Hostname: page-component-5d84bcc8dc-kh9vn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-09-10T21:04:01.644Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Autocratic Policy and the Accumulation of Social Capital: The Moscow Housing Renovation Program

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 October 2023

EKATERINA BORISOVA Open the ORCID record for EKATERINA BORISOVA [Opens in a new window] ,
REGINA SMYTH  and
ALEXEI ZAKHAROV Open the ORCID record for ALEXEI ZAKHAROV [Opens in a new window]
EKATERINA BORISOVA*
Affiliation:
Université de Lille, France, and CESifo, Germany
REGINA SMYTH*
Affiliation:
Indiana University Bloomington, United States
ALEXEI ZAKHAROV*
Affiliation:
University of Chicago, United States, and HSE University, Russia
*
Ekaterina Borisova, Research Fellow, Univ. Lille, CNRS, IESEG School of Management, UMR 9221 - LEM - Lille Économie Management, France, and Research Network Affiliate, CESifo, Germany, ekaterina.borisova@univ-lille.fr.
Regina Smyth, Professor, Department of Political Science, Indiana University Bloomington, United States, rsmyth@indiana.edu.
Corresponding author: Alexei Zakharov, Visiting Associate Professor, Harris School of Public Policy, University of Chicago, United States, and Associate Professor (on leave), Faculty of Economics, HSE University, Russia, al.v.zakharov@gmail.com.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Can autocratic policy generate incentives for the accumulation of social capital and political engagement? This question is important to understand stability in authoritarian regimes that increasingly rely on governance to build legitimacy and social support. While existing research shows that the incentives for societal interaction embedded in policies can yield new forms of social capital and political engagement in democratic regimes, the top-down nature of policy and the corrupt and information-poor context of policy implementation could undermine this mechanism in authoritarian regimes. We explore this question by examining the effect of the Moscow Housing Renovation Program, a massive urban renewal project, that required residents to organize to obtain new housing. Comparing a matched sample of 1,300 residents living in buildings included and excluded from the program, we find that interactions induced by the program led to changes in the level of social capital among residents in included buildings. We also find spillover effects on political engagement and collective action against pension reform.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 118 , Issue 3 , August 2024 , pp. 1110 - 1130
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of American Political Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

