Socio-Economic Cooperation Agreements and State-Business Relations in Russia’s Regions – An Analysis of Formal Contracts between State and Business Actors

Abstract

The data set contains 103 state-business contracts which were concluded between large companies and the regional administration of Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug (KhMAO) between 2010 and 2019. The data set include 21 socio-economic cooperation agreements (SECAs), 75 additional agreements (AAs) and 7 other contracts between state and business actors in KhMAO. In the analysis of contractual relations between state and business actors in KhMAO, the authors combined a qualitative content analysis of the agreements’ full-texts and a descriptive quantitative analysis of the financial volumes of social investments, agreed in the SECAs, and their amendments in the subsequent additional agreements (AAs). The qualitative content analysis focuses on six categories of contractual provisions: social welfare, environment, infrastructure, regional development, taxes and state support for companies. It sheds light into the formulation of mutual obligations regarding the resource exchange between state and business. The descriptive quantitative analysis aims at understanding the dynamics of the financial obligations of individual companies and their relations to those of other companies and the regional budget. It illuminates the adaptive nature of SECAs and allows for identification of patterns of contractual relationships between state and business actors. The authors analysed the role of the contracts in formalizing a resource exchange between state and business actors in the region. The analysis focused on the underlying reasons for concluding formal contracts in the highly volatile environment of Russian authoritarian capitalism and on the different contractual patterns that have emerged between state and business actors in the region.