinction between regimemakers and regime-takers, they have not developed their own account of why this external
dimension of statehood might vary. As a result, they also cannot explain why agenda positioning
might depart from expectations derived from assessing the distribution of power.
29
More recently, A. Newman, Hafner Burton
Kratochwill, Risse-Kappen, Gurowitz; Hopf
31
Ruggie
32
Tannenbaum, Wendt Scholars interested in systemic norms are essentially describing the behavior of regimetakers. For Wendt, “anarchy is what states make of it.” The implication is that most contemporary states are regimetakers in the most important area of all – security – since they have internalized and reproduce the norms and
cognitive principles of what is really a realist strategic culture. Johnston?
30
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Draft. Please do not cite without author’s permission.
Offensive realists are not interested in the internal dimension of statehood, assuming that
states have high sovereignty and that unitary action obtains by necessity. Although neo-classical
realists have broached this aspect of statehood, they have not explained why state-society
relations vary, nor explored the implications of this variation for state unitary action. By
assuming that the state is ultimately a product of society, liberals and liberal constructivists have
implicitly adopted a view of state-society relations that is characterized by heterarchy. While
positivist liberals can account for unitary state action, there is no distinctly constructivist account
for why this results.
Russia and the Energy Charter Regime: What is it and Who Cares?
The Energy Charter (hereafter ECH) is a multilateral regime33 governing the
Eurasian34 energy economy. It was a European initiative35 to integrate Gorbachev’s
reforming USSR and the eastern bloc states with Western European states.36 The original
model for the project was the European Steel and Coal Community, which brought
together former adversaries France and Germany as economic partners and allies after
World War II, and ultimately became the core of what is now the EU.37
The regime is functionally comprehensive38 and substantively broad.39 The metaregime is broadly neo-liberal in that the assumption that firms, rather than the state,
33
The main decision-making body is the Energy Charter Conference which brings together the member states once a
year. Prior to 2005, member states met two to three times a year. The regime has a small secretariat – the Energy
Charter Secretariat – located in Brussels. The centerpiece of the regime is the Energy Charter Treaty which, after
three years of negotiations, was signed on December 17, 1994 and came into effect in April 1998.
34
The regime has 52 members in Europe, Asia, and Australia. If the 24 observer states, which include key energy
states from North and South America, the Middle East, and Africa, are counted, the regime has a global scope. A
graphical representation and list of members and observers is provided in Appendix A.
35
The ECH was the first foreign policy initiative by the European Commission. EU states negotiate as a single bloc,
however each national state has voting rights. The Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) was part of the acquis
communitaire for the new member states of the EU, all of whom have signed and ratified the agreement.
36
In May 1990, the prime minister of the Netherlands, Ruud Lubbers, proposed to the European Council the
creation of a European Energy Community. The project was renamed the European Energy Charter by the UK after
the first Gulf War in 1990. European was subsequently dropped from the name.
37
The broad idea was to take advantage of the economic complementarities between energy consumers (Europe)
and energy suppliers (USSR) to create pan-European economic integration, which would be the foundation for an
enduring peace in Europe. In addition, Europe would diversify its sources of energy away from the volatile Middle
East.
38
The regime addresses, investment, trade, transit, dispute settlement, and energy efficiency and related
environmental issues. The strongest provisions are related to investment; for example, investors can begin
arbitration proceedings against contracting states for, among other things, expropriation.
Boris Barkanov
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should make economic decisions is very strong.40 By contrast, the state’s primary role is
to create domestic laws and international treaties that govern the energy trade, but also
constrain states.41
What was the strategy for integrating Russia through the ECH? The main idea
was that Moscow would commit legally to the regime (by signing the Treaty, beginning
its provisional application, and ratifying it), and that if it later reneged on its
commitments, provisions in the Treaty were in place to punish such actions, especially in
the area of protecting investments.42 In order to get Russia to commit initially,
sympathetic officials within the Russian government as well as law makers in general
would be persuaded through a series of seminars designed to demonstrate how the regime
benefited Russia. The purported benefits related to economics (eg…increased FDI) and
politics (eg…including Russia in an international society of civilized states). Thus
integration was based both on material incentives that were supposed to produce a
convergence in behavior, and ideological efforts to socialize Russian political elites.
The weakest provisions concern energy efficiency and related environmental issues. The regime is “nested”
(Aggarwal) in the broader international trade system in that the trade provisions were adopted directly from the
GATT and later the WTO. Negotiations on a protocol to elaborate the transit provisions of the Treaty commenced
in 2000 but were ultimately unsuccessful and the formal process was terminated in 2011. Dispute settlement
concerns interstate disputes as well as disputes between states and firms. The Treaty provides for a number of
venues for arbitration.
39
It adresses all sources of fuel, energy, and related equipment.
40
Formally, the regime includes norms and principles based on both neo-liberalism and sovereignty. In practice, the
former has been explicitly more important than the latter. (See for example, Konoplyanik). As I have argued
elsewhere (See Mercantilist Development, unpublished dissertation), another indication of the importance of neoliberalism is that sovereignty is understood largely as legal sovereignty.
41
For a discussion of neo-liberalism, see: Steger, Manfred B. and Roy, Ravi K (2010) Neoliberalism: A Very Short
Introduction. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press; Jessop, Bob (2010) “From Hegemony to Crisis? The Continued
Ecological Dominance of Neoliberalism” in Birch, Kean and Mykhnenko, Vlad, eds. (2010) The Rise and Fall of
Neoliberalism: The Collapse of an Economic Order? London: Zed Books; O‘Brien, Robert & Williams, Marc
Global Political Economy – Evolution and Dynamics (2007). 2nd Edition Palgrave/MacMillan.
Neo-liberalism refers to many things. Here I am particularly interested in its view of the state. It portrays the state
in negative terms as an obstacle to economic efficiency and development, and prescribes that economic activity be
delegated to a large number of private market actors who would compete with each other. The main area of state
activity should be to create domestic laws that protected a distinct economic sphere in which firms are autonomous
decision makers. States should also create and commit to international treaties which together with domestic laws
minimize political risk, understood as arbitrary state encroachment upon the economic realm, for firms. All states
are subjects of the international laws that they collectively crafted and are all equal participants in international
relations.
42
For example, the Treaty calls for automatic arbitration concerning claims by private investors. Should they
prevail, the state is obligated to compensate them as deemed appropriate by the arbitration panel. Should the state
shirk payment, the other states have contracted to enforce payment per the New York Convention on the
Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards.
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In the end, neither was successful. The seminars did not manage to persuade
parliamentarians in the opposition controlled State Duma, which declined ratification on
two occasions.43 In 2003, Russia froze and confiscated the assets of the now defunct oil
company Yukos. The shareholders are at present in arbitration with Russia in order to
recover damages associated with the alleged expropriation of the company. If they are
successful, the award could be between $30 and $100 billion, making this the largest
damages claim in the history of international arbitration.44 In short, not even the coercive
elements of the regime have been effective; indeed Russian behavior so far suggests that
attempts to use coercion will likely be met with retaliation,45 leading to escalated conflict
rather than compliance.
The decision to study Russian ECH policy was driven by methodological, theoretical, and
practical considerations. Methodologically, the ECH is attractive because it represents a twenty
year attempt at cooperation between Russia and European actors that, at least for the time being,
has failed to fulfill its original purpose: to integrate Gorbachev’s reforming USSR (later the
Russian Federation) with Europe to promote pan-European cooperation and peace. As one
Russian participant in the ECH process noted during an interview, the timing and duration of the
ECH project meant that it represented a “mirror” of the changes that have occurred in the
Russian state during the same period. Since there is a close correlation between the evolution of
Russia’s ECH policy, and changes in its energy and foreign policy more generally, the ECH is a
proxy for examining Russia’s “resurgence.” At the same time, because Russia’s relationship
with the EU was very much at the heart of the regime, examining the ECH’s fate comprises a
window for understanding why Russia’s energy relation with the EU have deteriorated.
Due to the significant variation in Russia’s ECH policy during this period, this case is
theoretically important for testing rival theories of foreign policy change. By tracking these
changes and examining policy debates and decision-making, comparative analysis over time and
process tracing are available as tools for adjudicating between my explanation and explanations
43
In 1997 under Yeltsin and early 2001 under Putin.
Yevgeny Kiselyov, “Yukos Could Bankrupt the Kremlin's Reputation,” The St. Petersburg Times, April 24, 2009
45
After the arbitration panel found in a preliminary procedural decision in 2009 that it did have jurisdiction in the
Yukos case, Russia suspended its provision application. Although this has no legal consequences on the case
(suspension is not retroactive), it suggests that Russia will retaliate against decisions that are taken against it.
Subsequently, Russia also significantly reduced its participation in the regime.
44
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that emerge from alternative research programs. Periodizing Moscow’s ECH policy during
1991-2010 according to the leadership of Gorbachev, Yeltsin, Putin, and Medvedev46 produces
four micro-cases. This creates analytical leverage for understanding the role that systemic
structures (in this case, the dynamics of international energy markets with the attendant
consequences for energy prices) and domestic factors (leadership and regime type) play in
shaping the foreign policy dependent variables of interest: unitary action and agenda positioning.
Finally, studying Russian ECH policy is important from a practical standpoint because
relative to the 1990s, Russia is an ascendant great power and its most recent ECH policy has
challenged the very foundations of this regime. However, history shows that not all rising
powers necessarily make demands for international regime change that are dramatic. Thus, this
study can help us understand whether rising powers are likely to make relatively marginal or
radical demands for regime change (adaptation or transformation). I will return to this point in
the conclusion.
Data sources
The findings presented here are based on data from public primary sources,
secondary texts, and interviews. Primary texts from a broad variety of sources that are
listed in Appendix B. Secondary texts were chosen from the American and European
academic literature on Russian politics and energy policy. Interviews were conducted
with 70 elite47 participants in and observers of the Energy Charter process. They
included mostly face-to-face meetings but also some telephone conversations, and were
open ended, semi-structured, and generally lasted between 60 and 90 minutes. Several
respondents agreed to follow-up interviews. Because of the sensitive nature of Russian
46
For good reason, this period has come to be known in popular and academic discourse as the tandemocracy,
referring to President Medvedev’s sharing of power with his predecessor (and successor) Vladimir Putin. Although
clearly the junior figure in the duumvirate, it would be a mistake to ignore the autonomy that Medvedev enjoyed as
the incumbent of Russia’s powerful “super-presidency” (Fish). Moreover, Medvedev prevailed with respect to
several key disagreements with Putin, most notably Russia’s decision to abstain from vetoing a UN resolution
sanctioning a “no fly zone” in Libya. Historians will surely note that this was a key turning point that led to the end
of the Gaddafi regime. Insofar as Medvedev’s foreign policy cannot be simply reduced to Vladimir Putin, the
tandemocracy is a distinct and valuable comparative case.
47
Elite refers to Russian and European academics, business people from different energy companies (both Russian
and foreign), foreign diplomats working on Russian energy, Russian public officials, and consultants or advisers to
public officials. Public officials and especially contemporary public officials are underrepresented because of low
response rates.
