After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, many of the emerging countries experienced an expansion of capitalist businesses. Yet, this privatization process was particularly controversial, as these companies inserted themselves into the political structure to benefit those in power. The bureaucracies that evolved helped autocrats strengthen and expand their power by taking advantage of the government institutions created by countries’ Soviet legacies. The dynamics of this relationship are explored in the latest book by political economist Dinissa Duvanova.

The author of Thieves, Opportunists, and Autocrats: Building Regulatory States in Russia and Kazakhstan, Duvanova analyzes how autocrats in Kazakhstan and Russia built regulatory institutions, relying heavily on strict government-style oversight to maintain power. The book addresses the paradox of how the Russian and Kazakh states have become stronger and more resilient despite systemic corruption, through the lens of the "regulatory state." It underscores the central role of regulatory state institutions in enabling these autocratic regimes to survive and thrive in challenging conditions. These regimes tolerate some corruption among bureaucrats, allowing them to exert selective control and ensure loyalty, which paradoxically strengthens the state's resilience against external pressures, such as the international sanctions on Russia. 

“The regional level institutions, the ones that have more detailed manuals that govern the operation of public bureaucracy, tend to have better performance compared to the ones that allow the bureaucrats to invent the rules or follow whatever what they want without any sort of written manuals that regulate their actions,” says Duvanova, associate professor and chair of international relations. “Instead of fighting corruption and bureaucracy, they allow some corruption to happen when the times are good, and they have a lot of surplus to go around. But they can revert to this very detailed prescribed sort of behavioral patterns on bureaucrats when the resources are limited. They can say, ‘well, this is how we're going to discipline you,’ so you do not waste resources in the times when the state needs them.”

Following the collapse of the USSR, these countries initially seemed to diverge in their reform trajectories, with Kazakhstan pushing forward with economic reforms to legitimize autocratic consolidation, while Russia faced competing elite and public demands during its market reforms. By the mid-2000s, however, both countries had settled into similar personalistic dictatorships. Both promoted economic liberalism, deregulation, and integration into global markets, yet corruption and fusion of political and economic power persisted. In both nations, inequality and asset stripping in state-controlled sectors fueled public resentment.

“At some point, these bureaucrats violated the law, and the politicians can prosecute them because they violated those very clearly written rules of engagement,” she says. “They choose not to do that in order to ensure that bureaucrats stay loyal to them, that the bureaucrats do not challenge them politically or do not lend any support to potential political opposition to these autocracies.”