The Political Economy of Postsocialism

Slavic Review ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 58 (4) ◽  
pp. 756-793 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valerie Bunce
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
The Political ◽  
Southern Europe ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
East Central ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The World

There were two good reasons to expect that developments after socialism, whether in the former Soviet Union or in east central Europe, would follow a roughly similar course. The first was the homogenizing effects of the socialist experience. In contrast to other regions of the world, such as Latin America and southern Europe, where dictatorships had also given way to more liberalized orders, the socialist regimes of eastern Europe and the Soviet Union were remarkably alike in their form and functioning.

Coalitional Presidentialism in Cross-Regional Perspective

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Chaisty ◽  
Nic Cheeseman ◽  
Timothy J. Power
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Landscape ◽  
Case Selection ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Empirical Material ◽  
Regional Perspective

This chapter introduces the three regions—sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and the Former Soviet Union—and the nine countries—Armenia, Benin, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Kenya, Malawi, Russia, and Ukraine—that provide the empirical material for the book. It introduces the two criteria used for case selection: 1) democratic competitiveness; 2) de jure and de facto constitutional provisions that empower presidents to be coalitional formateurs. It also introduces a variable that measures the salience of cross-party cooperation: the Index of Coalitional Necessity. Finally, it sketches the political landscape that has shaped the dynamics of coalitional presidentialism within each region, and it draws attention to important contextual differences between the nine country cases.

The Emergence of the New Cold War: The Syrian and Ukraine Conflicts

2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-156
Author(s):  
Mediel Hove
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World

This article evaluates the emergence of the new Cold War using the Syrian and Ukraine conflicts, among others. Incompatible interests between the United States (US) and Russia, short of open conflict, increased after the collapse of the former Soviet Union. This article argues that the struggle for dominance between the two superpowers, both in speeches and deed, to a greater degree resembles what the world once witnessed before the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1991. It asserts that despite the US’ unfettered power, after the fall of the Soviet Union, it is now being checked by Russia in a Cold War fashion.

scholarly journals The Crisis of Democracy: An East-Central European Perspective

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 353-365
Author(s):  
Jerzy J. Wiatr
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
Religious Fundamentalism ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
East Central ◽  
Central European ◽  
Economic Underdevelopment ◽  
Democratic Transformation ◽  
East Central European ◽  
Better Than

AbstractPost-communist states of East Central Europe face the authoritarian challenge to their young democracies, the sources of which are both historical and contemporary. Economic underdevelopment, the retarded process of nation-building and several decades of communist rul made countries of the region less well prepared for democratic transformation than their Western neighbors, but better than former Soviet Union. Combination of economic and social tensions, nationalism and religious fundamentalism creates conditions conducive tom the crises of democracy, but such crises can be overcome if liberal and socialist forces join hands.

scholarly journals Piotr Piotrowski Awangarda w cieniu Jałty. Sztuka w Europie środkowo-wschodniej w latach 1945–89 (Avant-Garde in the Shadow of Yalta. Art in East-Central Europe, 1945–1989) 2005.

Nordlit ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 293
Author(s):  
Piotr Bernatowicz
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Research Field ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
East Central ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Virgin Land ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Polish Art ◽  
East Central European

Mieczysław Porębski, a distinguished Polish art historian of the 20th century, once expressed the demand for Polish art history to be researched simultaneously with foreign studies - as parallel fields. "We entered the research field of the old masters' art as partners in, so to say, a ‘furnished household', whereas in the field of contemporary art we are co-explorers, exploring a ‘virgin land'", as Porębski put it. The book by professor Piotr Piotrowski Awangarda w cieniu Jałty. Sztuka w Europie środkowo-wschodniej w latach 1945-89 (The Avant-Garde in the Shadow of Yalta. The Art in East-Central Europe, 1945-1989) fully accomplishes this demanding postulate which nowadays seems to be rather rarely remembered by Polish art historians. The explored area, the East-Central European countries, which emerged, as a result of the Yalta Conference, between the iron curtain and the border of The Soviet Union (including former Yugoslavia) appears at least as an ‘old maiden' land, where scientific penetration still seems to be necessary.

