Civic Identity: Diversity of Meanings and Achievement of Solidarity

The concept of identity reflects the ongoing shifts in political theories when external parameters that did not previously fall into the optics of political research become a part of political reflection and political analysis. Emphasizing sociocultural issues captures not only the departure from the linear normativity of political theory and pragmatics but also the search for modern explanatory models that cannot be reduced merely to institutional determinism. The controversy and ambiguity of the civic identity concept are imposed on the need for interpreting the formation of civic communities in the newly emerged independent countries after the collapse of the Soviet Union (on the example of Russia and Armenia), including the possibilities of protest and project identity. Methodologically the article is based on the perception that the construction of civic identity cannot be reduced to the normative understanding only. The authors bring out the causal complexes that predetermine the construction of civic identity, while also highlighting the differences in how civic communities and their value focuses are perceived and constructed in Russia and Armenia. The authors also define the general features of civic identity, which can be described as a common basis of solidarity, the removal of particularity and a shared vision of the future.

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Getting Real?

10.1093/oso/9780190692421.003.0004 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Michael Goodhart

Keyword(s):

Political Theory ◽

Social Relations ◽

Social Transformation ◽

Critical Analysis ◽

Theoretical Framework ◽

Political Analysis ◽

Political Theories ◽

The World ◽

Political Norms

Chapter 3 engages with realist political theory throughcritical dialogues with leading realist theorists. It argues that realist political theories are much more susceptible to conservatism, distortion, and idealization than their proponents typically acknowledge. Realism is often not very realistic either in its descriptions of the world or in its political analysis. While realism enables the critical analysis of political norms (the analysis of power and unmasking of ideology), it cannot support substantive normative critique of existing social relations or enable prescriptive theorizing. These two types of critique must be integrated into a single theoretical framework to facilitate emancipatory social transformation.

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Berlin and the Quadripartite Agreement of 1971

The American Journal of International Law ◽

10.2307/2199093 ◽

1973 ◽

Vol 67 (1) ◽

pp. 44-62 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Günther Doeker ◽

Klaus Melsheimer ◽

Dieter Schröder

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Soviet Union ◽

Historical Development ◽

Legal Status ◽

The United States ◽

Political Analysis ◽

The United Kingdom ◽

The Soviet Union ◽

The 1960S ◽

Divided Germany

The present legal status of Berlin after the conclusion on September 3, 1971 of the Quadripartite Agreement between France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States can only be understood in terms of its own historical development and the context of the international politics of the 1960s. Although any legal and political analysis of divided Germany and Berlin must take into account a period of history dating back to the 1940s, it is assumed here that the essential facts are sufficiently well known to serve as a background for the following analysis.

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Assuming the Role of an Orientalist: Alexander Mishulin’s Articles about the History of the Ancient East

Uchenye Zapiski Kazanskogo Universiteta. Seriya Gumanitarnye Nauki ◽

10.26907/2541-7738.2021.3.41-54 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 163 (3) ◽

pp. 41-54

Author(s):

S.B. Krikh ◽

Keyword(s):

Soviet Union ◽

Research Activity ◽

School Textbook ◽

Roman World ◽

Greco Roman ◽

Common Basis ◽

The Soviet Union ◽

History Of ◽

Ancient States

The popular articles written by A.V. Mishulin (1901–1948), a Soviet historian of antiquity, were analyzed. These articles are focused on the history and culture of the Ancient East states (Egypt, India, and China) with account of their impact on the establishment of Soviet historical science. Their role in A.V. Mishulin’s research activity is very important, because they were used in his school textbook of ancient history. A.V. Mishulin consistently adhered to the idea that slavery was a common basis of all ancient states, but he also believed that the slave-owning systems in the Ancient East and Greco-Roman world were different. Through a brief description of the Ancient East states, he emphasized the following two main aspects: all ancient societies exploited slaves, which inevitably resulted in the mass uprisings as a consequence of exhaustion of the slave-owning mode of production. To prove the validity of his ideas, A.V. Mishulin used historical material (such as the Papyrus Leiden). Therefore, the history of the Ancient East and Greco-Roman world more or less correlated with each other in A.V. Mishulin’s school textbook, which influenced the subsequent organization of school textbooks of history in the Soviet Union.

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Violent Culture Wars: Religion and Revolution in Mexico, Russia and Spain in the Interwar Period

Journal of Contemporary History ◽

10.1177/0022009417690594 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 53 (3) ◽

pp. 503-523

Author(s):

Julio de la Cueva

Keyword(s):

Soviet Union ◽

Interwar Period ◽

Culture Wars ◽

Explanatory Models ◽

Necessary Condition ◽

The Soviet Union ◽

The Relationship

This article explores the relationship between political revolution and antireligious violence in the interwar period through a comparison of Mexico, the Soviet Union and Spain. In all three cases antireligious violence was associated with revolution and the defeat of religion was seen either as a necessary condition for revolution or as an equally necessary result. All three revolutions were accompanied by violent ‘cultural revolutions’ targeting religion. The article engages in two levels of comparison. It explores similarities and dissimilarities among the events that took place in each of the three countries. At the same time, it juxtaposes the different explanatory models that have been offered of antireligious violence in each country, thereby initiating a dialogue between historiographical traditions that have developed in relative isolation from one another.

