Strategic Appointments in Russia’s Procuracy
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 17827460 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Evgenia Olimpieva (University of Chicago, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 12 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 1-25 |
| Publication date | 2026-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Sociology of Development (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2374-538X • E-ISSN: 2374-538X |
| Publisher | University of California Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1525/sod.2026.2838167 |
| OpenAlex | W7130396791 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 14 |
This article examines the patterns of outsider appointments in Russia’s Procuracy. Outsider appointments are a common way to insulate bureaucrats from local influences and thus reduce corruption. Using original biographical data on regional prosecutors from 1990 to 2012, I investigate whether the appointment of outsiders—officials without local ties—was driven by genuine state-building goals to reduce corruption and improve the institutional integrity of the federal state, or by authoritarian motives aimed at consolidating Putin’s grip on power. I find that outsider appointments were not driven by higher crime rates, corruption levels, or local authoritarian practices. Instead, quantitative evidence demonstrates that outsider appointments strategically targeted regions governed by Putin’s political opponents or with weaker electoral support for the authoritarian United Russia party. Furthermore, outsider prosecutors were not more active than prosecutors with regional ties in prosecuting local elites, suggesting that the primary objective was to establish centralized control over the “stick” of corruption prosecution, rather than to combat corruption effectively. Thus, while outwardly framed as an anti-corruption policy to improve state integrity, the appointments in Russia’s Procuracy were strategic and ultimately contributed to illiberalism by curbing regional autonomy, weakening the opposition, and reinforcing Putin’s political dominance
Authoritarianism · Control (management) · Language change · Political corruption · Politics · State (computer science) · Corruption and Economic Development · Crime, Illicit Activities, and Governance · Political Conflict and Governance
The Membership of Governors’ Teams in Russia’s Regions, and the Key Features of the Formation of Regional Administrations 1991–2018
Post-Soviet criminal justice
Business and Politics in the Russian Regions
Majorities without Mandates
Strategies of Repression
Explaining Machine Politics in Russia's Regions
Regional patrons and hegemonic party electoral performance in Russia
The Strategic Shuffle
Counterproductive punishment
Russia's Post-Soviet Ideological Terrain
The Supervisory Function in Russian and Soviet History
The Integrity of Corrupt States
| Highly cited | No |
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