Quintin H. Beazer



ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY





qbeazer{at}fsu.edu



I am an associate professor of political science at Florida State University in Tallahassee, FL. I am also an associate fellow at International Center for the Study of Institutions and Development at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow. I study comparative and international political economy and authoritarian politics, with specialization in the politics of Russia and the post-communist countries. My research examines how politics and economics interact in "messy" environments, where institutions are weak, in transition, or nondemocratic. My research has been published in the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics, and ​International Studies Quarterly.​



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Academic Positions


Florida State University, Dept. of Political Science

Associate Professor, 2019 - present

Assistant Professor, 2012 - 2019


Higher School of Economics (Moscow), International Center for the Study of Institutions and Development

Associate Fellow, 2018 - present


Yale University, Leitner Program in International & Comparative Political Economy

Postdoctoral Associate, 2011-2012




Education


Ph.D., Political Science at The Ohio State University, 2011

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M.A., Economics at The Ohio State University, 2009

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M.A., Political Science at The Ohio State University, 2006

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B.A., International Studies and English, Utah State University, 2004




Publications


Beazer, Quintin H. and Ora John Reuter. 2022. "Do Authoritarian Elections Help the Poor? Evidence from Russian Cities." Journal of Politics 84 (1): 437-454.


Beazer, Quintin H., Charles Crabtree, Chris Fariss, and Holger Kern. 2022. "When do Private Actors Engage in Censorship? Evidence from a Correspondence Experiment with Russian Private Media Firms." British Journal of Political Science 52 (4): 1790-1809.


Beazer, Quintin H. and Daniel J. Blake. 2021. "Risk is Relative: Heterogeneous Responses to Institutional Risks for Foreign Investment." International Studies Quarterly 65 (3): 594-605.


​Beazer, Quintin H. and Ora John Reuter. 2019. "Who's to Blame? Political Centralization and Electoral Punishment under Authoritarianism." Journal of Politics 81 (2): 648-662.


Beazer, Quintin H. and Daniel J. Blake. 2018. "The Conditional Nature of Political Risk: How Home Institutions Influence the Location of Foreign Direct Investment." American Journal of Political Science 62 (2): 470-485.

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Beazer, Quintin H. and Byungwon Woo. 2016. "IMF Conditionality, Government Partisanship & the Progress of Economic Reforms." American Journal of Political Science 60 (2): 304-321.

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Beazer, Quintin H. 2015. "Political Centralization and Economic Performance: Evidence from Russia." Journal of Politics 77 (1): 128-145.

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Beazer, Quintin H. 2012. "Bureaucratic Discretion, Business Investment, and Uncertainty." Journal of Politics 74 (3): 637-652.




PDF Version

Publications



"Do Authoritarian Elections Help the Poor? Evidence from Russian Cities." 2022.



(Coauthored with Ora John Reuter) Journal of Politics 84 (1): 437-454





How do local elections under autocracy affect pro-poor policies? Using geographic and temporal variation in the cancellation of mayoral elections in Russian cities (2003-2012), we investigate how mayoral appointments affect the condition of low-quality, Soviet-era housing maintained by local governments. Our results show that, compared to elected mayors, appointed mayors allow more of their aging housing stock to become dilapidated and unsafe. Consistent with our argument, dilapidated housing stock increases more in cities where appointees can deliver high vote shares to the ruling party in national elections. This suggests that fulfilling core regime political goals leaves appointed officials less attentive to local conditions.


Download: pre-publication version / appendix



"When do private actors engage in censorship? Evidence from a correspondence experiment with Russian private media firms." 2022.



(Coauthored with Charles Crabtree, CHris Fariss, and Holger Kern) British Journal of Political Science 52 (4): 1790-1809





In authoritarian regimes, repression encourages private actors to censor not only themselves but also other private actors, a behavior we call regime-induced private censorship. We present the results of a correspondence experiment conducted in Russia that investigates the censorship behavior of private media firms. We find that such firms censor third-party advertisements that include anti-regime language, calls for political or non-political collective action, or both. Our results demonstrate the significance of other types of censorship besides state censorship in an important authoritarian regime and contribute to the rapidly growing literature on authoritarian information control.