REFERENCES

Andersen, Rasmus Fonnesbaek. 2018. “Trust in Scandinavia: Findings from Moving Borders between Denmark and Germany.” Scandinavian Political Studies 41 (1): 22–48.Google Scholar
Asmolov, Gregory. 2018. “The Disconnective Power of Disinformation Campaigns.” Journal of International Affairs 71 (1.5): 69–76.Google Scholar
Attwood, Lynne. 2004. “Housing in the Khrushchev Era.” In Women in the Khrushchev Era, eds. Melanie Ilič, Susan E. Reid, and Lynne Attwood, 177–202. London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Avdeenko, Alexandra, and Gilligan, Michael J.. 2015. “International Interventions to Build Social Capital: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Sudan.” American Political Science Review 109 (3): 427–449.Google Scholar
Bahry, Donna, and Kozyreva, Polina. 2018. “Family Socialization, Trust and Change: Evidence from Russia.” Comparative Sociology 17 (3–4): 261–278.Google Scholar
Borisova, Ekaterina I., Polishchuk, Leonid, and Peresetsky, Anatoly. 2014. “Collective Management of Residential Housing in Russia: The Importance of Being Social.” Journal of Comparative Economics 42 (3): 609–29.Google Scholar
Borisova, Ekaterina, Smyth, Regina, and Zakharov, Alexei. 2023. “Replication Data for: Autocratic Policy and the Accumulation of Social Capital: The Moscow Housing Renovation Program.” Harvard Dataverse. Dataset. https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/HOMED8.Google Scholar
Bowles, Samuel, and Gintis, Herbert. 1998. “The Moral Economy of Communities: Structured Populations and the Revolution of Pro-Social Norms.” Evolution and Human Behavior 19 (1): 3–25.Google Scholar
Brehm, John, and Rahn, Wendy. 1997. “Individual-Level Evidence for the Causes and Consequences of Social Capital.” American Journal of Political Science 41 (3): 999–1023.Google Scholar
Buggle, Johannes C. 2016. “Law and Social Capital: Evidence from the Code Napoleon in Germany.” European Economic Review 87: 148–75.Google Scholar
Buggle, Johannes C., and Durante, Ruben. 2021. “Climate Risk, Cooperation and the Co-Evolution of Culture and Institutions.” Economic Journal 131 (637): 1947–87.Google Scholar
Bullock, John G., Green, Donald P., and Ha, Shang E.. 2010. “Yes, but What’s the Mechanism? (Don’t Expect an Easy Answer).” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 98 (4): 550–8.Google ScholarPubMed
Bursztyn, Leonardo, Cantoni, Davide, Yang, David Y., Yuchtman, Noam, and Zhang, Y. Jane. 2021. “Persistent Political Engagement: Social Interactions and the Dynamics of Protest Movements.” American Economic Review: Insights 3 (2): 233–50.Google Scholar
Cao, Jiarui, Yiqing, Xu, and Zhang, Chuanchuan. 2022. “Clans and Calamity: How Social Capital Saved Lives during China’s Great Famine.” Journal of Development Economics 157: 102865. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2022.102865Google Scholar
Casey, Katherine. 2018. “Radical Decentralization: Does Community-Driven Development Work?.” Annual Review of Economics 10: 139–63.Google Scholar
Casey, Katherine, Glennerster, Rachel, and Miguel, Edward. 2012. “Reshaping Institutions: Evidence on Aid Impacts using a Preanalysis Plan.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 127 (4): 1755–812.Google Scholar
Fabbri, Marco. 2021. “Property Rights and Prosocial Behavior: Evidence from a Land Tenure Reform Implemented as Randomized Control-Trial.” Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 188: 552–66.Google Scholar
Feigenberg, Benjamin, Field, Erica, Pande, Rohini, Rigol, Natalia, and Sarkar, Shayak. 2014. “Do Group Dynamics Influence Social Capital Gains among Microfinance Clients? Evidence from a Randomized Experiment in Urban India.” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 33 (4): 932–49.Google Scholar
Fischbacher, Urs, Gächter, Simon, and Fehr, Ernst. 2001. “Are People Conditionally Cooperative? Evidence from a Public Goods Experiment.” Economics Letters 71 (3): 397–404.Google Scholar
Forrat, Natalia. 2018. “Shock-Resistant Authoritarianism: Schoolteachers and Infrastructural State Capacity in Putin’s Russia.” Comparative Politics 50 (3): 417–49.Google Scholar
Fox, Jonathan. 1996. “How Does Civil Society Thicken? The Political Construction of Social Capital in Rural Mexico.” World Development 24 (6): 1089–103.Google Scholar
Frey, Bruno S, and Jegen, Reto. 2001. “Motivation Crowding Theory.” Journal of Economic Surveys 15 (5): 589–611.Google Scholar
Fukuyama, Francis. 1996. Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Gibson, Clark C., Williams, John T., and Ostrom, Elinor. 2005. “Local Enforcement and Better Forests.” World Development 33 (2): 273–84.Google Scholar
Gorokhovskaia, Yana. 2018. “From Local Activism to Local Politics: The Case of Moscow.” Russian Politics 3 (4): 577–604.Google Scholar
Gueorguiev, Dimitar. 2021. Retrofitting Leninism: Participation without Democracy in China. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Guiso, Luigi, Sapienza, Paola, and Zingales, Luigi. 2016. “Long-Term Persistence.” Journal of the European Economic Association 14 (6): 1401–36.Google Scholar
He, Baogang, and Warren, Mark E.. 2011. “Authoritarian Deliberation: The Deliberative Turn in Chinese Political Development.” Perspectives on Politics 9 (2): 269–89.Google Scholar