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energy policy, most of my respondents asked to remain anonymous and are only
identified in very general terms here.
Interview subjects were identified using two strategies. First, I identified potential
respondents by examining public statements on Energy Charter policy made between
1990 and 2010. These statements were gathered through electronic queries of the Factiva
database, which includes the major Russian and English wire agencies, newspapers, and
some magazines. Second, I used “snowball” sampling – personal references and
introductions from respondents I met – to identify other potential respondents. These two
sampling strategies ensured that my interview subjects constituted as broad and
representative a sample as possible. Additionally, I have tried to meet with subjects from
different organizations, demographic categories, and ideological groups. If subjects from
a particular organization, demographic category, or ideological group could not be
interviewed, I relied on public sources that reflected the views of the missing group.
Dependent variables: unitary action and agenda positioning
This section tracks changes in two dependent variables – agenda positioning and state
unitary action – across the four cases of ECH policy in Moscow during the period 1991-2010.
Gorbachev
When international negotiations on what was then referred to as the “European Energy
Charter” began during the late summer/early autumn of 1991, Gorbachev’s USSR submitted a
proposal that envisioned an important economic role for the state in the energy sphere. 48 The
importance to the USSR of state economic action in energy could also be seen in its proposal to
the London G-7 that summer, when Gorbachev pleaded unsuccessfully with the heads of state of
the leading industrial economies for financial assistance to support his reform program.49
By emphasizing the importance of the state, the Soviet approach clashed with the
increasingly popular neo-liberal view which held that state economic intervention was causally
48
Archive, document
Mikhail S. Gorbachev, “Personal Message from President Mikhail S. Gorbachev to Heads of State or Government
Attending the G7 meeting in London and Annexes,” July 12, 1991, accessed December 13, 2011,
http://www.g7.utoronto.ca/summit/1991london/personal.html
49
Boris Barkanov
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deleterious and inappropriate. This latter perspective was being promoted within the ECH
context most forcefully by the United States (US), United Kingdom (UK), and European
Commission (EC). However, statements by the Soviet delegation at the opening conference and
to the press suggest that the USSR understood the substance of this conflict and was prepared to
hold its ground. 50
Although the mood among the states favored cooperation, the Soviet approach to the state
was controversial. According to Andersen, the USSR took the lead in “modifying the market
perspective,”51 and found some support from Norway. 52 The Soviet initiative to modify market
principles was also understood by some participants to be “an attempt to preserve elements of the
traditional state role, and thereby undermine the market perspective which was central to the
Charter.”53 In short, with respect to the question of the state’s economic role in energy, the
USSR’s agenda positioning was formative in that it challenged the normative and cognitive
principles promoted by other powerful states.
In terms of the second dependent variable, the USSR was very quickly losing its capacity
for unitary action in many areas, including energy. For example, in April 1990, the Supreme
Soviet of the RSFSR declared sovereignty over its natural resources, beginning a domestic
struggle over the control of mineral wealth that would last until the collapse of the Soviet state.54
As a result, during a visit to Moscow a month later, EC Energy Commissioner Antonio Cardoso
e Cunha was compelled to meet with Soviet officials as well as sub-federal officials of the
RSFSR which only recently did not have its own government.55 During his own visit in June,
President of the EC, Jacques Delors highlighted the difficulties of dealing with a Soviet state that
was quickly losing capacity for unitary action, noting that “it will be very difficult to commit [to
“Conference on European Energy Charter Continues Its Work,” Agence Europe, July 17, 1991; “Soviet Union
Accepts Need for Energy Sector Market Reforms,” Financial Times, July 16, 1991.
51
Svein S. Andersen, “East of Market—West of State: The Energy Charter Negotiations,” Working paper,
Norwegian School of Management, 1997.
52
Ibid., 20.
53
Ibid.
54
Glenn E. Curtis, ed., Russia: A Country Study (Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress, 1996).
55
MOSCOW SEEKS FAST TRACK FOR ENERGY CHARTER 14 May 1991 Platt's Oilgram News Pg. 1
Vol. 69, No. 93.
50
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macro-economic support] …unless an agreement in the USSR on the new institutional structures
(and notably on relations between the States and the Union) has been finalized.”56
This incapacity could also be clearly seen in concrete foreign affairs of vital importance.
In 1991 for instance, the RSFSR invalidated agreements related to the export of crucial
commodities including oil, gas, uranium, and diamonds that the Union state had previously made
with foreign companies.57 Negotiations over energy joint ventures were also slowed due to
competing interests between Moscow and the republics.58 Finally, the diminishing capacity for
unitary action could even be seen in areas that are normally considered to be the state’s exclusive
reserve. Already in the summer of 1990, Delors voiced concern that the central state might not
be able to control the emission of money by the increasingly chaffing republics. 59 union
republics, including Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Byelorussia, and Ukraine were also organizing
their own custom services. In protest against the crackdown in the Baltics in January 1991,
Yeltsin hinted that he would form a national reserve, encroaching even on the central state’s
monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. 60 Finally, the problem of unitary action in the
USSR did not escape the attention of observers of the ECH process, even before a large number
of union republics declared their independence in the immediate aftermath of the aborted August
1991 coup.61 Overall then, Gorbachev’s USSR was a pretender: the external dimension of
statehood foresaw regime making, while domestic sovereignty was low. This was associated
behaviorally with a formative agenda positioning and incapacity for unitary action.
Yeltsin
The August coup was a critical turning point during which the political landscape within
the USSR was completely transformed. Gorbachev’s political primacy as head of the Soviet
state was displaced by the power of the heads of the union republics, and Boris Yeltsin, as the
RSFSR’s elected president and most visible opponent of the failed coup, became the most
56
DELORS IN MOSCOW FOR TALKS ON COMMUNITY ASSISTANCE, Agence Europe, 21 June 1991
Kevin McCann, “Soviet energy - crisis or collapse?” Energy Policy, May 1991, 369 (from Financial Times,
August 10, 1990, 3).
58
WESTERN CASH CAN'T STEM SOVIET OIL OUTPUT SLIDE. Douglas Busvine 18 July 1991 Reuters News
59
President Gorbachev appeals for EC help. 20 July 1990 The Independent – London 10
60
Alexander G. Granberg, “The National and Regional Commodity Markets in the USSR: Trends and
Contradictions of the Transition Period,” Papers in Regional Science Journal of the Regional Science Association
International 72, 1 (1993): 15.
61
Greg Mahlich, SOVIET REPUBLICS MAY JOIN EUROPEAN ENERGY CHARTER, 10 September 1991
Reuters News.
57
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important actor in the USSR. Yeltsin worked throughout the fall to consolidate his power and by
December, the delegation from Moscow, which was now clearly under the guidance of the new
government of “young Turks,” was singing a very different tune. Russia abandoned the Soviet
demand for a greater state role and embraced the neo-liberal perspective preferred by the EC,
US, and UK. The change was so significant that a US State Department official commented to
the press that the primary cleavage during negotiations now fell along “West-West” lines, with
various western parties attempting to enlist the new delegation from Moscow to support their
particular vision.62 That disagreements among western states surpassed those between east and
west contrasted starkly with earlier dynamics, when the main battles lines saw free market
proponents criticizing the Soviets for attempting to revise the “market perspective.”63 This
signaled that Moscow’s agenda positioning had shifted from being formative to conformist in
terms of the norms and principles that it proposed.
Another early indication of this change took place in early December when Dr. Andrei
Konoplyanik, the new deputy minister of energy, suggested that the emerging Russian state was
interested in emulating the western inspired, neo-liberal approach. In comments to the press he
noted that,
the Moscow-led Union would clearly have to push up its economic and legal "levels" to meet
Western standards… "We could use the charter to boost our own development," he said, adding
that it would also speed up the Soviet Union's transition towards an open market economy.
"We need to create the legal and economic climate to attract private Western capital," he
insisted…64 (emphasis added)
The repeated emphasis on creating an adequate “legal climate” to attract capital is significant
because this was precisely where the earlier Soviet delegation challenged neo-liberal norms and
principles by calling for direct state action, rather than simply creating legal guarantees to private
firms, to mobilize investment into the energy sector. That Moscow’s agenda positioning had
Nancy Moore, “U.S. To Make Sure Energy Charter Won’t Disadvantage Private Sector,” Platt's Oilgram News
69, 240, December 16, 1991, 1.
63
Ibid. Andersen
64
“All Soviet Republics Said Agreed To Sign Pan-European Energy Charter,” Platt's Oilgram News 69, 234,
December 6, 1991, 1.
62
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changed can also be seen in the first policy statement made by the Russian delegation in the ECH
context in February 1992. 65
Beyond discourse, the new agenda positioning was also expressed in the types of policy
demands that Russia made during negotiations on the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) and comes
across most clearly through an examination of the debate concerning the investment provisions
of the agreement.66 Russia was an exception among the major participating states in that it
supported the American demand for national treatment (NT) at the “pre-investment”67 stage in
order to attract foreigners into the energy sector at the very earliest moments of its
transformation away from the Soviet system. Most of the Western European and OECD states
preferred to only extend NT to the “post-investment” stage.68 In embracing neo-liberal norms
and principles, Russia was on the verge of being more Catholic than the Pope.
However, it would be a mistake to infer that Yeltsin’s Russia simply rolled over and
accepted terms dictated by the US and/or Europe. Indeed, Russia played a leading role during
negotiations in general and requested exceptions when it suited its interest. In investment, the
delegation underlined its commitment to NT69 but nevertheless demanded an opportunity to
make exceptions in order to temper domestic opposition,70 make whatever agreement emerged
compatible with existing domestic legislation, render the ECT equitable,71 and for a variety of
other practical, non-controversial reasons.72 This was a significant demand that “caused a
65
Russian policy speech at a meeting of WG II, Archive of Travaux Preparatoires Documents, Energy Charter
Secretariat, Brussels, February 25, 1992.
66
Russia also made significant demands related to the trade of nuclear materials. According to Bamberger et al.,
[D]uring the ECT negotiations…[nuclear trade] was an especially hard-fought subject between the EU and the
Russian Federation; indeed, so difficult was this subject to resolve that on 16 December 1994 it became necessary to
adjourn the ceremonial meeting in Lisbon at which the text of the ECT was to be adopted by the negotiating
Conference, in order to allow time for overnight negotiations (on this and on several lesser issues of Treaty
interpretation).” Bamberger et al., “The Energy Charter Treaty in 2000.”
67
The pre-investment stage referred to granting investors access to markets, for example through licensing rounds or
calls for tender. The post-investment stage referred to investors already established in a country. Doré et al., The
Energy Charter Treaty, 28-29, 31. Konoplyanik, “The Energy Charter Treaty: A Russian Perspective” (English
edition), 173
68
Doré et al., The Energy Charter Treaty, 31.
69
Doré et al., The Energy Charter Treaty, 31.
70
Doré et al., The Energy Charter Treaty, 31.
