«Insiders and outsiders»: ‘Alien’ governors in cross-regional dimension

Abstract

One of the instruments of political centralization in Russia is promotion of the so-called ‘alien’ governors, that is, persons having no ties with the region, by the federal center to the position of a governor. While previous studies prove that the number of ‘aliens’ in the governors’ corps has been increasing throughout the 2000-2010s in Russia, this paper presents a descriptive analysis of the cross-regional variability of ‘alien’ governors. To solve this problem, a methodology has been developed that allows us to estimate the share of ‘alien’ governors among governors in each region and the share of time during which ‘aliens’ were appointed governors in each region for the period from the first governors’ elections to the end of 2020. A comparative analysis found out significant differences between the regions in both indicators and revealed that they are significantly correlated with three characteristics of the regions: social and cultural originality, historical specifics, and legal (republican) status