Helliwell, John F., and Putnam, Robert D.. 2007. “Education and Social Capital.” Eastern Economic Journal 33 (1): 1–19.Google Scholar
Hooghe, Marc, and Stolle, Dietlind. 2003. Generating Social Capital: Civil Society and Institutions in Comparative Perspective. New York: Palgrave.Google Scholar
Huang, Jian, van den Brink, Henriette Maassen, and Groot, Wim. 2009. “A Meta-Analysis of the Effect of Education on Social Capital.” Economics of Education Review 28 (4): 454–64.Google Scholar
Humphreys, Macartan, de la Sierra, Raul Sanchez, and van der Windt, Peter. 2012. “Social and Economic Impacts of Tuungane.” Final Policy Report. New York: Columbia University.Google Scholar
Imai, Kosuke, Keele, Luke, and Yamamoto, Teppei. 2010. “Identification, Inference and Sensitivity Analysis for Causal Mediation Effects.” Statistical Science 25 (1): 51–71.Google Scholar
Kosfeld, Michael, Okada, Akira, and Riedl, Arno. 2009. “Institution Formation in Public Goods Games.” American Economic Review 99 (4): 1335–55.Google Scholar
Krishna, Anirudh. 2007. “How Does Social Capital Grow? A Seven-Year Study of Villages in India.” Journal of Politics 69 (4): 941–56.Google Scholar
Kumlin, Staffan, and Rothstein, Bo. 2005. “Making and Breaking Social Capital: The Impact of Welfare-State Institutions.” Comparative Political Studies 38 (4): 339–65.Google Scholar
Ledeneva, Alena. 1998. Russia’s Economy of Favours: Blat, Networking and Informal Exchange. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Levi, Margaret. 1998. “A State of Trust.” In Trust and Governance, eds. Braithwaite, Valerie and Levi, Margaret, 77–101. New York: Russell Sage.Google Scholar
Maloney, William, Smith, Graham, and Stoker, Gerry. 2000. “Social Capital and Urban Governance: Adding a More Contextualized ‘Top-Down’ Perspective.” Political Studies 48 (4): 802–20.Google Scholar
Marques, Israel II, and Zakharov, Alexei. 2022. “Redistributive Policy and Redistribution Preferences: The Effects of Moscow Redevelopment Program.” Working Paper, SSRN.Google Scholar
Mettler, Suzanne. 2002. “Bringing the State Back in to Civic Engagement: Policy Feedback Effects of the GI Bill for World War II Veterans.” American Political Science Review 96 (2): 351–65.Google Scholar
Mishler, William, and Rose, Richard. 2001. “What Are the Origins of Political Trust? Testing Institutional and Cultural Theories in Post-Communist Societies.” Comparative Political Studies 34 (1): 30–62.Google Scholar
Morris, Jeremy, Semenov, Andrei, and Smyth, Regina. 2023. Why Grassroots Activism Matters: Varieties of Russian Activism: State–Society Contestation in Everyday Life. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Nguyen, Tu Chi, and Rieger, Matthias. 2017. “Community-Driven Development and Social Capital: Evidence from Morocco.” World Development 91: 28–52.Google Scholar
Norton, Sean T. 2023. “Demolition and Discontent: Governing the Authoritarian City.” American Journal of Political Science. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12749Google Scholar
Nunn, Nathan, and Wantchekon, Leonard. 2011. “The Slave Trade and the Origins of Mistrust in Africa.” American Economic Review 101 (7): 3221–52.Google Scholar
Offe, Claus. 1999. “How Can We Trust Our Fellow Citizens?” Chapter 3 in Democracy and Trust, ed. Mark E. Warren, 42–87. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Olson, Mancur. 1965. The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Ostrom, Elinor. 1990. Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ostrom, Elinor. 1998. “A Behavioral Approach to the Rational Choice Theory of Collective Action: Presidential Address, American Political Science Association, 1997.” American Political Science Review 92 (1): 1–22.Google Scholar
Ostrom, Elinor. 1999. “Coping with Tragedies of the Commons.” Annual Review of Political Science 2: 493–535.Google Scholar
Ostrom, Elinor. 2000. “Collective Action and the Evolution of Social Norms.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 14 (3): 137–58.Google Scholar
Ostrom, Elinor. 2005. “Policies That Crowd Out Reciprocity and Collective.” In Moral Sentiments and Material Interests: The Foundations of Cooperation in Economic Life, eds. Boyd, Robert, Gintis, Herbert, Bowles, Samuel and Fehr, Ernst, 253–76. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Ostrom, Elinor, and Ahn, Toh-Kyeong. 2009. “The Meaning of Social Capital and Its Link to Collective Action.” In Handbook of Social Capital: The Troika of Sociology, Political Science and Economics, eds. Svendsen, Gert Tinggaard and Svendsen, Gunnar Lind Haase, 17–35. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar.Google Scholar
Pop-Eleches, Grigore, Robertson, Graeme, and Rosenfeld, Bryn. 2022. “Protest Participation and Attitude Change: Evidence from Ukraine’s Euromaidan Revolution.” Journal of Politics 84 (2): 625–38.Google Scholar
Poteete, Amy R., and Ostrom, Elinor. 2008. “Fifteen Years of Empirical Research on Collective Action in Natural Resource Management: Struggling to Build Large-N Databases Based on Qualitative Research.” World Development 36 (1): 176–95.Google Scholar
Putnam, Robert D., Leonardi, Robert, and Nanetti, Raffaella Y.. 1993. Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Putnam, Robert D. 2000. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