71
Sorokin, “Why and What Kind of Transition Measures,” 585. Doré et al., 32
72
In describing the logic behind the Russian position, Dr. Andrei Konoplyanik wrote that: “It was in the interest of
Russia to see to it that the right of free access to and exploitation of energy resources, to be included in the Treaty,
was reasonably limited. This was facilitated by clauses giving the possibility to safeguard the security of the State,
warranting [sic] ecology and enabling the receiving country to issue special normative acts, forbidding or limiting
free access in cases where this would cause serious danger for the life or health of the population, do serious harm to
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deadlock of negotiations over the summer months of 1993.”73 The United States was vexed in
particular since it wanted immediate “stand still” and “rollback” in domestic legislation that
violated NT,74 while Russia was proposing to increase the number of exceptions. At the same
time, these demands were not formative in the sense that they did not fundamentally challenge
neo-liberal norms and principles themselves.
To see the conformist character of Russia’s agenda positioning, a comparison with
Norway, also a major (albeit smaller) energy producer and exporter, is especially illuminating.
Oslo rejected NT entirely, preferring instead stronger sovereignty provisions which would
provide for direct state management of its resources. During negotiations, Norway explicitly
challenged neo-liberal principles and norms related to investment, and made proposals to
significantly reorganize the draft agreement both textually and conceptually. 75 Norway’s agenda
positioning was formative, but absent Russia’s support, it was completely isolated among ECH
states and was unable to shape the meta-regime or treaty.
In terms of unitary action, Yeltsin inherited the situation that plagued the Soviet state
under Gorbachev. During his tenure, this incapacity grew and affected a broad range of policy,
both domestic and foreign.76 The most significant expression of this in the ECH sphere occurred
in 1997 when the State Duma defied state policy by blocking ratification. According to several
interview participants, the most significant dilemma standing in the way of ratification was
industrial objectives, or would be harmful to the environment. Of course, the right to issue such normative acts
must be subject to the conditions that are enacted, taking into account the principles of goodwill and of
reasonableness, in comparison to the potential amount of danger and injury.” (emphasis added) Konoplyanik, “The
Energy Charter Treaty: A Russian Perspective” (English edition), 169.
73
Doré et al., The Energy Charter Treaty, 31.
74
Konoplyanik, “The Energy Charter Treaty: A Russian Perspective” (English edition), 173. In the end, the
Europeans came up with a compromise solution that satisfied Russian demands. The likely price was America’s
participation in the regime. After playing a dominant role in shaping the new Treaty, the United States chose to not
sign it, essentially quitting the ECH (officially its status is that of an observer). A likely reason is that the
investment provisions were not liberal enough for the Americans who thought they could get a better deal in
bilateral negotiations with Russia.
75
Norway also urged eastern bloc states to take a more conservative approach based on Most Favored Nation
(MFN) status: “…[MFN] would give all resource states sufficient flexibility to establish or maintain energy policies
which strikes an equitable balance between the interests of states as resource owners and the interests of the
investors of other contract parties. It would provide the countries in transition with much desired flexibility in the
establishment of an industrial policy and an energy policy with a view to ensure a smooth transition to market
economy without putting in jeopardy their existing industrial base in the energy sector and to allow for conversion of
existing industries and the establishment of new industries.” (emphasis added) Norwegian delegation, “Access to
and Development of Energy Resources, Norwegian position paper.”
76
For an example in the military sphere, see Hopf. In oil foreign policy, see Stulberg.
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opposition by Gazprom, the partly state-owned but privately managed gas monopolist and
Russia’s largest company.77
Gazprom was ill-disposed to the agreement for a number of reasons related to managers’
corporate strategy and personal interests.78 In any case, that a state-owned monopolistic firm
could defy state preferences is unexpected and a very strong indication of the state’s inability to
behave as a unitary actor. Obviously, it also prevented Russia from fully committing to the
regime and was a significant disappointment for its international partners. Overall, Yeltsin’s
Russia was a disciple: a regime maker with low domestic sovereignty. This was associated with
a conformist agenda positioning and incapacity for unitary action.
Putin
Russian policy toward the ECH began to change very early during Vladimir Putin’s first
term as President. However, the most dramatic developments related to its agenda positioning
began in 2006 when, among other things, it proposed a revised understanding of energy security
that was based on new norms and principles that challenged the neo-liberal approach.79 Russia
77
One respondent, who has worked at the Energy Charter Secretariat since the early 1990s, remarked that,
“It was clear that it was not an easy process….We should not forget…the communists and all these people trying to
[assign] blame for allegedly ‘selling out Russia’ …But that was not the most difficult part…..That was demagogy.
In reality of course …there was a real difference of interests, between producers and consumers; this was inevitable
and was the most difficult part of [ratification]. In every parliament of course serious interests are represented.
…Gazprom has never been favorable, that’s…no secret. Because somehow they had this idea from the start that it
does not correspond to their interests, which is not necessarily true. Interview in Brussels, winter 2010.
According to a participant in Russian ECH policy-making, “The first official documentation showing Gazprom’s
opinion – which was extremely negative – emerged during the 1997 hearings…the company hadn’t participated in
the process and didn’t understand who was who and what was what. So the easiest thing for them to do was to bury
the process. When we suggested the need to further develop the agreement, they said ‘no, we don’t want to.’ ”
(emphasis added) Telephone interview, fall, 2009.
78
To begin with, managers at Gazprom had their own political economic vision for organizing both the domestic
gas sector and the firm’s lucrative trade with Europe, and were extremely skeptical of the neo-liberal approach that
the Treaty embodied. As a result, they saw the agreement as infringing on Gazprom corporate interests. Second,
they felt that it was unnecessary; as the world’s largest gas producer and most important gas supplier to Europe, the
company could make agreements through direct negotiations or with the support of the Russian state when
necessary. Like many Western majors at the time, they thought the agreement was primarily for small and medium
sized enterprises. Finally, the Treaty promoted transparency and would have given government reformers an
additional pretext for cracking down on the illegal dealings at the company from which high-level managers
benefitted handsomely.
79
Previously, the idea of energy security figured in the background of discussions concerning the substance of the
ECH. This should not obscure the fact that energy security was a top priority for the Europeans in the early 1990s.
However, energy security did not have to be addressed directly because neo-liberalism promised to advance energy
security as a matter of course: access for western investors to previously unavailable resources would allow for
geographic diversification away from the volatile Middle East, while markets unshackled from state control
Boris Barkanov
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unveiled its new concept during the 2006 G-8 which it was hosting for the first time, and at
which it made energy security the top agenda item. In his speech to the G8 energy ministers on
March 16, 2006, Putin stated that:
…development in [the energy] sector is very uneven and is subject to serious risks – political,
economic and environmental risks.
….One of the keys to global energy security is a fair distribution of the risks among energy
resource producers, transit service providers and consumers.
The energy market must be insured against unpredictability and its level of investment risk must
be reduced. In other words, measures taken to ensure reliable supplies must be backed up by
measures taken to ensure stable demand.
…This formula creates a responsible interdependence that is in everyone's interests.80 (emphasis
added)
As a practical solution, Russia proposed to protect long term contracts (LTCs) and to promote
vertical integration through transnational “asset swaps.” Neither instrument sits well with neoliberalism because of the potential for stifling competition.
Immediately after the summit, Russian diplomacy began aggressively promoting its new
vision within the ECH and beyond. The novel concept not only challenged the neo-liberal
principles that underpinned the regime, but also represented a bid at hegemony whereby Russia
portrayed its particular interests as general. In stark contrast to the behavior of Yeltsin’s Russia,
under Putin, Moscow’s agenda positioning had become formative once again.
Perhaps the most surprising development of all concerned Russia’s capacity for unitary
action. Behind Russian policy to promote this reconceptualization of energy security was an
unusual suspect: Gazprom. The status of LTCs on the changing EU market and access to the
retail segment were long standing Gazprom concerns. 81 Previously, however, leveraging the
accompanied by western “know-how” would increase efficiency and thus overall energy yields. By 2006, Russia
was no longer satisfied with this approach, which it argued reduced energy security to “security of supply” and
reflected the interests of energy importers/consumers. Genuine energy security in Europe, Russia argued, required
consideration of exporter/producer interests and “security of demand” as well.
80
Vladimir Putin, “Speech at Meeting with the G8 Energy Ministers,” The Kremlin, Moscow, March 16, 2006,
accessed December 9, 2011,
http://archive.kremlin.ru/eng/speeches/2006/03/16/1302_type82912type82914type84779_103208.shtml.
81
As it happened, LTCs were the main pillar of the firm’s commercial strategy in Europe, but managers feared that
they were being undermined by the EU’s ongoing gas market liberalization. Vertical integration and penetrating the
EU gas retail market in particular – which according to company estimates had the largest margins – had also been a
Gazprom goal since as far back as the Soviet period. However, the company felt that it was being unfairly
discriminated against when it came to acquiring downstream assets in Europe, and this notion was reinforced by the
aborted January 2006 Centrica investment bid (and media scandal) in the UK. Interviews, articles.
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ECH to promote these goals was not an option because Gazprom managers saw the regime itself
as a threat to their corporate (and personal) well-being. Despite the potential benefit of
constructive efforts by Gazprom to shape the ECH regime to its advantage, the company defied
the state’s ECH approach. By contrast, 2006 saw Gazprom cooperating with the state, which had
become a unitary actor promoting the interests of its largest and most important firm. Thus,
Russian statehood under Putin evolved into a master: a regime maker with high domestic
sovereignty. This was associated with a formative agenda positioning and capacity for unitary
action.
Medvedev
The basic contours of Russian ECH policy under its third president, Dmitri Medvedev,
resembled earlier policy under Putin quite closely. There were changes in degree but these were
not a fundamental departure from what came earlier. Russian statehood continued to be that of a
master. The state continued to behave as a unitary actor but even more interestingly, the
formative character of Russia’s agenda positioning actually intensified to include the possibility
of creating a brand new regime. Whereas in 2006 Russia began an aggressive effort to adapt the
ECH regime, 2009 saw Russia open the door to international regime change.
The prelude for floating the idea of a new regime was the second Russo-Ukrainian gas
war (January 2009) which “bankrupted Russia’s trust in the ECT as a valuable instrument for the
regulation of international economic relations in the area of energy security.”82 By April, the
presidential website published the “Conceptual Approach to the New Legal Framework for
Energy Cooperation.” During the annual ECH conference at the end of 2009, Russia announced
that it was preparing a “Convention on International Energy Security” and that it was
“…studying the options of platforms for multilateral substantive work on elaborating new
international legal tools. Among them there are the UN Economic Commission for Europe
(UNECE), the International Energy Forum (IEF), and, possibly, the International Energy Agency
(IEA).”83 Late 2010 saw Russia unveil its “draft Convention on Ensuring International Energy
“The ECT can be preserved, but… (interview with Y. Yershov and A. Mernier),” Heft’ Rossii 5 (2009): 88; see
also Yershov, “Global Energy Security and New Recipes for Its ‘Treatment,’” 3.
83
Russian delegation, Brief outline of the speech at the Energy Charter Conference Meeting
Rome, December 9, 2009 (unofficial translation).