Download: pre-publication version / appendix



"Risk is Relative: Heterogeneous Perceptions of Institutional Risk to Foreign Investment." 2021.



(Coauthored with Daniel blake) International Studies Quarterly 65 (3): 594-605





Are economic actors equally sensitive to institutional conditions? While existing research recognizes that institutions can have varying affects on actors' interests, the implicit assumption is that actors are homogeneous in how sensitive they are to their institutional environment. We test this argument using survey data from a diverse group of managers-in-training at an international business school. We find that when asked to evaluate a potential foreign investment location, respondents from developing countries are significantly less sensitive to information about the host country's courts than their counterparts from developed economies. By contrast, we find that economic actors from both developed and developing countries respond similarly to information about the stability of economic policies. The findings suggest that sensitivity to the risks and safeguards of certain institutional conditions vary systematically across actors, depending upon both the home environment to which economic actors have been exposed and the type of host institution.


Download: pre-publication version / appendix



"Who's to Blame? Political Centralization and Electoral Punishment under Authoritarianism." 2019.



(Coauthored with Ora John Reuter) journal of Politics 81 (2): 648-662





How does centralization affect the way voters attribute blame for local economic outcomes? The question of whether political centralization ties regime leaders to local economic outcomes is particularly important in authoritarian regimes, where economic performance legitimacy is a key source of regime stability. Using political and economic data from large Russian cities for the period 2003-2012, we investigate how replacing direct mayoral elections with appointments affects the way voters attribute blame for economic outcomes. We find that the ruling party is more likely to be punished for poor economic performance in cities with appointed mayors than it is in cities with elected mayors. This research suggests that having locally-elected officials may help electoral authoritarian regimes deflect responsibility for some unfavorable outcomes.


Download: article / appendix



"The conditional Nature of Political Risk: How Home institutions influence the location of foreign direct investment." 2018.



(Coauthored with Daniel Blake) The American Journal of Political Science 62 (2): 470-485





What determines whether countries' institutions attract or deter investment? Existing theories predict that multinational enterprises (MNEs) will avoid locations where institutions cannot constrain the opportunistic behavior of public and private actors, but we argue that the attractiveness of host country institutions depends on the institutions that investing firms have encountered at home. Home country institutions help determine the institutional environment that firms are best prepared to deal with abroad. Applying this argument specifically to judicial independence, we test our predictions using multiple datasets at different levels of analysis: firm-level data on MNEs' foreign subsidiaries, data on bilateral foreign direct investment (FDI) positions, and longitudinal data on bilateral FDI flows. We find that states with independent judiciaries are particularly attractive to investment from countries also possessing independent courts. Similarly, FDI from countries with low judicial independence goes disproportionately to host countries lacking independent judiciaries.


Download: article / appendix



"IMF Conditionality, Government Partisanship, & the Progress of Economic Reforms." 2016.



(COAUTHORED WITH BYUNGWON WOO) THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE. 60 (2): 304-321





The International Monetary Fund (IMF) often seeks to influence countries' domestic public policy via varying levels of conditionality -- linking financial support to borrowing governments' commitment to policy reforms. When does extensive conditionality encourage domestic economic reforms and when does it impede them? We argue that, rather than universally benefiting or harming reforms, the effects of stricter IMF conditionality depend on domestic partisan politics. More IMF conditions can pressure left-wing governments into undertaking more ambitious reforms with little resistance from partisan rivals on the right; under right governments, however, more conditions hinder reform implementation by heightening resistance from the left while simultaneously reducing leaders' ability to win their support through concessions or compromise. Using data on post-communist IMF programs for the period 1994-2010, we find robust evidence supporting these claims, even after addressing the endogeneity of IMF programs via instrumental variables analysis.


Download: article / appendix



"Political Centralization and Economic Performance: Evidence from Russia." 2015.



