Influence of the Regional Policy of the Federal Center on the Interaction of Political Actors in the Oil and Gas Regions in Russia

This paper examines the practices that characterize the interaction between political actors in the oil and gas regions in the context of the regional policy of the federal center. The results of the network analysis conducted on a sample of three large oil and gas regions of the Russian Federation in the period from 2012 to 2016 demonstrated the influence of the federal government's financial policy in the form of the need to find additional sources of financing for establishing cooperation with representatives of oil and gas companies. At the same time, it was revealed that the stability of this practice is typical for the Tyumen region and Yamal-Nenets Autonomous District, within which there is a tendency of consolidation of actors within the regions. According to the study, the personnel policy of the regional policy of the federal center became an autonomization of representatives of law enforcement agencies in the case of the Tyumen region and the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug and the manifestation of a stable practice of counteracting the executive power. In the case of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous District, the low degree of consolidation of actors is due to the manifestation of the practice of interaction between the governor and the prosecutor.