82
Boris Barkanov
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Security.”84 Although it presented a summary of the draft in the ECH context, true to its word,
Russia also began shopping it around in different venues such as an expert meeting of the
Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE)85 and the UN Economic
Commission for Europe (UNECE) Working Party on Gas.86
Finally, on August 24, 2009, Russia suspended its provisional application of the ECT,
which had been in effect for over a decade (since it signed the Treaty in December 1994).87
Although suspension almost certainly will not have a legal impact, it certainly represents a major
violation of the ECH’s procedural norms, and this too is consistent with the formative agenda
positioning that emerged in Russia after the turn of the century.
Independent variable: ideas about the legitimacy of state power
To understand why Soviet/Russian statehood changed and the observed variation
in unitary action and agenda positioning, it is necessary to examine the ideas about state
power that informed the respective leaders’ and governments’ state-building projects, and
how these ideas constituted the realm of possibilities for foreign policy.
Gorbachev
Gorbachev’s state-building project was to reform the state, which he saw as being
over-centralized, ineffective, and a travesty of socialism. For the new party secretary,
Soviet state power, in the form of the Stalinist-Brezhnevite state, had become
illegitimate. Partial retrenchment of the central state was supposed to unleash the
creative energy in society to make the state and Soviet system overall more effective and
84
An unofficial copy of the draft was accessed on June 29, 2011, www.ua-energy.org/upload/files/Conventionengl1.pdf
85
(Summary) presentation by Mr. Theodore Shtilkind, Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation, at the OSCE
Special Expert Meeting on Assessing the OSCE’s Future Contribution to International Energy Security CoOperation, PC.DEL/901/10, September 13, 2010
86
Theodore Shtilkind, Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation, “On the draft Convention
on Ensuring International Energy Security (current status),” PowerPoint presentation, 21st annual session of the
UNECE Working Party on Gas, January 18-19, 2011.
87
The most proximate cause appears to be a ruling on a procedural question by a tribunal panel at the Permanent
Court of Arbitration in The Hague that went against Russia in favor of GML (formerly the Group Menatep Limited),
which owned 60 percent of Yukos. The panel falls under the auspices of the United Nations Commission on
International Trade Law (UNCITRAL.) Konoplyanik, “Russia’s Termination of Provisional Application,” 45;
“Why Is Russia Opting Out,” 86; EU/RUSSIA : NEW ENERGY CHARTER NOT NECESSARY, SAY YUKOS
SHAREHOLDERS Europolitics New Neighbours 28 April 2009
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legitimate. In addition, political liberalization had the tactical goal of creating support for
reform along socialist lines. The project went terribly wrong in many different ways, but
the main point is that central state authority and control hemorrhaged to the union
republics.
The epitome of this disorderly devolution was what came to be known as the
“parade of sovereignty,”88 during which the central state fought the union republics
concerning the supremacy of federal laws and among other things, which level of
government controlled valuable resources including energy, and was entitled to collect
and spend tax revenues. This was a very obvious indication that the previously
hierarchical relationship that existed between the central state and the union republics had
become heterarchical in terms of authority and control; the USSR’s domestic sovereignty
went from high to low. Furthermore, because these battles were a top political priority,
state incumbents at all levels both lacked the attention, and often the will to enforce state
prerogatives against other actors (for example, enterprise managers and heads of
agencies) whose loyalty they were soliciting in this all-consuming battle. Thus, an
indirect effect was that individual state agencies’ and non-state actors’ ability to act
autonomously from, and often in defiance of, the central state increased.
In summary, Gorbachev’s view of Soviet state power, as illegitimate led to
reforms that undermined state unitary action through a direct mechanism – the shift of
authority and control to the union republics – and an indirect mechanism – creation of a
political context in which a quasi-Hobbesian struggle for power erupted that created
space for other actors to pursue their own agendas irrespective of the state. Obviously,
many things had to happen for the Soviet state to lose coherence the way that it did.
However, Gorbachev’s decision to transform the Soviet state through perestroika and
glasnost’ was certainly a precipitating (and possibly) necessary cause.
The USSR’s agenda positioning was formative because its proposal to the ECH
foresaw an important economic role for the state in the energy sphere. Marxist-Leninist
thinking at the time held that state economic initiative played an important causal role in
88
Edward W. Walker, Dissolution: Sovereignty and the Breakup of the Soviet Union (Boulder, CO: Rowman &
Littlefield, 2003), 63.
Boris Barkanov
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promoting, among other things, energy security. 89 For the Soviets, energy was what Karl
Polanyi called a “fictitious commodity” in the sense that it could not be regulated
exclusively by market mechanisms because the very survival of society was at stake.90
Soviet officials also held that the state played an important normative role in protecting
workers from exploitation by financial capital.91 Proposing a significant state role was
thus rational given the political philosophy and economic policy paradigm that prevailed
in Moscow at the time.
However, being rational was not sufficient for making it into the proposal. In
order for the Soviets to promote this preference, they had to think that doing so was
plausible.92 What was the source of this aura of plausibility? Although Gorbachev’s
“New Thinking” departed from previous foreign policy approaches in terms of its view of
military affairs, there was still no question among Soviet officials that the USSR was one
of two superpowers of equal stature. This idea about the state was deeply
institutionalized into the Soviet state in the same way that American state officials cannot
imagine a world in which the United States is not a leader,93 or German officials reject
the unilateral use of force.94 According to the logic of habit, the idea of being a
superpower constituted the USSR’s external statehood as a regime-maker, and this meant
that the boundaries of what was plausible were wide indeed.
See L.I. Abalkin “Rynok v ekonomicheskoi sisteme sotsializma [“The Market in a Socialist Economy],” Voprosy
ekonomiki [Problems of Economics] 7 (1990): 3-12. This causal logic can be seen in the writing of Leonid Abalkin,
an academic economist who was the deputy chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers and chairman of its State
Commission on Economic Reform from 1989 to 1991. According to Aslund, Abalkin was “from July 1990 on…the
second man in government,” after the more conservative Prime Minister Nikolai Ryzhkov. Abalkin was not a
radical reformer. In the summer of 1990, he declined to join the then most visible group of liberal economists, the
Shatalin Group, which was charged with preparing the “500 day plan” for transition to a market economy. Instead,
he joined Prime Minister Ryzhkov’s group within the government that produced a plan calling for a “regulated
market.” According to Aslund, “at this point, Abalkin made a clear break with the radical reformers and sided
decisively with the government.” Anders Aslund, “Differences Over Economics in the Soviet Leadership,” A RAND
NOTE (Santa Monica: RAND, 1991), 29-30.
90
Polanyi
91
Abalkin ibid.
92
A plausible preference is one that has at least some chance of being accommodated, has acceptable consequences,
and/or sends the right signal. Put differently, states may restrain certain preferences during international bargaining
either because there is no chance that it will be accommodated, they fear the consequences of not doing so, and/or
they do not want to send the wrong signal to their partners.
93
Discussion with high-level State department official, 2012, Harvard University.
94
Katzenstein; Ulrich Krotz, National Role Conceptions and Foreign Policies: France and Germany Compared,
Working Paper 2.1, Program for the Study of Germany and Europe, Minda de Gunzburg Center for European
Studies, Harvard University, 2001.
89
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The clearest expression of this was the Soviet vision for a “Common European
Home,” an idea promoted by Gorbachev to reshape the overall political and economic
structure of post–Cold War Europe. The project called for the blending of the best
elements of capitalism and socialism and was a distinctly Soviet contribution to the
debate about what post–Cold War Europe and the international system should look like.
Despite the difficult political and economic situation at home, as a superpower, the USSR
reserved the right to promote the well-being of the international community as it saw fit,
and to contribute to the design of post–Cold War Europe and the international system
accordingly. To summarize, ideas about the legitimacy of state power made a state
economic role seem rational and ethical. However, the notion of exercising legitimate
power internationally as befits a superpower was necessary for this provision to be
included in the proposal.
Yeltsin
Upon becoming the key decision-maker in Moscow in the fall of 1991, Yeltsin’s top
priority was to reform the economy and make Russia strong again. Having rejected the Soviet
system en toto, he needed a blueprint for economic policy. Between late October and early
November, Yeltsin chose a group of young Soviet economists who presented him with a
program that was inspired by neo-liberalism. These advisers were influenced professionally by
the works of American academic economists, and when the opportunity to travel freely emerged
under Gorbachev, they interacted with Western economists at international conferences that
promoted the neo-liberal perspective. Moreover, they designed reforms explicitly based on these
ideas and interactions.95 Thus, the international sphere – as a source of neo-liberal ideas – was
extremely important for Russia’s transformation.
At the heart of the neo-liberal program was the explicit causal notion that state power in
the economic sphere was not only illegitimate, but oppressive to economic entrepreneurship.
This idea can be seen during a key early moment in the new Russia’s history, when on October
28, 1991, Yeltsin made his first programmatic speech (written by the economist Yegor Gaidar,
Yelstin’s top economic adviser and head of Russia’s first government) to the Congress of
People’s Deputies:
95
Gaidar
Boris Barkanov
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[W]e have defended political freedom. Now we have to give economic [freedom], to remove all
barriers to the freedom of enterprises and entrepreneurship, to give the people possibilities to work
and receive as much as they earn after having thrown off bureaucratic pressures.96 (emphasis
added)
The neo-liberal inspiration of this perspective, particularly the inherent antagonism between
bureaucrats (shorthand for the state) and entrepreneurs, as well as the maximal prescription for
state retrenchement (ie….remove all barriers), is not difficult to see.
Since our goal is to understand why the new Russia rejected the Soviet state-oriented
approach to the ECH regime, it is useful to understand how Yeltin’s approach to the state’s
economic role contrasted from that of his predecessor. A comparison of his attitude toward
Gosplan – the central economic planning agency of the Soviet state – to that of Gorbachev is
instructive since economic planners would have played a key role in decision-making related to,
among other things, finance for the energy sector. According to Desai,
Mikhail Gorbachev attempted to resuscitate the Soviet economy…. But perestroika also kept the
economic planners fundamentally in charge. … One of Yeltsin's primary goals was to end the
planned Communist economy--not to reform it, but to finish it.97
When the new delegation from Moscow, which included members of the Gaidar neoliberal government, began negotiating the ECH in late 1991, they already had an affinity for the
neo-liberal approach promoted by the US, UK, and EC. Thus, Russia embraced the neo-liberal
vision for the new regime not out of necessity, but rather because it complemented policy that
had already been selected for domestic economic reform. More generally, Russia became a
regime-taker not out of a sense of weakness, but because as it initially emerged as a state, top
officials had decided that they would emulate a Western, and particularly American, mode of
economic organization because of the economic results that they anticipated it would bring. This
concerned domestic as well as international economic policy and included the ECH. Given these
circumstances, it is not difficult to imagine that Russia would also have a conformist, rather than
a formative, agenda positioning.
96
Aslund, How Russia Became a Market Economy, 64-5.
Padma Desai, “Russian Retrospectives on Reforms from Yeltsin to Putin,” The Journal of Economic Perspectives
19, 1 (Winter 2005): 87.