Populism in the Post-Soviet States

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luke March
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
Social Mobilization ◽  
Supply Side ◽  
Demand Side ◽  
Breeding Ground ◽  
Minimal Level ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
East Central ◽  
Vladimir Putin

In the former Soviet Union (FSU), sustained instances of populism are rare. The demand side does not represent an equally propitious “breeding ground” for populist backlash as in East Central Europe. However, the supply side is still more problematic, given the consolidation of authoritarian tendencies across the region. Without a minimal level of pluralism, it is extremely difficult to develop genuine and stable populist forces, except in (usually temporary) cases of regime breakdown or elite infighting. Anti-populist leaders (such as Vladimir Putin) have become the rule. Such leaders may employ populist rhetoric, but their fundamental impulse is elitist. They co-opt, mimic, or simply oppress social mobilization, making stability their watchword and regarding genuine populism as a dangerous threat to their rule.

CRIMEA AND THE BLACK SEA REGION IN THE POLITICAL PICTURE OF THE WORLD OF THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR STRATEGIC STUDIES OF UKRAINE EXPERTS (BASED ON ANALYTICAL REPORTS TO THE PRESIDENT’S MESSAGES TO THE VERKHOVNA RADA)

2020 ◽  
Vol 65 (4) ◽  
pp. 79-84
Author(s):  
OLEG V. Donetsk National University ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Black Sea ◽  
Parallel Structure ◽  
Regional Security ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
The Political ◽  
Black Sea Region ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The World ◽  
Strategic Studies

Basing on a constructivist approach to international relations and foreign policy, the author has defined the conceptual content of the script, in which the experts of the Ukrainian National Institute for Strategic Studies imagine Crimea and the Black Sea region. The study was carried out on the basis of the materials of the Institute's analytical reports to the messages of the President to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine in 2014-2018. It was found that the ideas about Crimea contained in them are extremely mythologized: in the political picture of the world of the Institute's experts, the peninsula is considered as a “Russian bridgehead”, a source of “military threat" and an "occupied territory". Ukrainian experts are convinced that the motives of Russia's foreign and defense policy in the Black Sea direction are allegedly due to its desire for "expansion", "imperial policy" and the desire to "restore the Soviet Union." They perceive the reunification of Crimea with Russia as an event that led to a cardinal transformation of the geopolitical space of the Black Sea region that contradicts Ukrainian national interests. At the same time, on rational grounds, the institute is actively searching for conceptual approaches to organizing a new regional security system and creating a long-term, broad and durable alliance of anti-Russian forces, which could act as a NATO parallel structure in the Black Sea region in the future. Moreover, Ukrainian experts do not have any own geopolitical project or idea on this. They are considering several options for regional coalitions at once, paying special attention to the Polish concept of "Intermarium", which consists in creating a block of Baltic-Black Sea states.

Screening Migrants in the Early Cold War: The Geopolitics of U.S. Immigration Policy

2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 154-179
Author(s):  
Peter J. Verovšek
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Immigration Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Screening Process ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
East Central ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Argument Proceeds

The main elements of U.S. immigration policy date back to the early Cold War. One such element is a screening process initially designed to prevent infiltration by Communist agents posing as migrants from East-Central Europe. The development of these measures was driven by geopolitical concerns, resulting in vetting criteria that favored the admission of hardline nationalists and anti-Communists. The argument proceeds in two steps. First, the article demonstrates that geopolitics influenced immigration policy, resulting in the admission of extremist individuals. Second, it documents how geopolitical concerns and the openness of U.S. institutions provided exiles with the opportunity to mobilize politically. Although there is little evidence that the vetting system succeeded in preventing the entry of Communist subversives into the United States, it did help to create a highly mobilized anti-Communist ethnic lobby that supported extremist policies vis-à-vis the Soviet Union during the early Cold War.

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