Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-4hhp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-30T13:40:44.563Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
This chapter is part of a book that is no longer available to purchase from Cambridge Core

7 - Russia

from PART THREE - LATE DEVELOPERS

By
Stephen E. Hanson
Edited by
Jeffrey Kopstein  and
Mark Lichbach
Stephen E. Hanson
Affiliation:
University of Washington
Jeffrey Kopstein
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
Mark Lichbach
Affiliation:
University of Maryland, College Park
Get access

Summary

Introduction

Russia has long puzzled and surprised observers of international politics. For seven decades, Russia was at the center of a communist regime – the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or USSR – that competed with the United States for global supremacy (see Table 7.1 at the end of the chapter). After the collapse of the USSR in 1991, Russia suffered a prolonged period of political, military, and economic decay. During the two terms of President Vladimir Putin, the Russian economy rebounded strongly, but this growth was accompanied by a return to political authoritarianism. There is no consensus among specialists about how this one-time superpower became so weak so quickly; nor do scholars agree in their evaluations of Putin's efforts to revive the country. Indeed, it seems that Russia simply does not fit conventional analytic categories.

Geographically, Russia is the biggest country in the world, spanning 11 time zones. Most of its population is in Europe; most of its territory is in Asia. Although about four-fifths of its population are ethnically Russian, the Russian Federation contains hundreds of other ethnic groups, some of which have engaged in serious struggles for greater autonomy or – in the case of Chechnya – full independence. Should we call Russia a European, an Asian, or a “Eurasian” state? Is Russia a nation or an empire? Might Russia eventually break up into smaller regional units? Or is it emerging again as a revitalized great power in world politics?

Type
Chapter
Information
Comparative Politics
Interests, Identities, and Institutions in a Changing Global Order
 , pp. 218 - 269
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Baker, Peter, and Susan, Glasser. Kremlin Rising: Vladimir Putin's Russia and the End of Revolution. New York: Scribner, 2005.Google Scholar
Breslauer, George. Khrushchev and Brezhnev as Leaders: Building Authority in Soviet Politics. London and Boston: Allen and Unwin, 1982.Google Scholar
Brown, Archie. The Gorbachev Factor. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Conquest, Robert. The Great Terror: A Reassessment. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.Google Scholar
Conquest, Robert. The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror Famine. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.Google Scholar
Dunlop, John B.The Rise of Russia and the Fall of the Soviet Empire. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993.Google Scholar
Fish, M. Steven. Democracy from Scratch: Opposition and Regime in the New Russian Revolution. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995.Google Scholar
Fitzpatrick, Sheila. The Russian Revolution. Second edition. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.Google Scholar
Hanson, Stephen E.Time and Revolution: Marxism and the Design of Soviet Institutions. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Hoffmann, David. The Oligarchs: Wealth and Power in the New Russia. New York: Public Affairs, 2002.Google Scholar
Jowitt, Ken. New World Disorder: The Leninist Extinction. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992.Google Scholar
Kotkin, Stephen. Armageddon Averted: The Soviet Collapse, 1970–2000. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.Google Scholar
Kryshtanovskaya, Olga, and Stephen, White. “Putin's Militocracy.” Post-Soviet Affairs 19, no. 4 (October 2003): 289–306.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McAuley, Mary. Russia's Politics of Uncertainty. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.Google Scholar
McFaul, Michael. Russia's Unfinished Revolution: Political Change from Gorbachev to Putin. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001.Google Scholar
Putin, Vladimir V., with Nataliya, Gevorkyan, Natalya, Timakova, and Andrei, Kolesnikov. First Person: An Astonishingly Frank Self-Portrait by Russia's President. New York: Public Affairs, 2000.Google Scholar
Remnick, David. Resurrection: The Struggle for a New Russia. New York: Random House, 1998.Google Scholar
Shevtsova, Lilia. Putin's Russia. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment, 2003.Google Scholar
Solnick, Steven. Stealing the State: Control and Collapse in Soviet Institutions. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Stoner-Weiss, Katherine. Local Heroes: The Political Economy of Russian Regional Governance. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Yeltsin, Boris N.The Struggle for Russia. New York: Random House, 1994.Google Scholar
Yeltsin, Boris N.Midnight Diaries. New York: Public Affairs, 2000.Google Scholar
Zaslavsky, Viktor. The Neo-Stalinist State: Class, Ethnicity, and Consensus in Soviet Society. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1994.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Russia
  • Edited by Jeffrey Kopstein, University of Toronto, Mark Lichbach, University of Maryland, College Park
  • Book: Comparative Politics
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511803994.010
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Russia
  • Edited by Jeffrey Kopstein, University of Toronto, Mark Lichbach, University of Maryland, College Park
  • Book: Comparative Politics
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511803994.010
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Russia
  • Edited by Jeffrey Kopstein, University of Toronto, Mark Lichbach, University of Maryland, College Park
  • Book: Comparative Politics
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511803994.010
Available formats
×