97
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Neo-liberalism did not claim that the state had no economic role at all. One of the most
important areas of state economic activity was to create domestic laws that protected a distinct
economic sphere in which firms were to be autonomous decision-makers. States would also
create and commit to international treaties which, together with domestic laws, would minimize
political risk for firms, understood as state encroachment into economic decision-making. It
follows that state-building under Yeltsin was characterized by radical destatization, but also with
a focus on governing through laws.98 In this light, the Russian strategy to attract investment by
creating a safe legal environment for firms, rather than mobilizing it through more direct state
action, makes sense.
Given that limited destatization under Gorbachev resulted in severe problems related to
unitary action, it is not surprising that state retrenchment under Yeltsin, which was much more
radical, made things worse. Thus, the “parade of sovereignty” continued after Yeltsin came to
power, but on the part of subjects within the RSFSR/Russian Federation. Moreover, by
delegitimizing the state’s economic role, Yeltin’s reform program also empowered heads of
enterprises. Thus, heterarchy under Yeltsin saw the central state competing not only with
regional governments, but also with an emerging class of powerful private entrepreneurs.
In terms of Gazprom’s relationship to the state specifically, the neo-liberal view of the
state’s economic role was crucial. Gazprom was transformed from a state owned concern to
RAO Gazprom, a Russian joint stock company.99 Although the state retained the largest block of
shares (40% until 1999) within the company, in 1993, it concluded a trust agreement with the
new CEO at Gazprom, Rem Vakhirev, whereby the latter would hold the majority of the state’s
shares in the company (out of the 40 percent state stake, Vakhirev would hold 35 percent)100 on
The Russian government’s special focus on legislation has been confirmed by Aslund, a member of a Western
team of consultants to the new government, who recalled that “[t]he Gaidar team’s first priority was to outline a
large number of legal changes and have them implemented.” Åslund, How Russia Became a Market Economy, 88.
99
Alexander Radygin, “State-Owned Holding Companies in Russia,” OECD, Development Research Centre of the
State Council of the PRC Asian Development Bank, January 2000, 16. Only two other companies were accorded
the status of Russian joint stock company: the electricity monopoly RAO UES (Unified Energy Systems) and
Norilsk Nickel. Yelena Ivanova, “Gas Industry 1991-2000,” Kommersant, May 2, 2004, accessed on April 13,
2011, http://www.kommersant.com/p295882/r_33/Gas_Industry_1991-2000/.
100
The trust agreement was later legitimized through a presidential decree in 1996. Luong Jones et al., Oil Is Not a
Curse, 133, fn. 20; Jonathan P. Stern, The Future of Russian Gas and Gazprom (Oxford and New York: Oxford
University Press, 2005), 172.
98
Boris Barkanov
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behalf of the state. This meant that the CEO was responsible for representing the interests of the
state as the company’s single largest shareholder and had the single largest block of votes.
In practice, this meant little since corporate governance was underdeveloped in Russia at
the time and shareholders’ rights were routinely violated. At Gazprom, board meetings were
rarely convened.101 Ultimately, it was in his capacity as the top manager of the company that
Vakhirev exercised his authority over decision-making. According to Rutland, “[t]he state owns
40 percent of Gazprom …but effective control…rests with its current management.”102
This relationship persisted throughout the decade. In 1997, Boris Nemtsov, deputy prime
minister in charge of energy, declared publicly that,
…It may sound a paradox, but the state has never had a position of its own in the company, has
never voiced this position and has had a very weak influence on the company's operations.
I can add that this result is more than a little bit linked to the fact that the government has totally
lost control of the company.103
In order to restore state control over the company, Nemtsov aimed to revise the trust agreement
with Vakhirev, but when he tried to locate the actual document, in a tragicomic twist, it was
nowhere to be found. During a series of interviews on NTV’s Itogi program in April and May
1997, Nemtsov again described the state’s incapacity with respect to Gazprom:
Q. Is Gazprom making profits or losses?
A. To be absolutely frank about it, nobody knows anything about Gazprom.
Q. If [the] 35 percent of shares entrusted to [Vakhirev] earn an income or profits, do these profits
go into the state treasury?
A. In order to answer this question, I must see the trust agreement that in all this time I have not
been able to locate…. I think Rem Ivanovich Vakhirev has it.
Q. What is the state's role in Gazprom?…Is there a state representative in Gazprom who keeps an
eye on the state's interests? Is there some sort of mechanism of that nature?
A. Formally there is, but not in reality. It is not a matter of who is in the Gazprom management. It
is a matter of whether any functions are carried out on behalf of the government..…To my great
regret, the role of the state in the management of property, including the property of giant
enterprises such as Gazprom, has been reduced to naught over these years.
…
Q. What revenue does the state receive from Gazprom…?
A. The revenue is …miserable …Over two years, dividends of state-owned Gazprom shares …have
yielded a total of twenty billion rubles.
101
Interviews in Moscow, 2008-9.
Peter Rutland, “Battle Rages over Russia's Natural Monopolies,” Transition 8, 3 (June 1997).
103
Natalia Samoilova, “Chubais has defended Goskomimushestvo from Kulikov,” Kommersant, April 11, 1997
102
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Q. That is, roughly speaking, four million dollars?
A. It is even less…This is related to the fact that the government has totally lost control of the company.
(emphasis added) 104
As the battle over control continued, one of the issues that emerged concerned the state’s proper
role in managing the economy. According to one press report,
Gazprom chief Rem Vyakhirev, by his efforts to avoid signing an agreement on managing the
government's shares in the firm, is making it known that the powerful gas monopoly should be run
as a private company and not as a government ministry, analysts said Wednesday….
[F]or Vyakhirev, the agreement would impose new governmental checks that could bog the
company down in bureaucracy and weaken the chairman's image with foreign investors and
business partners at a time when Gazprom is looking overseas for funds and opportunities, some
analysts said.
"This is not about power, it's about a business being run like a business or like a government
concern," said Gundi Royle, head of European oil and gas equities at Deutsche Morgan Grenfell in
London. "I know Vyakhirev, and he would be saying, 'I don't have the time to run back and forth
to the White House on every decision.' He wants to run his business." (emphasis added)105
This passage further corroborates that Vakhirev was indeed in charge. More importantly, it
establishes a direct connection between state-firm relations and neo-liberal economic thought,
which Vakhirev and his allies deftly invoked to portray state efforts at control as illegitimate.
Finally, Gazprom, like most other large Russian corporations, was also a chronic tax
delinquent. This led to repeated confrontations with the state, which the latter consistently lost.
Thus, it is not surprising that when the government proposed the ECH for ratification, Gazprom
was able to block it. As result, from an international perspective, Russia was not a unitary actor
in the ECH context.
Putin
Putin’s vision of the state reflected both continuities and change with respect to his
predecessor. Like Yeltsin, he was anti-communist, supported markets and Russia’s active
participation in a capitalist international economy, and was skeptical of an overly expansive
economic role for the state. However, he also saw state power in a more positive light. During
his first annual address to the Federal Assembly, Putin stated very clearly that a strong central
state was necessary for Russia’s development:
“The Mysterious Gazprom Documents: A Drama in Two Acts,” in Rutland, "Battle Rages over Russia's Natural
Monopolies."
105
Jeanne Whalen, “Exec Fights Gazprom's Return to State Hands,” The Moscow Times, December 4, 1997.
104
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We are convinced: …the weakness of the state undermine[s] economic and other reforms. The
authorities must rely on …a single executive vertical….
We have created islands and separate islets of authority, but have not erected reliable bridges
between them. To this day we still have not built an effective way for different levels of authority
to interact. We have talked a lot about this. The center and the territories, regional and local
authorities are still competing with each other for power…. 106
Implicit in this argument is the notion that state power was necessary and legitimate for
development, which was a key Russian goal at the time. The allusion to the struggle between the
center and sub-federal actors is also significant because it supports the claim that heterarchy
prevailed when he came to power.
From the very beginning of his presidency, Putin also displayed a keen personal interest
in the energy complex and the gas sector in particular. 107 Not surprisingly, the general idea that
the state needed to be strengthened and to play a greater role in Russia overall also translated to
these sectors:
At the beginning of market reforms, the state let go of the natural resource complex for a time.
This led to a stagnation of the potential of the nation’s natural resources, to a breakdown in the
geological sector…as well as having a number of other negative consequences. The pro-market
euphoria of the first years of economic reform has gradually given way to a more considered
approach, an approach which assumes the possibility of and recognizes the need for the regulating
influence of the state on the economy as a whole and on those developing natural resources in
particular. 108
Although firms would be allowed some autonomy and private property would remain, the state
would nevertheless play a leading role in the energy sector. This approach to the state was a key
difference from the approach to energy that prevailed under Yeltsin. According to Olcott,
The primacy of the Russian state in the country’s energy sector is non-negotiable. While Vladimir
Putin recognizes the importance of market forces and the need to protect private property, he
believes that both must be managed to insure that neither takes precedence over the interests of the
state…
To Khodorkovsky or TNK’s Mikhail Friedman, the transition from a communist state-owned and
hyper-centralized economy is best achieved through the turning over of all property to private
individuals. This is a position also held by such reformers as Anatoly Chubais, Yegor Gaidar, and
Grigory Yavlinsky….The reformers…share the view of the oligarchs, that, in the long run, the
V. Putin, “Address to the Federal Assembly on July 8, 2000,” Moscow, Kremlin, Archive of Appearances,
accessed December 6, 2011,
http://archive.kremlin.ru/appears/2000/07/08/0000_type63372type63374type82634_28782.shtml. See also, see also
Evans Jr., “Power and Ideology”;
107
Vladimir Milov and Boris Nemtsov, “Putin and Gazprom,” Novaya Gazeta 63, accessed July 12, 2011,
http://www.novayagazeta.ru/data/2008/63/00.html.
108
Olcott, “The Energy Dimension,” 19. See also, Konstantin Simonov, Russian Oil, The Last Redistribution
(Moscow: Eksom Algorithm, 2005).
106
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Russian economy will benefit from privatization, as assets held in private hands will generate a
more diversified economy and more tax revenues for the state….
President Putin most definitely does not share this view.109
That a new economic paradigm prevailed did not lead to automatic changes in state
capacity for unitary action. Rather, a state-building project informed by these ideas was
necessary. While Yeltsin worked to radically withdraw the state from society and the economy,
thereby undermining state authority, the new president strived to increase the state’s social and
economic presence in several key respects. In so doing, Putin made clear that state authority was
legitimate in certain spheres. In particular, state-building focused on the central state’s relations
with the regions, the economic elite, the media, and important sectors of the economy. Of course
this included the energy sector and Gazprom, whose management was quickly purged and
replaced with Putin loyalists.
As the data in Appendix A show, when Putin came to power, the exercise of direct state
power in the economy was legitimate for society as a whole. Furthermore, there was an
overwhelming consensus among the elite that it was legitimate for the state to play a key role in
the energy sector. According to Steen, “In Russia, the elite is very positively disposed towards
major state control in the energy sector.”110 Others elites could be bought off. However, for
those who resisted, the process was not pretty. Media freedom was curtailed and state violence
was deployed when necessary. The most visible example was Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the
largest shareholder in the oil company Yukos, Russia’s richest man at the time and the most
intransigent oligarch.
