The Political Economy of the COVID-19 Response in Autocracies: Evidence from the Russian Regions

Nikita Khokhlov

Europe-Asia Studies, 2025, vol. 77, issue 6, 977-999

Abstract: Building on the blame avoidance and the principal–agent theoretical frameworks, I argue that during the COVID-19 pandemic, autocratic elites remained primarily driven by their career concerns, largely defined by the interests of the autocrat, rather than the public interest. This had implications for public health policies. Specifically, studying the behaviour of Russia’s governors, I demonstrate that the proximity of voting on constitutional amendments, concerns over gubernatorial elections and governors’ political influence explain the severity of public health policy measures in the regions. The findings have implications for the literature on elite behaviour, public policy in autocracies and public responses to pandemics.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09668136.2025.2512121 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:ceasxx:v:77:y:2025:i:6:p:977-999

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/ceas20

DOI: 10.1080/09668136.2025.2512121

Access Statistics for this article

Europe-Asia Studies is currently edited by Terry Cox

More articles in Europe-Asia Studies from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().