JOURNAL OF POLITICS 77 (1): 128-145





What determines whether political centralization helps or hurts economic performance? This paper identifies pre-existing patterns of political competition as a critical factor in determining the impact of political centralization on subnational economies. In competitive regions, political centralization undermines economic performance by removing a functioning electoral mechanism that makes leaders responsive to wide range of economic concerns. In uncompetitive regions, however, centralization encourages economic improvement by reducing leaders' reliance on narrow interests and making previously-unassailable local leaders answerable to central political bosses. I test competing hypotheses about the economic effects of political centralization using a set of Russian regional reforms that removed the direct election of governors in favor of a system of centralized appointments. The data show that, on a number of different dimensions, economic performance suffered after centralizing reforms were adopted in Russia's politically-competitive regions; in contrast, political centralization improved economic performance in those regions where strong incumbent governors had previously depressed political competition.


Download: article / appendix



"Bureaucratic Discretion, Business Investment, and Uncertainty." 2012.



JOURNAL OF POLITICS 74 (3): 637-652





What determines whether policy environments attract or deter investment? Scholars worried about the vulnerability of market-supporting institutions to political manipulation have identified delegation to independent actors as way to increase policy environments' predictability. Extant arguments, however, risk overgeneralizing from the experience of developed democracies. I argue that investors' response to bureaucratic discretion -- agents' leeway to make decisions and act independently of political bodies -- depends upon the broader institutional context. Where robust political institutions are lacking, bureaucratic discretion acts as a source of unpredictability that deters investors; conversely, political institutions that share the cost of monitoring help to mitigate uncertainty about how bureaucrats will use discretion in applying regulatory rules. Using survey data from over 600 enterprises in Russia, I find that perceptions of bureaucratic discretion are negatively associated with firm managers' willingness to invest; this effect is particularly pronounced in regions where the institutional environment discourages political competition.


Download: article / appendix



Working Papers



research under review & selected works in progress



"Directing Attention during Sensitive Times: Agenda-setting on Russian state-controlled television, 2003--2018"



(Coauthored with Charles Crabtree and Holger Kern)





How do authoritarian governments use media to shape perceptions during politically-sensitive periods? We argue that during periods when regime control is more vulnerable to challenge, authoritarian governments have incentives and the ability to set media agendas that enhance the regime's image and redirect attention towards regime-friendly topics. In this paper, we analyze 15 years of news broadcasts from a state-controlled television station in Russia, Channel One, to examine how the composition of state-run news coverage changes in response to upcoming elections and changing economic conditions. We identify several distinct categories of news segments that are used to address the specific regime concerns that arise during politically-sensitive periods: increased coverage of positive economic news, stories that reaffirm the regime's governing ability (regime competence), stories that promote patriotic themes (prime national identity), and distraction in the form of entertainment and human interest stories (filler).



"Authoritarian Control of Crisis Narratives in the Media: Learning from COVID-19 Coverage on Russian State-Owned TV"



(Coauthored with Holger Kern)





How do authoritarian governments use media control to shape the narrative around crisis events? In this paper, we study agenda-setting and propaganda in Russia’s most-watched news source, the state-owned Channel 1 television station, to investigate how information about a deadly health crisis — the COVID-19 pandemic — has been managed by the Putin regime. To test how crisis conditions affect the regime’s choice of manipulation strategies, we compare Channel 1’s coverage of COVID-19 to its coverage of other recent crises that differ on key dimensions: the 2008–9 global economic recession and the 2011–12 mass protests against the regime itself.



"Between the State and Informal Networks: How Business Association Membership Affects Firms' Willingness to Contract."



(Coauthored with Daniel Blake)





How do firms' nonmarket activities affect their market behavior, and how is this relationship shaped by their institutional environment? We argue that business associations help mitigate contracting risks by providing information about market actors and helping resolve disputes, but mainly in places where judicial institutions fail to provide independent and effective contract enforcement. Using firm survey data from the World Bank, we find that business association members are more likely to extend credit and outsource operations; however, this relationship holds primarily where judicial institutions lack autonomy and influence.



CONTACT INFO



qbeazer{at}fsu.edu



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