Several of Khodorkovsky’s initiatives had singular importance from the perspective of
the state.111 In 2002, Khodorkovsky was successful in blocking an increase on the excise tax on
oil in the Duma. During the 2003 battle over oil super profits, Khodorkovsky also put
unrelenting pressure on the government to create a more favorable tax regime.112 In an
Olcott, “The Energy Dimension,” 3, 15-16. For a similar interpretation, see Balzer, “The Putin Thesis”
Ibid., 81.
111
Khodorkovsky was unilaterally negotiating with American energy companies over selling a large share of his oil
company – which he was planning to merge with Sibneft111 – and also with the Chinese about building his own
pipeline, thereby breaking the monopoly on oil transit that the state enjoyed through its ownership of Transneft’.
Khodorkovsky was the only oligarch who continued to defy the president in public (at least once to Putin’s face) and
disregard the idea that he was “bound by any bargain, implicit or explicit, to stay out of politics.” Tompson, “Putin
and the ‘Oligarchs.’”
112
Appel, “Is It Putin or Is It Oil?”
109
110
Boris Barkanov
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interview, German Gref, the liberal former minister of economic development and trade, stated
that Khodorkovsky threatened him personally: “Either you withdraw that law or I will make sure
you are sacked.”113 This type of behavior was characteristic of the heterarchic relationship
between oligarchs and central state officials under Yeltsin. Unfortunately for Khodorkovsky, it
took incarceration in Siberia for him to realize that there was a new sheriff in town.
By contrast, hierchical relations produced very different behavior, which has been
captured nicely by the OECD analyst, William Tompson:
Far from being the state’s master, Russian private capital was to be its servant. …The
oligarchs…were at pains to demonstrate their loyalty to the Kremlin and their acceptance of the
president’s new line. Where they had previously competed to maximize after-tax profits and
market capitalization, oil companies were suddenly competing for official favour once again, at
pains to proclaim their readiness to pay more taxes and to support all manner of social initiatives.
Lukoil declared with pride that it had abandoned many of its legal tax-optimization schemes and
was actually paying more tax than was strictly necessary. BP-TNK, clearly recognizing the need to
adapt to the new circumstances, announced plans to move its core holding company on-shore and
to maintain its profit-centre in Russia.114
By 2004, the process of establishing control over Gazprom was complete, which helps us
understand why the company’s resistance to the ECH abated, and it began actively participating
in the ECH process to promote important strategic interests in the fall of that year.115 Once again,
Russia had become a unitary actor.
In short, ideas about the legitimacy of state power produced state capacity to behave as a
unitary actor in the ECH sphere through two mechanisms. First, it motivated a particular statebuilding strategy which saw among other things, the establishment of control over Gazprom, the
main opponent to the ECH under Yeltsin. Second, when recalcitrant elites engaged in media
warfare to undermine his project, Putin was prepared to curtail media freedom in the interest of
the state. Yeltsin backslid on much of his liberal program, however using state power to this end
– even during the first Chechen war – was not legitimate. Similarly, as the Khodorkovsky
episode suggests, Putin did not shy away from deploying state violence to imprison elites and/or
take away their property, a red line Yeltsin did not cross.116
Josef Pazderka, “Russia: End of a Messy Affair,” Transitions, June 1, 2005
Ibid.
115
Interview in Brussels, fall 2006. Interview in Moscow, fall 2007.
116
According to Tsygankov, Yeltsin’s bodyguard and former KGB general Alexander Korzhakov organized a raid
on several oligarchs who were dragged out into the cold and thrown face down in the snow with guns to their heads.
113
114
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The emergence of a formative agenda positioning was also the product of ideas about the
legitimacy of state power. Putin expressed early on that the role of the Russian state in
international relations needed to be modified. In his first address to the Federal Assembly in July
2000, he stated:
For a long time we chose: rely on foreign advice, help, and credits or to develop based on our
distinctiveness, on our own strength. Very many countries were faced with such a choice.
If Russia stays weak, then we will effectively have to make such a choice. And this will be the
choice of a weak state. It will be a choice of the weak. The only realistic choice for Russia can be
the choice of a strong country. Strong and confident in itself. Strong, not in opposition to the
world community, not against other strong states, but together with them. 117
For Putin, the previous decade had seen a significant increase in the dependence of the Russian
state on international actors and other states. This was a characteristic of a weak state and
unacceptable for Russia. With his comments, Putin was suggesting that the dichotomous way in
which Russia’s role in the international system had been construed during the previous decade –
to depend on external actors or to retreat into isolation – was mistaken and problematic. In fact,
this was a choice faced by weak states, but one inappropriate for Russia, which for Putin by
definition was a strong state. In other words, whether Russia was weak or strong was not
exogenous to Russia; state strength was intrinsic to Russia itself. Furthermore, Russia’s
recognition of this with confidence would create additional political opportunities and policy
options.
Putin was explicitly not calling for confrontation. In fact, there was another alternative:
to work with other strong states. He does not say so explicitly, but these remarks strongly
suggest that as a powerful state, Russia had agency. Cooperation did not mean taking advice,
help, and money, but asserting itself as a powerful state that was prepared to drive a hard bargain
to shape its own destiny and at the same time make a contribution to the structure of the
international system. Russia could be a regime-maker, and this was not a hostile or
uncooperative posture, but it did mean that Russia would behave as a strong state among other
strong states. Thus, the idea that Russia was a strong state and that this was legitimate directly
constituted the possibility of having a formative agenda positioning. As a state in an exceptional
The point was to send a signal. Yeltsin would also convene the oligarchs and bang his fist on the table for them to
be more cooperative. But when they called his bluff, there was no stick to punish them. Discussion with Professor
Andrei Tsyganov, UC Berkeley conference, “20 Years After the Revolution,” spring 2011.
117
Putin, “Address to the Federal Assembly on July 8, 2000.”
Boris Barkanov
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category (of strong states), it could work to shape the terms of its global integration and the
structure of the international system. This posture also extended to Gazprom. Thus, during the
Gazprom Annual Shareholders meeting in the summer of 2006, Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller
presented his vision of the company as a global, vertically integrated firm and remarked that,
“We are sure that Gazprom will be not just a noticeable player on the global energy market but
will dictate the rules of the game.”118 (emphasis added)
In fact, the substance of Russian agenda positioning in 2006 – the reconceptualization of
energy security – came from Gazprom. Here ideas about state power were also important.
When he came to power, the new president was very suspicious of the old management at
Gazprom.119 Before the state could promote the firm’s interests, there had to be assurances that
these were corporate interests that coincided with those of the state, rather than simply the
personal interests of the managers. In order for this to happen, the state had to establish control
over the company, and as we have seen, the state-building project that accomplished this was
motivated by ideas about the legitimacy of state power.
Medvedev
President Medvedev inherited both the state’s capacity for unitary action, as well as its
formative agenda positioning; both were a product of his predecessor’s state-building. In 2000,
the then deputy head of the presidential administration was appointed board chairman,120 which
made him a key participant in reining in Gazprom. Recalling his appointment during an
interview, Medvedev described the origins of his thinking about the state’s role with respect to
the gas company:
…The government did not have control and the market for its shares was in a shameful state. It
was then specifically that we came to the conclusion that control had to be returned to the state.
[A] company such as Gazprom, taking into account its role and function, today has to be managed
by one owner: the state.121
Valorization of the state in general would also characterize his later tenure as president.
According to Dmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center:
Tatiana Mitrova, “Gazprom’s Perspective on International Markets,” Russian Analytical Digest,
May 2008.
119
Valery Panyushkin and Mikhail Zigar’, Gazprom: New Russian Weapon (Moscow: Zakharov, 2008)
120
Ibid.
121
Ibid., 104-5.
118
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Draft. Please do not cite without author’s permission.
Conservatism is in vogue in Russia.… The current buzz word is conservative modernization. The
idea is that Russia’s backwardness would be overcome in an evolutionary manner without
destroying or dramatically weakening the state. It would also be based on Russia’s core values:
traditional family, a strong state, patriotism, ‘faith in Russia,’ and great-power independence.”122
The reference to great power independence also suggests that Medvedev shared Putin’s
approach to Russian state power with respect to the international system. Like Putin, Medvedev
rejected that Russia would reproduce its conformist agenda positioning from the 1990s. His
blunt comments concerning Russia’s signing of a new Partnership and Cooperation Agreement
(PCA)123 were suggestive of how he saw Russia’s new relationship with, for example, the EU:
“[w]e definitely should not look at the signing of the partnership agreement with Europe, with the
European Union as some kind of prize that Russia gets for its good behavior, all parties are
interested in such an agreement.124 (emphasis added)
Echoing a common refrain during interviews conducted in Moscow, the president was alluding
to the fact that Russia under Yeltsin was a “pupil” learning the norms and principles of not only
capitalism, but also of participation in a Western-led society of states. In the language of our
statehood framework then, Medvedev saw Yeltsin’s Russia as a regime-taker. However, the new
Russia had a different posture. As a great power, policy was no longer about embracing external
norms and principles, but was rather driven by its interests as understood by Russian state
officials.
Medvedev expressed his view of Russia as a regime-maker even more clearly
immediately after the second Russo-Ukrainian gas war, when he first mentioned the possibility
of creating an alternative regime. Thus, during a televised meeting with Gazprom CEO Miller,
the president asserted that:
…we need new international mechanisms. I think that we could think about either the
modification of the current version of the Energy Charter (if the participant states agree to this), or
about the creation of a new multilateral document, which would address these goals in full
measure.
Dmitri Trenin, “Russia’s Conservative Modernization: A Mission Impossible?” The SAIS Review of
International Affairs, Winter-Spring 2010, Volume 30, Number 1.
Accessed April 18, 2012 at: http://carnegie.ru/publications/?fa=41108/.
123
The new PCA was meant to replace the original trade agreement signed in 1994, which went into effect in 1997
and formally expired after ten years.
124
Interview of the president with Spanish journalists from channel TVE and the newspaper El Pais, in “Europe
needs new Energy Charter – Medvedev,” RT, March 1, 2009 Accessed August 5, 2012 at
http://rt.com/politics/official-word/europe-needs-new-energy-charter-medvedev/
122
Boris Barkanov
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I see in this our special energy goal, given that Russia is the largest energy producer in the
world.125
Despite the fact that the ECH was a top priority for the EU, Medvedev was prepared to propose
an entirely new regime framework, and this was connected to Russia’s special role as a state with
exceptional power.
Alternative explanations
Energy markets and oil prices
The conventional wisdom is that Russia’s behavior, and foreign policy-making in
Moscow more generally, is related to the level of oil prices.126 Indeed, the change in
behavior between Yeltsin and Putin appears to correlate with a shift in international oil
markets from favoring consumers, to favoring producers. As Appel has noted however,
in order for the Russian state to enjoy the benefits of energy super-profits, it had to be
able to collect export revenues and this meant changing the system of taxation both with
respect to regional governments and the oligarchs. 127 This required state-building to
reconfigure the political relationship between the central state and societal actors.
