Bøker i Routledge Contemporary Russia and Eastern Europe Series-serien

This book explores the phenomenon of violence in Russian culture, showing how violence has been a legitimate articulation of masculinity in Russia, and how popular attitudes towards violence have differed from those in the west, with Russians often approving of violence and of macho, militaristic political leadership.

This work examines how civil-military relations have been transformed in Russia, Poland, Hungary and Ukraine since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact in 1991. It shows how these countries have worked to reform their obsolete armed forces.

Presents a comprehensive introduction to the Caucasus. This title covers the geography and the historical development of the region, economics, politics and government, population, religion and society, culture and traditions, and conflicts and international relations. It is written in an accessible style and requires no prior knowledge.

Provides a comprehensive survey of the development of capitalism in Russia from the collapse of the Soviet economic system. This book includes the results of substantial research on the state of a range of Russian enterprises. It discusses the wider theoretical implications of the Russian experience for other transitional economies.

During the first decade of the 21st century, a remarkable phenomenon swept through the former Soviet Union changing the political, social and cultural landscape. This book examines the significance of these regime-change processes for the post-Soviet world in particular and for global politics in the 21st century.

Provides an examination of Islamic radicalisation in the Muslim republics of the former Soviet Union since the end of Communism. This book analyzes the sources and social base of Islamic radicalisation in the region, and identifies the different dynamics at work and how these relate to each other. It assesses the level of foreign involvement.

Examines the place of multilateralism in Russia's foreign policy and Russia's engagement with multilateral institutions. This book examines Russia's role and relationship with the UN, NATO, G8, EU, OSCE, and Commonwealth of Independent States, covering a range of issue areas including nuclear non-proliferation and trade.

Military action in South Ossetia, growing tensions with the United States and NATO, and Russia's relationship with the European Union demonstrate how the issue of Russian nationalism is increasingly at the heart of the international political agenda. This book considers a wide range of aspects of Russian nationalism, focusing on the Putin period.

Describes the strategies used by President Putin from 2000 onwards to recreate 'Greater Russia', that is a Russia that controls most of the territory of the former Soviet Union. This title shows the subtlety of the means of control, often through creating economic dependencies in the 'near abroad'.

Examines the state of relations between NATO and Russia. This book discusses a number of areas including: the impact of NATO's eastward expansion and the NATO-Russia Council and Russia's reassertion of itself in its 'near abroad'.

Considers the challenges of democracy building in post-Soviet Armenia, and the role of civil society. This book explores how the growth of civil society depends on a country's historical and socio-cultural context; and how far foreign aid, provided with conditions which encouraged the promotion of civil society, had an impact on democratization.

Examining the role of dramatized narratives in Russian television, this book stresses the ways in which the Russian government under Putin use primetime television to express an understanding of what it means to be Russian, answering key questions of national identity for modern Russians in dealing with their history: What really happened to us?

Gazprom, one of Europe's most important energy companies, and the sole exporter of Russian gas to Europe, is often viewed simply as an agent of the Russian state, being used by the Russian state to exert political pressure on Russia's neighbours and more widely. This book presents a thorough examination of the Russian gas sector and Gazprom's place within it. It considers how the Russian gas sector has been modernized over recent decades, examines Russia's gas exports to different parts of the world, and explores how the international situation has changed, and continues to change, over time. The author concludes that the picture is complex; that Gazprom is both a commercially-oriented actor that lobbies strongly for its own interests and is at the same time subject to varying degrees of influence from the Russian government, the degree of influence depending on the policy area.

This book examines the development of the Russian oil and gas industry over recent decades, showing how, in a series of in-depth case studies of previous international company involvement, international companies should in future cope with the business environment, how they should acquire local knowledge, deal with the state, and forge partnerships with domestic companies, but only to a limited extent.

This book argues that although Soviet ideology did not accept the principle of biologically based racial inferiority, aspired to achieve equality for all citizens under socialist internationalism and regarded "race" as a concept formulated by modern capitalism, nevertheless Soviet films that addressed issues of "race" still exposed their authors' views. Moreover, the book contends that these views made a significant contribution to popular perceptions and to the gradual rise of "white supremacy" thinking in the late Soviet period, with such thinking being now very widely held in post-Soviet, contemporary Russia. The book discusses a wide range of films including films about Africa, Africans and Afro-Americans, explores in detail the Soviet social construction of race, gender and identity and contrasts this with the development of racial thinking in the Western world. The book's rich and subtle analysis shows how Soviet cine-culture in a variety of popular genres, from adventure films to biopics and political drama, re-articulated meanings of "race" through allegedly anti-racist imageries of "blackness" and "whiteness".

Contemporary Russia is often viewed as a centralised regime based in Moscow, with dependent provinces, made subservient by Putin's policies limiting regional autonomy.

This book provides an overview of the state of Russia after the 2012 presidential election. It considers a wide range of both domestic and international issues, examining both the run up to and the consequences of the election. It covers political, economic and social topics. It assesses the political scene both before and after the election, and discusses the nature of and likely future of democracy in Russia. The election 's impact on the Russian economy is discussed in detail, as are Russia 's relationships with the United States, the European Union and other parts of the world.

The idea that socialism could be established in a single country was adopted as an official doctrine by the Soviet Union in 1925, Stalin and Bukharin being the main formulators of the policy. Before this there had been much debate as to whether the only way to secure socialism would be as a result of socialist revolution on a much broader scale, across all Europe or wider still. This book traces the development of ideas about communist utopia from Plato onwards, paying particular attention to debates about universalist ideology versus the possibility for "socialism in one country". The book argues that although the prevailing view is that "socialism in one country" was a sharp break from a long tradition that tended to view socialism as only possible if universal, in fact the territorially confined socialist project had long roots, including in the writings of Marx and Engels.

This book sheds new light on the continuing debate within political thought as to what constitutes power, and what distinguishes legitimate from illegitimate power. It does so by considering the experience of Russia, a polity where experiences of the legitimacy of power and the collapse of power offer a contrast to Western experiences on which most political theory, formulated in the West, is based. The book considers power in a range of contexts ΓÇô philosophy and discourse; the rule of law and its importance for economic development; the use of culture and religion as means to legitimate power; and liberalism and the reasons for its weakness in Russia. The book concludes by arguing that the Russian experience provides a useful lens through which ideas of power and legitimacy can be re-evaluated and re-interpreted, and through which the idea of "the West" as the ideal model can be questioned.

This book presents a comprehensive overview of current developments related to Russia's military sector. It considers recent military reforms, changes in civil-military relations, and the continuing huge economic significance of Russia's military-industrial complex.

This book explores the emergence, and in Poland, Hungary, and Russia the coming to power, of politicians and political parties rejecting the consensus around market reforms, democratisation, and rule of law that has characterised moves towards an "open society" from the 1990s.

This book adopts a novel analytical approach to understanding how Russia's stalled democratisation is related to the incomplete liberalisation of the economy. Based on extensive original comparative study of Russiäs regions, the book explores the precise channels of interaction that create the mutuality of property rights, entrepreneurship, rule of law, norms of citizenship and liberal democracy. It demonstrates that the extent of democratisation varies across regions, and that this variation is connected to the extent of liberalisation of the economy.

The purpose of this book is to move beyond the approach which views energy as a purely geopolitical tool of the Russian state and assumes a 'one size fits all' approach to Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) energy security.

Examines reform of the Russian military since the end of the Cold War. This book argues that Putin's policies of bolstering central control has left untouched many key problems, including infighting between different forces, lack of transparency over defence spending, and absence of consensus on the main threats.