The Communist Party in Post-Soviet Russia

2002
 |  Political Science
The Communist Party in Post-Soviet Russia

Author: Luke March

Publisher: Manchester University Press

ISBN: 0719060443

Category: Political Science

Page: 296

View: 102

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Drawing on extensive research, Luke March details the ideology, organization, and activity of a political phenomenon which has received little in-depth analysis or scholarly consensus. He analyses the Communist Party of the Russian Federation's evolution in the context of post-Soviet political developments to provide detailed and stimulating examination of a party whose role in Russian politics is far more complex and contradictory than is generally understood.

Markets, States, And Democracy

1995-03-14
 |  History
Markets, States, And Democracy

Author: Beverly Crawford

Publisher: Westview Press

ISBN: UOM:39015034226079

Category: History

Page: 294

View: 975

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Much of the literature on the "sequencing" of economic and political liberalization suggests that new democracies cannot successfully implement market-oriented reforms. Yet, post-Communist transformations have shown that under certain conditions, economic liberalizers are able to gain the upper hand in the political process. In this interdisciplinary volume, eminent scholars offer a cohesive framework for analyzing the forces that bolster or undermine liberalization and pursue four potential scenarios for the future of liberalization in these emerging states.

Virtual Politics

2005-01-01
 |  Political Science
Virtual Politics

Author: Andrew Wilson

Publisher: Yale University Press

ISBN: 0300095457

Category: Political Science

Page: 332

View: 374

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States like Russia and Ukraine may not have gone back to totalitarianism or the traditional authoritarian formula of stuffing the ballot box, cowing the population and imprisoning the opposition - or not obviously. But a whole industry of 'political technology' has developed instead, with shadowy private firms and government 'fixers' on lucrative contracts dedicated to the black arts of organizing electoral success. This book uncovers the sophisticated techniques of the 'virtual' political system used to legitimize post-Soviet regimes; entire fake parties, phantom political rivals and 'scarecrow' opponents. And it exposes the paramount role of the mass media in projecting these creations and in falsifying the entire political process. Wilson argues that it is not primarily economic problems that have made it so difficult to develop meaningful democracy in the former Soviet world. Although the West also has its 'spin doctors', dirty tricks, and aggressive ad campaigns, it is the unique post-Bolshevik culture of 'political technology' that is the main obstacle to better governance in the region, to real popular participation in public affairs, and to the modernization of the political economy in the longer term.

Russia's Road to Democracy

1993-01-01
 |  History
Russia's Road to Democracy

Author: Victor Sergeyev

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN: 178254349X

Category: History

Page: 227

View: 856

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Russian democracy in the post-totalitarian era is intimately bound up with the fate of its representative institutions. In Russia's Road to Democracy, Victor Sergeyev and Nikolai Biryukov assess why the Congress of People's Deputies, and the other newly elected institutions founded under perestroika, not only failed to prevent, but also seemed to speed up and provoke, the disintegration of the Soviet Union. By studying the early history of the Congress, the book seeks insights on the prospects for democracy in Russia. Following an inquiry into the roots of Soviet political culture and the implications for future representative institutions, the book then examines the genesis of the Congress of People's Deputies and attempts a hermeneutical reconstruction of the deputies' models of social reality, as expressed in the texts of their parliamentary debates. The authors argue that the adoption of the concept of sobornost - a belief in society's organic unity - as the basic model for this institution proved utterly inadequate to the challenges the country faced. Including substantial new source material which is being made available in English for the first time, Russia's Road to Democracy presents an in-depth analysis with conclusions that contradict the hitherto prevailing theoretical assumptions.

Crafting Democracy

2004
 |  Political Science
Crafting Democracy

Author: Nicolai N. Petro

Publisher: Cornell University Press

ISBN: 080144294X

Category: Political Science

Page: 255

View: 866

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The Novgorod region of Russia is a sparsely populated area about the size of Ireland better known for its medieval archaeology and folklore than for anything else. Although Novgorod began the post-Soviet period with no unusual endowment of natural or human resources, it has attracted a large amount of foreign investment. Its dramatic economic success and political innovation have impressed observers. Local governments deliver benefits and services reliably, and the regional government responds quickly to citizens' needs and demands. Something noteworthy is happening in Novgorod that does not square with familiar headlines about contemporary Russia: oligarchs and oil, ethnic tensions and corruption.Nicolai N. Petro attempts to explain the Novgorod phenomenon by seeking answers at the regional level. Novgorod is, he finds, a model of effective democratic consolidation. Petro suggests that the region owes its unexpected recent success to its political elites, who have identified key cultural symbols and used those symbols to promote democratic development. Drawing on comparisons with other regions and countries, Petro finds that these cultural tactics often yield better results than do Western-style institutions and educational training programs. "Current efforts to promote democracy focus too much on structural changes and not enough on the conditions needed to sustain them," Petro writes. "For the rule of law, free markets, and free and fair elections to gain broad public support, they must first make sense within the local cultural tradition." The unexpected success of regional democratic development in a country not known for its democratic traditions suggests that local governments can transform the burden of the past into an ally of change, a finding with implications for democratic development initiatives in other areas of the world.

