Authoritarianism and redistribution: The positive impact of weak property rights regime, immobile assets and high oil prices on authoritarianism in Russia.

My theoretical argument is inspired by main arguments that Boix (2003) makes in Democracy and Redistribution. Boix’ argument is that the challenge to the ruling elites comes from the lower classes, who wish to change the re-distributional equilibrium in the society (p. 171). He perceives three possible re-distributional outcomes: 1) Right-wing authoritarian regimes, in which practically no transfers take place (also, limited taxes); 2) Democracies, which have more redistribution of wealth, based on the aspirations of the median voter; 3) Revolutionary regimes, which are prone to the follies of nationalization and central planning, eventually leading to corruption and economic stagnation (p. 3). Asset specificity plays into the hands of the “revolutionary” regimes such as those we usually see in Russia, because oligarchs like Khodorkovsky, Abramovich and may others cannot move them out of the country, they are immobile. That’s why they are very vulnerable targets for re-distribution either by democratic regimes through taxation, or authoritarian regimes through expropriation (which is the case in Russia). The latter helps to strengthen the hands of the authoritarian regime in Russia, which acts recklessly domestically and int-ly. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]