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Elites and Political Power in the USSR by David Lane,David Stuart Lane Pdf
This book constitutes an impressive contribution to Soviet Studies. . . It is essential reading for specialists and teachers of soviet studies. Reviewing Sociology Lane has produced a timely and interesting collection of writings on the political role of elites in the Soviet Union. . . This is an excellent collection of studies on a very interesting topic. Mark Galeotti, Millennium
Elites and Leadership in Russian Politics by Graeme Gill Pdf
The fall of the Communist regime in the USSR and Russia's search for a democratic and prosperous market-based future is one of the most compelling episodes of the end of the twentieth century. A central part in this drama is being played by political elites. These essays, written by some of the leading scholars in the field, analyse various aspects of the role being played by elites and leaders in Russian politics. Among the issues dealt with are: the origins of the Russian elites, including the issue of continuity with the Soviet past; the relationship between political and economic elites; the means taken by elites to structure politics and their relations; the dynamic of elite politics, and the nature of post-communism. These essays deal with many of the crucial questions facing Russia today.
Political Elites in the USSR by Thomas Henry Rigby Pdf
This important book presents Professor Rigby's key writings on the creation of elites in the Soviet Union. It shows how the nomenclature system evolved as a key instrument for directing and controlling all spheres of national life, drawing its elite echelons together in a single bureaucratic ruling class.
Cultures of Power in Post-Communist Russia by Michael Urban Pdf
In Russian politics reliable information is scarce, formal relations are of relatively little significance, and things are seldom what they seem. Applying an original theory of political language to narratives taken from interviews with 34 of Russia's leading political figures, Michael Urban explores the ways in which political actors construct themselves with words. By tracing individual narratives back to the discourses available to speakers, he identifies what can and cannot be intelligibly said within the bounds of the country's political culture, and then documents how elites rely on the personal elements of political discourse at the expense of those addressed to the political community. Urban shows that this discursive orientation is congruent with social relations prevailing in Russia and helps to account for the fact that, despite two revolutions proclaiming democracy in the last century, Russia remains an authoritarian state.
Cultures of Power in Post-Communist Russia by Michael E. Urban Pdf
"In Russian politics reliable information is scarce, formal relations are of relatively little significance, and things are seldom what they seem. Applying an original theory of political language to narratives taken from interviews with 34 of Russia's leading political figures, Michael Urban explores the ways in which political actors construct themselves with words. By tracing individual narratives back to the discourses available to speakers, he identifies what can and cannot be intelligibly said within the bounds of the country's political culture, and then documents how elites rely on the personal elements of political discourse at the expense of those addressed to the political community. Urban shows that this discursive orientation is congruent with social relations prevailing in Russia and helps to account for the fact that, despite two revolutions proclaiming democracy in the last century, Russia remains an authoritarian state"--
Elites have been described both as the bulwarks of democracy and its very antithesis. Political Elites, first published in 1969, reviews the literature on the role of elites in politics. It deals with both the 'classic' elite theorists - Mosca, Pareto, Michels, Burnham and C. Wright Mills - and with many of the empirical and theoretical works on elites by modern political scientists and sociologists. It seeks to clarify the central terms of elite discourse, some of which have entered the everyday political vocabulary - 'elitism', 'power elite', 'establishment', 'elite consensus', 'iron law of oligarchy' and 'mass'. It explores the ways in which the descriptions of power relationships can subtly be infiltrated by the values of the observers. For this ECPR Classics edition Professor Parry has added an introduction reviewing significant new developments in elite political science.
Political Elites and the New Russia by Anton Steen Pdf
Political Elite and the New Russia convincingly argues that although reforms in Russia have been initiated by those close to the President, in fact local and national elites have been the crucial strategic actors in reshaping Russia's economy, democratising its political system and decentralising its administration. This book analyses the role of elites under Yeltsin and Putin, discussing the extent to which they form a coherent political culture, and how far this culture has been in step with, or at odds with, the reform policies of the Kremlin leadership.
