Russia's Unfinished Revolution
Russia's Unfinished Revolution

Author: Michael McFaul

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2001-08-23

Total Pages: 408

ISBN-13: 9780801439001

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For centuries, dictators ruled Russia. Tsars and Communist Party chiefs were in charge for so long some analysts claimed Russians had a cultural predisposition for authoritarian leaders. Yet, as a result of reforms initiated by Mikhail Gorbachev, new political institutions have emerged that now require election of political leaders and rule by constitutional procedures. Michael McFaul—described by the New York Times as "one of the leading Russia experts in the United States"—traces Russia's tumultuous political history from Gorbachev's rise to power in 1985 through the 1999 resignation of Boris Yeltsin in favor of Vladimir Putin. McFaul divides his account of the post-Soviet country into three periods: the Gorbachev era (1985-1991), the First Russian Republic (1991–1993), and the Second Russian Republic (1993–present). The first two were, he believes, failures—failed institutional emergence or failed transitions to democracy. By contrast, new democratic institutions did emerge in the third era, though not the institutions of a liberal democracy. McFaul contends that any explanation for Russia's successes in shifting to democracy must also account for its failures. The Russian/Soviet case, he says, reveals the importance of forging social pacts; the efforts of Russian elites to form alliances failed, leading to two violent confrontations and a protracted transition from communism to democracy. McFaul spent a great deal of time in Moscow in the 1990s and witnessed firsthand many of the events he describes. This experience, combined with frequent visits since and unparalleled access to senior Russian policymakers and politicians, has resulted in an astonishingly well-informed account. Russia's Unfinished Revolution is a comprehensive history of Russia during this crucial period.

Russia in a Changing World
Russia in a Changing World

Author: Glenn Diesen

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2020-04-16

Total Pages: 214

ISBN-13: 9811518955

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This book explores Russia’s efforts towards both adapting to and shaping a world in transformation. Russia has been largely marginalized in the post-Cold War era and has struggled to find its place in the world, which means that the chaotic changes in the world present Russia with both threats and opportunities. The rapid shift in the international distribution of power and emergence of a multipolar world disrupts the existing order, although it also enables Russia to diversify it partnerships and restore balance. Adapting to these changes involves restructuring its economy and evolving the foreign policy. The crises in liberalism, environmental degradation, and challenge to state sovereignty undermine political and economic stability while also widening Russia’s room for diplomatic maneuvering. This book analyzes how Russia interprets these developments and its ability to implement the appropriate responses.

Russia in the Changing International System
Russia in the Changing International System

Author: Emel Parlar Dal

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2019-08-26

Total Pages: 252

ISBN-13: 3030218325

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This volume seeks to explore Russia’s perceptions of the changing international system in the twenty-first century and evaluate the determinants of Russian motives, roles and strategies towards a number of contemporary regional and global issues. The chapters of the volume discuss various aspects of Russian foreign policy with regard to key actors like the U.S., EU and China; international organizations such as the BRICS, Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Eurasian Economic Union and Collective Security Treaty Organization; and a number of regional conflicts including Ukraine and Syria. The contributors seek to understand how the discourses of “anti-Westernism” and “post-Westernism” are employed in the redefinition of Russia’s relations with the other actors of the international system and how Russia perceives the concept of “regional hegemony,” particularly in the former Soviet space and the Middle East.

Bears in the Streets
Bears in the Streets

Author: Lisa Dickey

Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Published: 2017-01-31

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 1250092302

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**One of Bustle's 17 of the Best Nonfiction Books Coming in January 2017 and Men's Journal's 7 Best Books of January** "Brilliant, real and readable." —former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright **A USA Today "New and Noteworthy" Book** Lisa Dickey traveled across the whole of Russia three times—in 1995, 2005 and 2015—making friends in eleven different cities, then coming back again and again to see how their lives had changed. Like the acclaimed British documentary series Seven Up!, she traces the ups and downs of ordinary people’s lives, in the process painting a deeply nuanced portrait of modern Russia. From the caretakers of a lighthouse in Vladivostok, to the Jewish community of Birobidzhan, to a farmer in Buryatia, to a group of gay friends in Novosibirsk, to a wealthy family in Chelyabinsk, to a rap star in Moscow, Dickey profiles a wide cross-section of people in one of the most fascinating, dynamic and important countries on Earth. Along the way, she explores dramatic changes in everything from technology to social norms, drinks copious amounts of vodka, and learns firsthand how the Russians really feel about Vladimir Putin. Including powerful photographs of people and places over time, and filled with wacky travel stories, unexpected twists, and keen insights, Bears in the Streets offers an unprecedented on-the-ground view of Russia today.