If we consider the other two cases – Gorbachev’s USSR and Mevedev’s Russia – the
correlation between the situation on energy markets and foreign policy does not hold. Oil prices
were fairly constant across the Yeltsin and late Gorbachev period, and yet Moscow’s ECH policy
changed significantly. After the global financial crisis in 2008, oil prices crashed and the
structure of global energy markets – whether the world had entered a new buyer’s market or
whether a seller’s market persisted – was very much uncertain. That oil prices would partially
recover was not immediately clear at the time. Furthermore, through its effects on capital flight
and capital scarcity, the financial crisis hit Russia harder than most other states.128 As a result,
“Meeting with the CEO of the Company ‘Gazprom’ Alexei Miller,” January 20, 2009, accessed December 9,
2011, http://kremlin.ru/news/2894.
126
Closson; Dutch; Weber; Goldman
127
Appel, “Is It Putin or Is It Oil?”
128
For example, the Russian stock market fell more than stock markets in other states.
125
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Draft. Please do not cite without author’s permission.
some foreign participants in Russia’s energy sector expected it to revert to its open door policy
from the 1990s. They soon realized that they were largely mistaken.129
In the ECH context at the time (2009), Russian policy actually became more formative
with Medvedev’s proposal to either revise the regime or create a new one. Obviously, the level
of energy revenues shapes the constraints and opportunities that the Russian state encounters.
However, how Russia deals with these depends on the character of its statehood, as well as the
ideas about the state that inform the thinking of Russian state officials.
Leadership
There is no question that the top leadership in Moscow plays a very important role
in determining what Russian state behavior looks like. However, it is also necessary to
consider the sources of leaders’ policy preferences. Gorbachev initiated the fateful
reforms that led to the Soviet Union’s demise, but the actual policies that emerged where
deeply informed by Marxist-Leninist thought as interpreted by academic advisers in his
reform team. Yeltsin’s decision to make a radical break from the Soviet past was indeed
extraordinary. However, the neo-liberal policies that he adopted came from Soviet
economists that were deeply influenced by Western economic thought.
From this perspective, Vladimir Putin was actually the least original of the three
leaders insofar as his policy preferences, as the data in Appendix A show, reflected a
broad consensus in society. Putin is a skillful political manager and an intelligent
consumer of economic thinking about energy as developed by Soviet and Russian
sectoral economists. However, he did not conceive the energy policies that he
implemented. His approach to state-building is also not particularly original; from a
broad historical perspective, there is hardly anything remarkable about a strong state in
Russia. In this light, it was actually Yeltsin that was the anomaly.
Domestic regime type
A final explanation has to do with the change in domestic regime type.130 This
explanation is also inadequate. To begin with, regime type cannot explain why the
129
Cameron, “The Politics of EU-Russia Energy Relations,” 26. Interviews in Moscow, 2008-2009.
Boris Barkanov
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USSR’s agenda positioning in 1991, when it was liberalizing under Gorbachev, was so
similar to that of Russia after the turn of the century, when it was clearly becoming more
authoritarian. Likewise, it cannot account for why Russia’s policy departed from that of
the USSR in late 1991, when the regime type had not yet changed.
Second, and more controversially, not everyone would agree that Russia was a
democracy under Yeltsin. For some regime theorists, a functional state comes before
regime type.131 From this perspective, it is dubious that politics be governed by laws and
“rules of the game” in a setting where the state does not even have a monopoly on the
legitimate use of violence.132 It follows that the appearance of democracy in Yeltin’s
Russia was an artifact of liberal wishful thinking that masked what actually was much
more akin to anarchy.
Finally, the relationship between authoritarianism and Russian foreign policy is
spurious. Authoritarianism under Putin was not a cause of foreign policy but rather an
instrument of state-building. When Putin came to power, the top priority was to recreate
order and specifically to crush Chechen separatism. At least early on, specific acts to
curtail societal freedoms were a response to particular challenges as understood by
someone with a statist ideology.
Statehood and neo-liberal integration
Acknowledging and understanding variation in statehood allows us to understand
why the ECH failed as an integration project. Because it took a neo-liberal form,
integration through the ECH relied on “locking-in” states by creating long-term
international legal commitments. However, neo-liberalism also undermined the very
possibility for this type of integration in the Russian case, because it meant that building
state authority was badly neglected throughout the 1990s. To the contrary, it encouraged
dramatic state retrenchment to create maximal autonomy for private economic decision-
130
Zimmerman; Goldgeier and McFaul
Stepan
132
Vadim Volkov, Violent Entrepreneurs
131
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Draft. Please do not cite without author’s permission.
makers, irrespective of economic sector. It is no small irony then, that ratification of the
ECH was scuttled in 1997 by someone who benefited greatly from the neo-liberal
approach and the state incapacity that it produced: Gazprom CEO Rem Vakhirev, who
was indeed an autonomous economic decision-maker.
More generally, integration projects based on neo-liberal views of the state risk
failure to the extent that they undermine state capacity. On a related theoretical note, this
work suggests that researchers interested in norms are well advised to study how norms
interact. Neo-liberal norms about free markets imply state-building norms focusing on
law. Although this may be unproblematic when states already have significant capacity,
in contexts where state capacity is lacking, perverse outcomes may result.
Theoretical Implications for IR
Reconceptualizing the state according to the framework proposed here has important
theoretical, analytical, and methodological implications for the study of world politics.
Theoretically, the fact that international relations sees different types of states underpinned by
various elite ideas about state power suggests that socialization processes,133 and agent-structure
relations more generally, are not uniform throughout the global system. Disciples may very well
be susceptible to demonstration effects, diffusion,134 persuasion135 and learning through
transnational networks, 136 because the norms and principles that are necessary to sustain these
processes, exist prior to socialization, enjoy broad elite support, and indeed are institutionalized
133
For discussions of the literatures (on policy convergence and norm diffusion) associated with socialization, see:
Ann E. Towns, “Norms and Social Hierarchies: Understanding International Policy Diffusion “From Below”,”
International Organization, 66, 2, April 2012, pp 179-209; Beth A. Simmons, Frank Dobbin and Geoffrey Garrett,
“Introduction: The International Diffusion of Liberalism,” International Organization, Vol. 60, No. 4 (Autumn,
2006), pp. 781-810; Kurt Weyland, “Theories of Policy Diffusion: Lessons from Latin American Pension Reform,”
World Politics, Vol. 57, No. 2 (Jan., 2005), pp. 262-295; Checkel, Jeffrey. 2001. Why Comply? Social Learning and
European Identity Change. International Organization 55 (3):553–88; Dolowitz, David P., and Marsh, David. 1996.
“Who Learns What from Whom? A Review of the Policy Transfer Literature.” Political Studies 44 (2):343–57;
Bennet, Colin. 1991. What Is Policy Convergence and What Causes It? British Journal of Political Science 21
(2):215–33.
134
Soysal; Finnemore and Sikkink 1998 (“norm life-cycle” model).
135
Risse Kappen, Gurowitz
136
Abrams, Haffner burton, E.Haas, P. Haas.
Boris Barkanov
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into the state itself. Thus, the conventional view of socialization whereby agents adopt practices
emanating from systemic structures137 applies specifically to this type of state.
By contrast, as witnessed by Russia’s Energy Charter experience, the socialization of
apprentices through these same processes risks being “shallow,” because although the political
leadership may embrace certain norms, they conflict with deeply held norms about the state and
cannot become a basis for statehood. As a result, dissenting elites can obstruct socialization and
then reject the norms definitively once they come to power. Successful socialization may require
initially embracing indigenous norms about the state for state building. Subsequently, the state
can deploy more intrusive policies that transform the social structure by coopting (or coercing)
dissident elites. For example, socialization could focus on empowering the state to directly craft
substantive deals that will change domestic identities, interests, and practices, and thus make it
more enduring.138 Thus, unlike disciples, apprentice socialization also requires a parallel
reconstitution of the agent itself (into a disciple).
By definition, socialization is anathema to master states who are interested in creating
meta-regimes and socializing others, rather than being socialized themselves. Transnational
networks themselves may be perceived as conduits for violating Westphalian sovereignty,
generating conflict. 139 It is thus more accurate to speak of mutual socialization based on a
reciprocal exchange of norms and principles. This implies a very different agent-structure
relationship because the agent is only partially socialized at the same time that it transforms the
structure and socializes other agents. Finally, the same logic applies to pretenders although as
with disciples, any mutual exchange risks being shallow due to limited domestic support, and
may require initial state building and more intrusive measures subsequently. More generally, the
agent has to be reconstituted at the same time that norms and principles are negotiated.
The meta-regime underpinning many areas of the international economy140 is primarily
neo-liberal141 in that it promotes the primacy of law over state sovereignty in settling disputes
137
Wendt
Asset swaps, hostages
139
USAID, Golos, Lugar, human rights laws.
140
In particular, the trade regime (WTO, EU, NAFTA) and the financial regime (IMF).
141
Neo-liberalism is a complex system of ideas and practices associated with political economy. Here I am focusing
on the implications of neo-liberalism for the state’s relations to domestic and international actors.
138
44/47
Draft. Please do not cite without author’s permission.
and the rejection of power politics during international bargaining.142 From the foregoing
discussion it is clear that socialization according to the neo-liberal model is likely to succeed
with disciples, but be unsuccessful with the other types of states for different reasons. For
apprentices, conventional diffusion processes such as transnational learning and legal lock-in is
not sufficiently powerful to reconstitute the state. Whatever effects are produced in the short
term are vulnerable to the vagaries of future domestic politics and especially the coming to
power of a revisionist elite which was never coopted. Masters may very well reject neoliberalism in favor of their own preferred framework, be hostile to transnational processes, and
lack conviction in the merits of international law. Finally, pretenders will present problems that
mix the difficulties associated with masters and apprentices.
Acknowledging that different types of states exist in world politics also creates analytical
room for deepening our understanding of how the different levels of analysis interact to shape
world politics. At present, IR scholarship relies on three basic approaches to integrate the
different levels of analysis: 1) the systemic, top down approach;143 2) the second image reversed,
top down approach;144 and 3) the two-level games, bottom up approach.145 In the context of
foreign policy making and international relations, the former perspective treats the state as a
billiard ball while the latter two construe it as a platform for domestic aggregation and
international bargaining. By contrast, the varieties of statehood framework treats the state as a
variable political space that is constituted by ideas about the state which determine the character
of political relations (hierarchical or heterarchical) underpinning it. This allows a synthesis of the
different perspectives: whether the billiard ball or aggregation/bargaining platform model of the
state emerges empirically depends on the ideas that underpin the state. In addition, it becomes
possible to conceptualize the many different ways in which the state can shape interaction
between the different levels of analysis. On the one hand, states with heterarchical relations
transmit domestic preferences during bargaining and do not filter international effects as they
enter the domestic sphere, unless prompted by societal actors. However, as we saw with
Gazprom under Putin, states with hierarchical relations can change domestic identities and
142
Security community; habermas
Waltz; Wendt
144
Gourevitch; David Lake
145
Shelling? Putnam, Moravcsik, OEP/Lake
143
Boris Barkanov
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preferences during foreign policy making.146 They can also filter global phenomenon in ways
that distort their effects.147 As was the case with Russian diplomacy after 2006, masters may
shape the international structure.