Radnitz, Scott, Wheatley, Jonathan, and Zürcher, Christoph. 2009. “The Origins of Social Capital: Evidence from a Survey of Post-Soviet Central Asia.” Comparative Political Studies 42 (6): 707–32.Google Scholar
Reid, Susan E. 2018. “Communist Comfort: Socialist Modernism and the Making of Cozy Homes in the Khrushchev Era.” In The Routledge Companion to Modernity, Space and Gender, ed. Staub, Alexandra, 153–85. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Rose, Richard. 2000. “Getting Things Done in an Anti-Modern Society: Social Capital Networks in Russia.” In Social Capital: A Multifaceted Perspective, eds. Dasgupta, Partha and Serageldin, Ismail. Washington, DC: World Bank.Google Scholar
Rosenfeld, Bryn. 2020. The Autocratic Middle Class: How State Dependency Reduces the Demand for Democracy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Rothstein, Bo. 1998. Just Institutions Matter: The Moral and Political Logic of the Universal Welfare State. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rothstein, Bo, and Uslaner, Eric M.. 2005. “All for All: Equality, Corruption, and Social Trust.” World Politics 58 (1): 41–72.Google Scholar
Rozenas, Arturas. 2020. “A Theory of Demographically Targeted Repression.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 64 (7–8): 1254–78.Google Scholar
Smyth, Regina. 2020. Elections, Protest, and Authoritarian Regime Stability: Russia 2008–2020. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Smyth, Regina, McCann, Madeline, and Hitchock, Katherine. 2023. “From Neighbors to Activists: Shared Grievances and Collective Solutions.” In Varieties of Russian Activism: State-Society Contestation in Everyday Life, eds. Jeremy Morris, Andrei Semenov, and Regina Smyth, 70–91. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Smyth, Regina, and Sokhey, Sarah Wilson. 2021. “Constitutional Reform and the Value of Social Citizenship.” Russian Politics 6 (1): 91–111.Google Scholar
Snopek, Kuba. 2013. Belyayevo Forever: Preserving the Generic. Moscow: Strelka Press.Google Scholar
Starodubtsev, Andrey. 2018. Federalism and Regional Policy in Contemporary Russia. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Tabellini, Guido. 2010. “Culture and Institutions: Economic Development in the Regions of Europe.” Journal of the European Economic Association 8 (4): 677–716.Google Scholar
Teets, Jessica. 2018. “The Power of Policy Networks in Authoritarian Regimes: Changing Environmental Policy in China.” Governance 31 (1): 125–41.Google Scholar
Teets, Jessica C. 2013. “Let Many Civil Societies Bloom: The Rise of Consultative Authoritarianism in China.” China Quarterly 213: 19–38.Google Scholar
Teets, Jessica C., Hasmath, Reza, Hildebrandt, Timothy, Hsu, Carolyn L., and Hsu, Jennifer Y. J.. 2022. “Volunteerism and Democratic Learning in an Authoritarian State: The Case of China.” Democratization 29 (5): 879–98.Google Scholar
Truex, Rory. 2011. “Corruption, Attitudes, and Education: Survey Evidence from Nepal.” World Development 39 (7): 1133–42.Google Scholar
Truex, Rory. 2017. “Consultative Authoritarianism and Its Limits.” Comparative Political Studies 50 (3): 329–61.Google Scholar
Tsai, Lily L. 2007. Accountability without Democracy: Solidary Groups and Public Goods Provision in Rural China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Uslaner, Eric M. 1999. “Democracy and Social Capital.” In Democracy and Trust, ed. Warren, Mark E., 121–50. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Warner, Mildred. 2001. “Building Social Capital: The Role of Local Government.” Journal of Socio-Economics 30 (2): 187–92.Google Scholar
Whiting, Susan H. 2017. “Authoritarian ‘Rule of Law’ and Regime Legitimacy.” Comparative Political Studies 50 (14): 1907–40.Google Scholar
Wu, Jason Y. 2020. “Categorical Confusion: Ideological Labels in China.” Political Research Quarterly 76 (2): 524–39.Google Scholar
Wu, Jason Y., and Meng, Tianguang. 2023. “The Nature of Ideology in Urban China.” Comparative Politics 55 (3): 473–95.Google Scholar
Xue, Melanie Meng. 2021. “Autocratic Rule and Social Capital: Evidence from Imperial China.” Working Paper, SSRN.Google Scholar
Zhelnina, Anna. 2020. “Engaging Neighbors: Housing Strategies and Political Mobilization in Moscow’s Renovation.” PhD diss. City University of New York.Google Scholar
Zhelnina, Anna. 2023. “The River of Urban Resistance: Renovation and New Civic Infrastructures in Moscow.” In Varieties of Russian Activism: State-Society Contestation in Everyday Life, eds. Jeremy Morris, Andrei Semenov, and Regina Smyth, 120–42. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Zhukov, Yuri M., and Talibova, Roya. 2018. “Stalin’s Terror and the Long-Term Political Effects of Mass Repression.” Journal of Peace Research 55 (2): 267–83.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: Link

Borisova et al. Dataset

Dataset

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/HOMED8
Link
Supplementary material: PDF

Borisova et al. supplementary material

Online Appendix

Download Borisova et al. supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 263.2 KB
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.