Developers, the Party of Power and a Bit of Competition in Russia’s Million-Plus Cities: A Typology of Urban Regimes in the 2010s

Abstract

The quality of interaction among key urban actors, which is described by the concept of an urban regime, is a significant structural factor influencing the logic of urban conflicts. Definitions of urban regime are based on the prerequisite that cities possess large political and economic autonomy, which is a key indicator in the appearance of an urban regime appearance. Large cities in Russia exist in an authoritarian context and strongly depend on higher-level authorities. This dependence predictably reduces opportunities for the shaping of specific urban regimes. At the same time, large cities remain leading resource centres, maintaining their political, economic, and social diversity, which leads to diversity in urban regimes across Russia, especially in the extent of political competition and range of urban actors. In the article, we show a variety of urban regimes in all Russia’s million-plus cities (except for Moscow and St. Petersburg), offering a typology to categorize them. The analysis is based on data of local assemblies’ compositions in 2012–2020 as well as on media reports. The basic idea of the typology is based on an assessment of the degree of competition between political and economic groups. We proceed from the premise that competition is a key factor boosting the responsiveness of authorities and expanding opportunities for urban conflict participants. For the typology, we use two criteria: both the extent of business group fragmentation and political competition. In most of Russia’s million-plus cities, we reveal politically non-competitive urban regimes with fragmented ('competitive authoritarian arrangement') or non-fragmented business ('encapsulated urban regime'), in which business is mostly associated with the party of power. In only one case political competition remains along with a diversity of business groups ('competitive urban regime') and in some cases, political competition is combined with the domination of one business group ('confrontational urban regime').