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Katznelson's Working Within the System Now

International Labor and Working-Class History ◽

10.1017/s0147547900010796 ◽

1994 ◽

Vol 46 ◽

pp. 33-36

Author(s):

Lizabeth Cohen

Keyword(s):

Soviet Union ◽

Political Theory ◽

Historical Analysis ◽

Political Engagement ◽

Liberal State ◽

Free Markets ◽

The Soviet Union ◽

Epistemological Crises ◽

Liberal Vision ◽

Liberal Political Theory

Germany has been reunified. The Soviet Union and Eastern Europe have fractured into ethnically defined nationalist republics trying to dismantle decades of communist political and economic structures and replace them with free markets and free marketplaces of ideas. It seems only fitting that Ira Katznelson should publically embrace liberal political theory with a new “zest for political engagement”, enthusiastically endorsing the old liberal vision of political science as a discipline, and thrusting both onto labor historians as the perfect solution to political and epistemological crises in their field.In response, I would say to Katznelson, “You're working within the system now, but do we all need to?” Even more significantly, did the working-class populations we study operate within a liberal framework sufficiently enough to make liberal, state-centered concerns—the relationships and negotiations between actors in civil society (particularly articulated through unions and parties) and the liberal state—the “most potent tools” for political and historical analysis?

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The Contemporary Doctrine of the Soviet State and its Philosophical Foundations

American Political Science Review ◽

10.2307/1951009 ◽

1954 ◽

Vol 48 (4) ◽

pp. 1031-1057 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Vernon V. Aspaturian

Keyword(s):

Soviet Union ◽

Political Theory ◽

The State ◽

Soviet Society ◽

Theoretical Problem ◽

Philosophical Foundations ◽

Soviet State ◽

The Soviet Union ◽

Recent Monograph ◽

Party Congress

“The problem of the ‘dying away’ of the state,” observed A. Y. Vyshinsky rather sarcastically in a recent monograph, “is a purely theoretical problem.” Within the context of contemporary Soviet political theory, the accuracy of this observation is beyond question, although Vyshinsky would have been the first to admit that a “theoretical problem,” no matter how pristine, always reflects a practical quandary within the methodological precepts of Marxist-Leninist ideology. This particular theoretical problem conceals an important chapter in the profound transmutation of Marxist political theory and its philosophical substructure in the Soviet Union, for it was the failure to cope adequately with this utopian legacy which led to the abandonment of the eschatological categories of the Marxist doctrine and the erection of a totally new theoretical edifice supported by new philosophical foundations.Contrary to widespread impression, the theoretical problem of the Soviet state was not satisfactorily resolved at the 18th Party Congress in 1939, although the view is prevalent that Stalin was able to provide an adequate rationalization for the existence of the state in Soviet society. It was on this occasion that the late Soviet leader explained that the state was a necessary institution because of “capitalist encirclement” and that it would persist in socialist and communist society until this encirclement was finally liquidated.

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Soviet Domestic Policy in the Postwar World

American Political Science Review ◽

10.2307/1949948 ◽

1946 ◽

Vol 40 (1) ◽

pp. 80-89

Author(s):

John N. Hazard

Keyword(s):

Soviet Union ◽

Political Theory ◽

Soviet Policy ◽

Soviet State ◽

Soviet Academy ◽

The Soviet Union ◽

Democratic State ◽

New Type ◽

Internal Policy ◽

Academy Of Sciences

Analysis of the position of the Soviet Union in the postwar world may logically begin with internal policy. Lenin himself invited this approach when he wrote: “There is no more erroneous nor harmful idea than the separation of foreign and internal policy.”It is audacious for an outsider to predict the future course of Soviet policy. Too many factors which only Soviet leaders can know enter into the decisions. Nevertheless, we Americans are about to enter a period in which the Soviet Union will play a major rôle. Our situation demands that we know our neighbor, and this paper is directed to that end. It will discuss the various aspects of outstanding importance from which internal policy is formulated.Political Theory. Soviet statesmen have retained their basic thinking as to the character of the Soviet state. Commissar Vyshinsky twice restated it publicly during the war itself. In 1942, he told the Soviet Academy of Sciences that “the Soviet State, as a state of the proletarian dictatorship, must be a new type of democratic state for the proletariat and the propertyless, in general, and a new kind of dictatorship against the bourgeoisie.”

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