Scholars of performance incentives for regional officials in transitional states debate the appropriate degree of centralization and decentralization of political control. Decentralized administrative systems are said to encourage beneficial jurisdictional competition among regional officials,...

Contrary to the focus on the events of the last two years (2014-2015) associated with the accession of Crimea to Russia and military conflict in Eastern Ukraine, I stress here that serious changes in Russian internal politics (with strong pressure on political opposition, state propaganda and...