This article has been published in the 1:2006 issue of Politique étrangère.Abstract

This article examines the impact of natural resource wealth on Russian political life. Viewed from a political perspective, what is striking is not how well Russia conforms to the stereotype of a resource-based political economy but how well it has (so far) resisted many of the institutional and political pathologies associated with the 'resource curse'. There is little reason to think that Russia’s policy would be much healthier if it had less resource wealth. Nevertheless, it seems that Russia’s resource wealth does pose dangers to its political development. The crucial issue is not the nature of the resources themselves but the location of those resources in an institutional environment that is ill-equipped to cope with the pressures and problems that such wealth can create. William Tompson, is currently on secondment to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), where he heads the Russia desk in the Economics Department, and is a Professor of Political Economy at Birkbeck College, University of London.