Assessments of Russia's future possess a lamentable tendency to oscillate between enthusiastic optimism about the development of free market democracy or brooding pessimism concerning the vitality of Russia's absolutist heritage, without providing many durable insights. 1 The goal of this essay is to undertake a more penetrating analysis of a paradox of state power that lies at the heart of future Russian politics. One of the distinguishing features of post-Soviet transition unquestionably has been the political elite's remarkable autonomy of power: as the institutional infrastructure of the old regime collapsed, political elites concentrated on economic reform that later came to resemble economic plunder, leaving an institutional void in many areas of government policy. Russia became, in the words of Robert Jackson, a "quasi-state": endowed with juridical statehood, yet lacking the political will, institutional capacity, and organized authority to protect human rights and provide socioeconomic welfare. 2 The debacle in Chechnya added the shocking realization of the degeneration of Russian military capacity. In contrast to "normal" societies where political power is circumscribed by an institutional framework and the rule of law, the void of the transformation period provided Russian elites a rare opportunity to exercise their power unfettered by such constraints. The result has been to produce a "weak" Russian state in which institutional development occurs only at the whim of the political elite. An oligarchic capitalism has taken hold in Moscow, yet the political calculus remains paramount, state institutions underdeveloped, and the current elite-reformist credentials notwithstanding-lives beyond the reach of the law. This is a curious and perplexing outcome, for Russia has managed not only to endure, but to score some very important reform victories on the path to transformation. How can one explain the apparent paradox of a "weak" state undertaking policies more durable political systems could not implement? Viewed from a comparative perspective, the paradox disappears as Russia's experience bears striking similarities to other developing societies. In essence, the crises of governance and Russian elites' "reform" responses reflect the pattern of political development-or maldevelopment- present in many African states. In the absence of normal state building, Russia's political elites, like their African counterparts, undertook to construct a parallel political authority-a shadow state 3-whose defining characteristic is a corrupt fusion between government and private sector elites that stunts institutional development, survives through predation on productive processes in society, and compels the majority of the population to withdraw from the sphere of legitimate commerce and political activity. The recent attention Russian elites and international financial institutions have directed toward building state capacity has made little progress in the Russian case; nor should this be expected given the current elite's philosophy of governance. According to First Deputy Prime Minister Anatolii Chubais,4 "consolidation of power means establishing a tough dictatorship within the systems of state power . . . . To establish democracy in society requires a dictatorship within the state."5 Parallel to this haunting echo of Leninist zeal has been an approach to budget reform that is a polar opposite of the vision encouraged by the World Bank in its 1997 World Development Report. While the Bank has urged the creation of transparent state institutions that provide, among other things, investment in basic social services and infrastructure, and a comprehensive social safety net, Yeltsin, Chubais, and Boris Nemtsov have lobbied for a 1997 budget that inflicts maximum damage on the Russian government's ability to pursue these objectives.
Access to Power by Cynthia Fuchs Epstein,Rose Laub Coser Pdf
Originally published in 1981, this book is composed of papers that describe and analyse women’s careers in government, business, and the professions. It examines women’s access to and participation in elite careers in the US, and in selected countries of western and eastern Europe – Britain, France, West Germany, Austria, Norway, Finland, Poland, and Yugoslavia – as well as in international organizations. This book was an outgrowth of a conference on ‘Women in decision-making elites in cross-national perspective,’ held at King’s College, Cambridge University, in July 1976. The countries represented were chosen because, although they were at similar stages of economic development, they exhibited differences in political structure, ideology, and tradition.
Elite Foundations of Liberal Democracy by John Higley,Michael G. Burton Pdf
This compelling and convincing study, the capstone of decades of research, argues that political regimes are created and sustained by elites. Liberal democracies are no exception; they depend, above all, on the formation and persistence of consensually united elites. John Higley and Michael Burton explore the circumstances and ways in which such elites have formed in the modern world. They identify pressures that may cause a basic change in the structure and functioning of elites in established liberal democracies, and they ask if the elites cluster around George W. Bush are a harbinger of this change. The authors' powerful and important argument reframes our thinking about liberal democracy and questions optimistic assumptions about the prospects for its spread in the twenty-first century.
It can feel like we're swimming in a sea of corruption. It's unclear who exactly is in charge and what role they play. The same influential people seem to reappear time after time in different professional guises, pressing their own agendas in one venue after another. According to award-winning public policy scholar and anthropologist Janine Wedel, these are the powerful ''shadow elite,'' the main players in a vexing new system of power and influence. In this groundbreaking book, Wedel charts how this shadow elite, loyal only to their own, challenge both governments' rules of accountability and business codes of competition to accomplish their own goals. From the Harvard economists who helped privatize post-Soviet Russia and the neoconservatives who have helped privatize American foreign policy (culminating with the debacle that is Iraq) to the many private players who daily make public decisions without public input, these manipulators both grace the front pages and operate behind the scenes. Wherever they maneuver, they flout once-sacrosanct boundaries between state and private. Profoundly original, Shadow Elite gives us the tools we need to recognize these powerful yet elusive players and comprehend the new system. Nothing less than our ability for self-government and our freedom are at stake.
Prestige, Manipulation, and Coercion by Joseph Torigian Pdf
How succession in authoritarian regimes was less a competition of visions for the future and more a settling of scores "Joseph Torigian's stellar research and personal interviews have produced a brilliant, meticulous study. It fundamentally undermines what political scientists have presumed to be the way Chinese Communist and Soviet politics operate."--Dorothy J. Solinger, University of California, Irvine The political successions in the Soviet Union and China after Stalin and Mao, respectively, are often explained as triumphs of inner‑party democracy, leading to a victory of "reformers" over "conservatives" or "radicals." In traditional thinking, Leninist institutions provide competitors a mechanism for debating policy and making promises, stipulate rules for leadership selection, and prevent the military and secret police from playing a coercive role. Here, Joseph Torigian argues that the post-cult of personality power struggles in history's two greatest Leninist regimes were instead shaped by the politics of personal prestige, historical antagonisms, backhanded political maneuvering, and violence. Mining newly discovered material from Russia and China, Torigian challenges the established historiography and suggests a new way of thinking about the nature of power in authoritarian regimes.