The Transition

2017-11-22
 |  Political Science
The Transition

Author: David W. Lovell

Publisher: Routledge

ISBN: 9781351763349

Category: Political Science

Page: 188

View: 484

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This title was first published in 2002. This useful collection brings together scholars from diverse standpoints to examine the transition from Communism a decade after it began. The result is a book that illuminates the changes, and particularly the problems, that have accompanied attempts to introduce representative democracy and a viable market economy into formerly Communist states. Specialist chapters on the Former Soviet Union, Russia, Poland, Azerbaijan and the former East Germany, institutional accounts of postcommunist states and conceptual chapters result in this volume being ideally suited to university courses, policy makers and NGOs that have an interest in transition countries.

The Political Culture of the Russian "democrats"

2000
 |  History
The Political Culture of the Russian

Author: Alexander Lukin

Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand

ISBN: 0198295588

Category: History

Page: 336

View: 520

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The Political Culture of Russian Democrats examines the origins and development of the world view of those who call themselves 'democrats' in Russian in the last years of the USSR. The book develops a distinct approach to the study of political culture and applies it to a specific socialgroup-members of the democratic movement in Soviet Russia. The author examines the emergence of the ideas of Russian 'democrats' during the Gorbachev era in Soviet politics, and traces the development of those beliefs in the post-Soviet era. The book argues that the liberal and democraticterminology of western politics were assimilated by Russian political culture, with the terms acquiring a different meaning.

Contemporary Ukraine

1998-04-15
 |  History
Contemporary Ukraine

Author: Taras Kuzio

Publisher: M.E. Sharpe

ISBN: 0765631504

Category: History

Page:

View: 275

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In terms of population size, economic resources, and historic importance, Ukraine was second only to Russia among the Soviet republics. Yet its viability as an independent state seemed problematic, not least because of its long-established role as Russia's junior partner in ruling the USSR; the complex cultural heritage of its history as a borderland of empires; and its reluctance to embark upon economic reform even as it sought political connection with the West. Thus the irony that Ukraine, although the last of the post-Soviet states to adopt a new constitution, is arguably the first to establish a democratic precedent for transfer of executive power to the opposition. With strong international contributors writing on central questions, this is the best current survey of the Ukrainian transition, with attention to: state building; national identity; political, economic, and social development; and security issues.

At the Crossroads of Post-Communist Modernisation

2012-09-10
 |  Political Science
At the Crossroads of Post-Communist Modernisation

Author: C. Pursiainen

Publisher: Springer

ISBN: 9781137284136

Category: Political Science

Page: 236

View: 763

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This volume takes a comparative approach to understand general tendencies in post-Communist transition in Russia and China. Bringing together perspectives from Political Science, Sociology and IR, it analyses three arenas of social change: socio-economic systems, political systems, and foreign policies.

Media, Democracy and Freedom

2009
 |  Political Science
Media, Democracy and Freedom

Author: Marta Dyczok

Publisher: Peter Lang

ISBN: 3034303114

Category: Political Science

Page: 246

View: 511

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This book does what few other works have done: it examines the role media have played in the larger political, economic and social transformations in the post communist space. An international group of scholars from various disciplines explore the complex relations between media, society, and the state in this region over the past twenty years, and present theoretical arguments that challenge dominant views. They scrutinize changes in the public sphere as well as the media itself, its role, format, agenda and quality in the context of changing values and shifting power relationships.

Branding Democracy

2010
 |  Political Science
Branding Democracy

Author: Gerald Sussman

Publisher: Peter Lang

ISBN: 1433105314

Category: Political Science

Page: 266

View: 839

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Branding Democracy: U.S. Regime Change in Post-Soviet Eastern Europe is a study of the uses of systemic propaganda in U.S. foreign policy. Moving beyond traditional understandings of propaganda, Branding Democracy analyzes the expanding and ubiquitous uses of domestic public persuasion under a neoliberal regime and an informational mode of development and its migration to the arena of foreign policy. A highly mobile and flexible corporate-dominated new informational economy is the foundation of intensified Western marketing and promotional culture across spatial and temporal divides, enabling transnational interests to integrate territories previously beyond their reach. U.S. «democracy promotion» and interventions in the Eastern European «color revolutions» in the early twenty-first century serve as studies of neoliberal state interests in action. Branding Democracy will be of interest to students of U.S. and European politics, political economy, foreign policy, political communication, American studies, and culture studies.