This thesis addresses the factors which lead the Russian government to increase natural gas prices for Ukraine in 2006. Through the use of methodological individualism, an explanation which links system, state, and individual levels of analysis is constructed. The system level variables concerned include global energy prices and the increasing importance of Turkmen natural gas to Russia and other regional gas consumers. State level variables, include changes in Russia’s patrimonial society (changing source of rents, increased authoritarianism); and increasing state control over Russia’s natural gas industry. Changes in these conditioning factors influence individuals’ beliefs about their preferred source of rents, and the nature of their rent seeking and distributing. The resulting actions bring about variations in Russia’s natural gas price for Ukraine. This framework is tested over three time periods (1995-1999, 2000-2004, 2004-2008) selected based on the nature of the conditioning variables over those years. Evidence from these case studies suggests that the above mentioned factors played a large role in the Russian government’s decision. Further, it is concluded that methodological individualism offers a way to bring together system, state, and individual levels of analysis when explaining this event, and perhaps other events in international politics.

This thesis addresses the factors which lead the Russian government to increase natural gas prices for Ukraine in 2006. Through the use of methodological individualism, an explanation which links system, state, and individual levels of analysis is constructed. The system level variables concerned include global energy prices and the increasing importance of Turkmen natural gas to Russia and other regional gas consumers. State level variables, include changes in Russia’s patrimonial society (changing source of rents, increased authoritarianism); and increasing state control over Russia’s natural gas industry. Changes in these conditioning factors influence individuals’ beliefs about their preferred source of rents, and the nature of their rent seeking and distributing. The resulting actions bring about variations in Russia’s natural gas price for Ukraine. This framework is tested over three time periods (1995-1999, 2000-2004, 2004-2008) selected based on the nature of the conditioning variables over those years. Evidence from these case studies suggests that the above mentioned factors played a large role in the Russian government’s decision. Further, it is concluded that methodological individualism offers a way to bring together system, state, and individual levels of analysis when explaining this event, and perhaps other events in international politics.

本文研究重點為探討跨國公司對在地國之影響，分析與比較俄羅斯天然氣工業集團(Gazprom Group)在烏克蘭與白俄羅斯兩國之議價關係。 Gazprom為全球壟斷性天然氣公司，在2006年冬季俄、烏天然氣談判破局而發生歐洲大規模斷氣事件後，其對在地國的特殊影響力才逐漸成為各界熱烈討論之議題。一般而言，在全球化下的跨國公司研究多半聚焦在跨國公司的經濟影響力，然而Gazprom在母國政府的支持下，在全球市場上除了經濟面外，還對其他國家發揮著政治面向上的影響力，特別是在烏克蘭與白俄羅斯的例子上格外明顯。學界目前對於Gazprom的主流評論認為Gazprom為母國外交工具，然而追溯Gazprom、在地國與俄羅斯三方之天然氣關係背景，發現Gazprom在烏、白兩國之作為不能單純將Gazprom設想為「母國外交工具」，Gazprom與兩國之天然氣衝突是俄羅斯政府「外交目標」與Gazprom「商業獲利」考量下之綜合結果；以Gazprom為主體方向下思考，對Gazprom來說，俄羅斯政府是企業對在地國的「產業政策影響工具」，更正確地來說，Gazprom與俄羅斯政府是屬於互相為用的關係。 為破除既定「外交工具」思考方向，本文採議價能力衰減模型(Obsolescing Bargaining Model)作為基礎研究架構，以Gazprom為研究主體，突破以往傳統上單層議價模型中只論跨國公司與在地國之議價過程，加入母國政府與在地國政府之議價關係，分析俄與烏、白兩國政府議價結果與Gazprom影響力之關聯，以貼合本文案例實際研究需要。 / This paper examines the impact of multinational corporations (MNC) on host country, analyzes and compares the two cases in Ukraine and Belarus of bargaining relations between Gazprom Group and host governments. Gazprom is a global natural gas monopoly, after the breakup of gas negotiation between Russia and Ukraine and cut-off of Russian gas to Europe, its special impact on host country has attracted people of all the different circles to discuss it. In most cases of globalization researches on MNC’s role, people concentrate on the economic impact of MNC; however, with the support from home government, Gazprom has shown not only its economic power, but also its political impact on host country, especially on Ukraine and Belarus. Till now, the academic circle has seen Gazprom as an instrument of Russian foreign policy, but after tracing back the historical background of gas relations between Gazprom, host country, and Russia, we can figure out Gazprom can’t be simply regarded as the policy instrument, in fact, the Russia-Ukraine and Russia-Belarus gas disputes between are the complex of Russian foreign policy consideration and Gazprom commercial actions. For Gazprom, Russian government is an instrument as well to influence host country’s policy in gas sector. More correctly, Gazprom and Russian government use each other for their own purposes. To break through the existing “instrument of foreign policy” research direction, this paper uses obsolescing bargaining model as the basic framework, regarding Gazprom as the main subject, changing the traditional one-tier bargaining model into two-tier, including bargaining relationship between home government and host government, then analyzes the correlation between the governmental bargaining results and Gazprom’s bargaining power for the practical case study needs.