Authoritarian Russia
Authoritarian Russia

Author: Vladimir Gel'man

Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press

Published: 2015-07-01

Total Pages: 315

ISBN-13: 0822980932

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Russia today represents one of the major examples of the phenomenon of "electoral authoritarianism" which is characterized by adopting the trappings of democratic institutions (such as elections, political parties, and a legislature) and enlisting the service of the country's essentially authoritarian rulers. Why and how has the electoral authoritarian regime been consolidated in Russia? What are the mechanisms of its maintenance, and what is its likely future course? This book attempts to answer these basic questions. Vladimir Gel'man examines regime change in Russia from the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 to the present day, systematically presenting theoretical and comparative perspectives of the factors that affected regime changes and the authoritarian drift of the country. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia's national political elites aimed to achieve their goals by creating and enforcing of favorable "rules of the game" for themselves and maintaining informal winning coalitions of cliques around individual rulers. In the 1990s, these moves were only partially successful given the weakness of the Russian state and troubled post-socialist economy. In the 2000s, however, Vladimir Putin rescued the system thanks to the combination of economic growth and the revival of the state capacity he was able to implement by imposing a series of non-democratic reforms. In the 2010s, changing conditions in the country have presented new risks and challenges for the Putin regime that will play themselves out in the years to come.

Russia in the Nineteenth Century
Russia in the Nineteenth Century

Author: A. I. U. Polunov

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-02-12

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 1317460499

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This is a comprehensive interpretive history of Russia from the defeat of Napoleon to the eve of World War I. It is the first such work by a post-Soviet Russian scholar to appear in English. Drawing on the latest Russian and Western historical scholarship, Alexander Polunov examines the decay of the two central institutions of tsarist Russia: serfdom and autocracy. Polunov explains how the major social groups - the gentry, merchants, petty townspeople, peasants, and ethnic minorities - reacted to the Great Reforms, and why, despite the emergence of a civil society and capitalist institutions, a reformist, evolutionary path did not become an alternative to the Revolution of 1917. He provides detailed portraits of many tsarist bureaucrats and political reformers, complete with quotations from their writings, to explain how the principle of autocracy, although significantly weakened by the Great Reforms in mid-century, reasserted itself under the last two emperors. Polunov stresses the relevance, for Russians in the post-Soviet period, of issues that remained unresolved in the pre-Revolutionary period, such as the question of private property in land and the relationship between state regulation and private initiative in the economy.

Rapprochement Or Rivalry?
Rapprochement Or Rivalry?

Author: Sherman W. Garnett

Publisher:

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 456

ISBN-13:

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In this first comprehensive study of Russian-Chinese relations, Sherman Garnett and a team of 15 U.S., Russian, and Chinese scholars analyze the most important issues posed by the relationship, including cross-border trade, the impact of Russia s center-periphery politics, migration, arms sales, and

Reforming Child Welfare in the Post-Soviet Space
Reforming Child Welfare in the Post-Soviet Space

Author: Meri Kulmala

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-09-24

Total Pages: 233

ISBN-13: 1000193667

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This book provides new and empirically grounded research-based knowledge and insights into the current transformation of the Russian child welfare system. It focuses on the major shift in Russia’s child welfare policy: deinstitutionalisation of the system of children’s homes inherited from the Soviet era and an increase in fostering and adoption. Divided into four sections, this book details both the changing role and function of residential institutions within the Russian child welfare system and the rapidly developing form of alternative care in foster families, as well as work undertaken with birth families. By analysing the consequences of deinstitutionalisation and its effects on children and young people as well as their foster and birth parents, it provides a model for understanding this process across the whole of the post-Soviet space. It will be of interest to academics and students of social work, sociology, child welfare, social policy, political science, and Russian and East European politics more generally.