Methodologically, this work suggests that cross national statistical models that do not
differentiate between different types of states may be making inferences based on a sample of
heterogeneous units. This is problematic because as discussed above, these studies may be
conflating different patterns of structure-agent relations and levels of analysis interaction. Both
of these underpin fundamentally different models of causation, and ultimately different logics of
world politics, which hinge on the type of state in question and the normative and cognitive
principles that underpin it. However, prevailing practice is to associate a state with country.
This misses that Russia under Yeltsin was a very different type of state than under Putin. More
generally, because it neglects the political and social basis of the state, how these vary, and the
consequences for international relations, the understanding of world politics that emerges is
overly broad, simplistic, and limited.
Conclusion
As the ECH study has demonstrated, the regime-maker/taker distinction of
external statehood can help us understand whether rising great powers’ demands for
regime change are likely to be marginal (adaptation) or dramatic (transformation). If an
ascendant state is a regime-taker, it is likely to accept the prevailing meta-regime and its
demands are likely to be conformist relative to regimes that are in place; it will strive for
regime adaptation. However, if the rising great power is a regime-maker, it may
146
The state can constrain and coerce society; this is the well known state versus society model of politics. (for
example, Fish, Democracy from Scratch). However, the state can also work with society, by among other things
partially adopting and promoting societal interests, lengthening time horizons, and overcoming collective action
problems. Thus, conceptualizing the state as a separate political space leaves open a number of possible types of
relations between state and societal actors.
147
For example, the impact of norms can be distorted by controlling mass media. This was an important factor in
Putin’s 2012 re-election in the wake of massive public protests against his continued rule. Other states, such as
China and Iran also engage in such practices.
46/47
Draft. Please do not cite without author’s permission.
challenge the meta-regime, its demands are likely to be more dramatic, and attempts at
regime transformation become possible. In short, the rise of a regime-maker is likely to
be more disruptive than that of a regime-taker.
Relatedly, Russia’s ECH policy under Putin and Medvedev became an important
source of acrimony in its relationship with the EU. The biggest problem was that Russia
neglected procedural norms in trying to adapt the Treaty, which had taken on
constitutional significance for the EU,148 and thus become sacred in some respects. This
too is ironic given that the original purpose of the ECH project was to promote
cooperation and security through energy. Insofar as regime-making contributed to
Russia’s controversial policy, we can say that the varieties of statehood framework can
also help us understand interstate dynamics associated with security. In particular, it
generates important hypotheses concerning when conflict may trump cooperation during
global power transitions.
Finally, given that most expert observers see the “unipolar moment”149 giving
way to multipolarity with the continued ascendance of China (and possibly India and
other states), this study of Russia’s transformation and the ECH is an opportunity to
reopen the debate concerning power transitions and security. An immediate and very
important implication is that the danger associated with China’s rise should not be
overstated since it does not appear to be a regime-maker.150 Unlike Russia, it has not
broadly challenged the norms and principles that underpin the international economy, nor
has it blatantly disregarded decision making norms. As is consistent with a regime-taker,
it prefers opportunism to accommodate its interests within prevailing meta-regimes.
From this vantage point then, at least for the time being, it is not necessarily a threat to
America’s global political and moral leadership.
148
The ECT became part of the acquis communitaire and thus not only part of domestic legislation in EU national
states, but part of the process through which the EU itself was created.
149
Charles Krauthammer
150
This is based on a cursory knowledge of the Chinese case and remains a hypothetical claim subject to in depth
research on Chinese statehood.
Boris Barkanov
47/47
Draft. Please do not cite without author’s permission.
Appendix A
Source: http://www.encharter.org/index.php?id=61&L=0
MEMBERS OF THE ENERGY CHARTER CONFERENCE
Albania, Armenia, Australia*, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus*, Belgium, Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, European
Community (now part of the European Union) and Euratom, Finland, France, Georgia,
Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland*, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Moldova, Mongolia, the Netherlands,
Norway*, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russian Federationˆ, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain,
Sweden, Switzerland, Tajikistan, The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Turkey,
Turkmenistan, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Uzbekistan
* - denotes state in which ratification of the Energy Charter Treaty is still pending
ˆ - the Russian Federation signed the Energy Charter Treaty and was applying it provisionally
until 18 October 2009 inclusive
Boris Barkanov, ASEEES, 2012
i/vi
OBSERVERS TO THE ENERGY CHARTER CONFERENCE
Afghanistan**, Algeria, Bahrain, Canada**, China, Egypt°, Indonesia**, Iran, Jordan**,
Korea, Kuwait, Morocco**, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan**, Palestinian National Authority,
Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Serbia**, Syria**, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, United States of
America**, Venezuela
** - denotes observer which has signed the 1991 Energy Charter
° - denotes observer in which signing of the 1991 Energy Charter is pending
INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS WITH OBSERVER STATUS
ASEAN, BASREC, BSEC, CIS Electric Power Council, EBRD, IEA, OECD, UN-ECE,
World Bank, WTO
Appendix B
Primary texts:

Archival documents related to negotiations on the Energy Charter political
declaration and ECT (travaux préparatoires) located at the Energy Charter
Secretariat in Brussels

Archival documents related to subsequent negotiations located in the private
collections of various participants

Word searches in the Factiva electronic database, which has all of the major
newspapers, wire services, and some magazines (1991-2010)

Texts (articles and books) written by decision makers and participants

Texts (articles and books) received from or recommended by interviewees

Energy strategy documents and commentaries

Trade magazines (from the Russian state Lenin library and the Russian state
public library for science and technology):
o neftegazoviy vertikal (1992-2008)
o neft i kapital (1996-2000, 2002-8)
ii/vi
Draft. Please do not cite without author’s permission.
o neft gaz i biznes (2000-5)
o neftyanoe khozaistvo (2003-4)
o gazovaya promishlenost’ (1987-2008)
o gazovaya promishlenost’. Series: ekonomika, organizatsiya, I
upraveleniye proisvodstvom v gazovoi promishlenosti (as available).
o ekonomika i upravlenie neftegazovoi otrasli (as available).

Ministry of Foreign Affairs anthology of official documents (1994-8)
Appendix C
Figure 1-1 : Public opinion on state vs. private ownership151
Survey Results: New Russia Barometer
90
80
% Who Agree
70
60
50
40
30
20
STATE
OWNERSHIP
10
0
6-7/93 (II)
3-4/98 (VII)
01/00 (VIII)
04/00 (IX)
Date
6-7/01 (X)
12/03 (XII)
PRIVATE
OWNERSHIP
Survey respondents were asked “Which are you more inclined to agree with, and how much? State ownership is the
best way to run an enterprise, OR An enterprise is best run by private entrepreneurs.” Possible answers were:
“definitely prefer state, probably prefer state, definitely prefer private, probably prefer private, don’t know.” This
chart compares summed totals for state ownership vs. private ownership.
151
Richard Rose, New Russia Barometer II, VII, VIII, IX, X, XII (Glasgow : Centre for the Study of Public Policy,
University of Strathclyde).
Boris Barkanov, ASEEES, 2012
iii/vi
Figure 1-2 : Elite attitudes toward the role of the state vs. market in solving problems in the
energy sector (1998)152
market mainly (4)
1%
market only (5)
0%
50/50
(3)
12%
state only (1)
state mainly (2)
38%
state only (1)
49%
% of
respondents
state mainly (2)
50/50
(3)
market mainly (4)
market only (5)
Figure 1-3 : Elite attitudes toward the role of the state vs. market in solving problems in the
energy sector (2000)153
market mainly (4)
2%
50/50
(3)
14%
market only (5)
1%
state only (1)
49%
state only (1)
state mainly (2)
50/50
% of
respondents
state mainly (2)
34%
(3)
market mainly (4)
market only (5)
In both surveys, respondents were asked about what should be the role of the state and the market in solving the
problems in the energy sector.
152
Anton Steen, Political Elites and the New Russia, The Power basis of Yeltsin's and Putin's regimes (London:
Routledge Curzon, 2003)
153
Ibid.
iv/vi
Draft. Please do not cite without author’s permission.
% in favor
Figure 1-4 : Elite attitudes toward form of ownership in heavy industry (1998) 154
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
85
Total
State
Co-op.
87
State
Duma
Private
87
Fed.
Council
87
88
Fed.
State
admin.
enterpr.
Elite group
84
79
85
Priv.
business
Culture
Reg. govt.
% in favor
Figure 1-5 : Elite attitudes toward form of ownership in heavy industry (2000) 155
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
85
Total
State
Co-op.
84
State
Duma
Private
87
Fed.
Council
92
90
Fed.
State
admin.
enterpr.
Elite group
82
79
84
Priv.
business
Culture
Reg. govt.
In both surveys, respondents were asked to choose between three alternatives and asked which they thought was
most suitable for heavy industry.
Table 1-1 : Elite attitudes toward form of ownership in various sectors (1998 and 2000) 156
154
Ibid., 78; 1998: n=980, response rate 95-98%.
Ibid.; 2000: n=605, response rate 98-99%.
156
Ibid., 78; 1998: n=980, response rate 95-98%; 2000: n=605, response rate 98-99%.
155
Boris Barkanov, ASEEES, 2012
v/vi
1998
State
Total
State Duma
Fed. Council
Fed. admin.
State enterpr.
Priv. business
Culture
Reg. govt.
2000
State
Total
State Duma
Fed. Council
Fed. admin.
State enterpr.
Priv. business
Culture
Reg. govt.
Heavy Industry
Co-op.
Private
State
85
9
6
87
10
3
87
13
0
87
7
6
88
6
6
84
10
6
79
11
11
85
9
6
Heavy Industry
Co-op.
Private
State
8
6
9
7
10
3
4
4
10
0
12
6
13
8
7
9
85
84
87
92
90
82
79
84
Light Industry
Co-op.
Private
State
15
48
36
22
52
26
10
59
31
16
49
35
12
50
38
10
54
36
6
47
47
16
47
38
Light Industry
Co-op.
Private
State
44
41
61
29
60
30
36
45
48
36
44
50
48
44
37
44
15
10
10
18
16
6
8
19
9
10
3
12
8
2
4
10
Agriculture
Co-op.
Private
State
55
35
68
22
73
23
54
34
54
38
40
58
57
38
54
36
11
9
0
18
16
4
2
13
Agriculture
Co-op.
Private
State
51
38
59
32
67
33
18
41
52
32
50
46
34
64
54
34
16
17
7
20
21
12
4
17
Housing
Co-op.
Private
State
30
53
29
54
23
70
36
44
36
43
36
52
49
47
27
56
3
4
0
3
2
2
0
3
Retail
Co-op.
Private
15
82
20
76
7
93
29
68
14
84
8
90
19
81
13
84
17
16
3
25
14
10
16
19
Housing
Co-op.
Private
State
27
55
27
57
33
63
23
52
44
42
30
60
46
38
19
62
2
0
0
3
0
2
0
3
Retail
Co-op.
Private
12
86
17
83
20
80
15
82
10
90
2
96
8
92
11
86
In both surveys, respondents were asked to choose between three alternatives and asked which they thought was
most suitable for various industries.
vi/vi