This is a timely collection of essays utilizing the political economy approach to military spending, primarily by the United States. The articles deal specifically with the relationships between defense spending and: (a) political-business cycles, public opinion and the US-Soviet relationship; (b) military action - i.e. war; (c) economic performance - the trade deficit, guns versus butter issues and fiscal policy.
A contemporary and comprehensive analysis of national and supranational defence governance in an uncertain and increasingly dangerous world. This book will appeal to policymakers, analysts, graduate students and academics interested in defence economics, political economy, public economics and public policy.
This wide-ranging, interdisciplinary analysis blends history, economics, and politics to challenge the prevailing accounts of the rise of U.S. militarism. While acknowledging the contributory role of some of the most widely-cited culprits, this study explores the bigger, but largely submerged, picture: the political economy of war and militarism.
A study of the political economy of Soviet military power, examining Soviet Russian ideology and tradition, theory and practice of the military doctrine, the domestic aspect and new economic realism, technology and efficiency, and Perestroika and Glasnost from 1985-1987.
Why did the Soviet economic system fall apart? Did the economy simply overreach itself through military spending? Was it the centrally-planned character of Soviet socialism that was at fault? Or did a potentially viable mechanism come apart in Gorbachev's clumsy hands? Does its failure mean that true socialism is never economically viable? The economic dimension is at the very heart of the Russian story in the twentieth century. Economic issues were the cornerstone of soviet ideology and the soviet system, and economic issues brought the whole system crashing down in 1989-91. This book is a record of what happened, and it is also an analysis of the failure of Soviet economics as a concept.
This Handbook is the most comprehensive up-to-date study of the Russian economy available. Russian and western authors analyze the current economic situation, trace the impact of Soviet legacies and of post-Soviet transition policies, examine the main social challenges, and propose directions for reforms.
For half a century the Soviet economy was inefficient but stable. In the late 1980s, to the surprise of nearly everyone, it suddenly collapsed. Why did this happen? And what role did Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's economic reforms play in the country's dissolution? In this groundbreaking study, Chris Miller shows that Gorbachev and his allies tried to learn from the great success story of transitions from socialism to capitalism, Deng Xiaoping's China. Why, then, were efforts to revitalize Soviet socialism so much less successful than in China? Making use of never-before-studied documents from the Soviet politburo and other archives, Miller argues that the difference between the Soviet Union and China--and the ultimate cause of the Soviet collapse--was not economics but politics. The Soviet government was divided by bitter conflict, and Gorbachev, the ostensible Soviet autocrat, was unable to outmaneuver the interest groups that were threatened by his economic reforms. Miller's analysis settles long-standing debates about the politics and economics of perestroika, transforming our understanding of the causes of the Soviet Union's rapid demise.
