How to Implement Social Reforms in Non-Democratic Regimes When They Are Unpopular? The Case of Russian Health Reforms in the 2000s

Present graduation thesis is devoted to the issue of unpopular social reforms under non-democratic political regimes. Precisely, we attempt to analyze how non-democratic governments dealing with the necessity to implement unpopular social policy reforms if it possesses a political risk for those who run in office. Healthcare reforms in Russia during 2000-2012 were chosen as a case for analysis. The important fact pointed throughout the paper is that electoral authoritarianism consolidation which took place under Putin during those years could have an impact on the way Russian government made healthcare reforms. Conducted analysis resulted in some interesting observation regarding healthcare reforms in Russia. Generally, we could see that Russian government was applying special mechanisms and following strategies which allowed them to implement unpopular measures within healthcare without putting regime consolidation under a political threat.