This book examines the economic bases of regional sovereignty movements in the Russian Federation from 1990 1993. The analysis is based on an original data set of Russian regional sovereignty movements and the author employs a variety of methods including quantitative statistical analysis, as well as qualitative case studies of Sverdlovsk and Samara oblasts using systematic content analysis of local newspaper articles. The central finding of the book is that variation in Russian regional activism is explained not by differences in economic conditions but by differences in the construction or...

In the early 1990s, competitive elections in the Russian Federation signaled the end to the authoritarian political system dominated by a single political party. More than ten years and many elections later, a single party led by Russian President Vladimir Putin threatens to end Russia's democratic experiment. Russia's experience with new elections is not unique but it does challenge existing theories of democratic consolidation by showing that competitive elections cannot guarantee successful democratic consolidation. This book explores the conditions under which electoral competition...

Although Russia experienced dramatic political breakthroughs in the late 1980s and early 1990s after shedding the shackles of Soviet rule, it subsequently failed to continue progressing toward democracy. M. Steven Fish offers an explanation for the direction of regime change in post-Soviet Russia, relying on cross-national comparative analysis as well as on in-depth field research in Russia. Fish demonstrates that Russia's failure to democratize has three causes: too much economic reliance on oil, too little economic liberalization, and too weak a national legislature.

Rightly fearing that unscrupulous rulers would break them up, seize their resources, or submit them to damaging forms of intervention, strong networks of trust such as kinship groups, clandestine religious sects, and trade diasporas have historically insulated themselves from political control by a variety of strategies. Drawing on a vast range of comparisons over time and space, Charles Tilly asks and answers how, and with what consequences, members of trust networks have evaded, compromised with, or even sought connections with political regimes.

The establishment of electoral systems in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan presents a complex set of empirical puzzles as well as a theoretical challenge. Why did three states with similar cultural, historical, and structural legacies establish such different electoral systems? How did these distinct outcomes result from strikingly similar institutional design processes? Explaining these puzzles requires understanding not only the outcome of institutional design but also the intricacies of the process that led to this outcome. Moreover, the transitional context in which the three states...

The question of whether democratization is an elite-led process from above or a popular triumph from below continues to be an area of contention among political scientists. Examining the experiences of countries that have provided the main empirical base for recent theorizing, namely, Western Europe and South America, this book delineates a more complex and varied set of patterns. The volume explores democratization through a comparative analysis that examines the role of labor in relation to elite strategies in both contemporary and historical perspectives.

This book compares two ideologically opposed examples of women's movements in Chile. It studies the women who mobilized against the democratically elected government of President Salvador Allende (1970-1973) and those who mobilized against the military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990). The study documents and explains the similarities that exist between these two very different movements in terms of the moment at which they emerge and the way in which they frame their demands.

Why has the literature on Asian development not addressed the issue of money politics in Korea? How can we reconcile the view of an efficient developmental state in Korea before 1997 with reports of massive corruption and inefficiency in that same country in 1998 and 1999? Politics is central to the answer. This study argues that both Korea and the Philippines experienced significant corruption throughout the post-independence era, and that political--not economic--considerations dominated policy making in both countries.

This book charts the evolution of clientelist practices in several western European countries. Through the historical and comparative analysis of countries as diverse as Sweden and Greece, England and Spain, France and Italy, Iceland and the Netherlands, the authors study both the "supply-side" and the "demand-side" of clientelism. This approach contends that clientelism is a particular mix of particularism and universalism, in which interests are aggregated at the level of the individual and his family "particularism," but in which all interests can potentially find expression and...

This book examines the degree to which international financial markets affect governments' policy choices. It provides empirical evidence as to whether financial globalization creates pressures on governments of developed and developing nations to pursue similar policies and to reduce spending on social policies. The book suggests that financial globalization does not lead to a "race to the bottom" among governments, especially in developed nations. It deploys several types of evidence; the most unique are interviews and surveys of investment fund managers. It also compares contemporary...