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Invisible Hands, Russian Experience, and Social Science
This book investigates cases in which national and international activities have gone massively wrong, entailing seriously negative consequences, and in which the sophisticated analytical models of social science have ceased to be helpful. Illustrations range from the global financial crisis to the failure to achieve speedy systemic change in the former Soviet Union and the failure to achieve development in the Third World. The analysis uses as a backdrop long-term Russian history and short-term Russian encounters with unrestrained capitalism to develop a framework that is based in the so-called new institutionalism. Understanding the causes of systemic failure is shown to require an approach that spans across the increasingly specialized subdisciplines of modern social science. Demonstrating that increasing theoretical sophistication has been bought at the price of a loss of perspective and the need for sensitivity to the role of cultural and historical specificity, the book pleads the case for a new departure in seeking to model the motives for human action.
Ukraine, Russia and the West
Why did Russia’s all-out war against Ukraine come as such a surprise to the West? This is a key question considered by this reflective and wide-ranging book. The book argues that Russia and the West were playing different games: while Russia under Putin had become obsessed with using hard power to restore the Cold War security architecture in Europe, the major Western powers had become equally obsessed with value promotion that would ensure a global triumph for the values of the West, touted as “universal values.” The Russian play for spheres of interest was clearly defined and demarcated, the Western play for values was, by definition, without limits. Hence there could be no common gr...
Russia Reverts to Muscovy
This book explores the implications of removing the notion of "Russia" from political and scholarly discourse. It would be of interest to researchers in International Relations, Ethnic Studies, Political Science, Central Asian, Russian and Soviet Politics.
Russian Path Dependence
Russia's transition to a market economy has been tortuous to say the least. However, this book argues that the arguments and counter-arguments that pitch shock therapy against gradualism are wide of the mark and quite pointless. Indeed, the reasons for the warped outcomes can actually be traced back through the long sweep of Russian history. Decisions made in the distant past can fully influence policy- making in the present. Hedlund's thesis can, like this, be seen as influenced by the 'path dependency' theories of Paul David among others.
Private Agriculture in the Soviet Union
First published in 1989. Perestroika, it was widely believed, must succeed in agriculture before permanent change could be affected elsewhere in the Soviet economy. But Soviet agriculture had so far remained stubbornly inefficient and resistant to change. In this book Stefan Hedlund investigates the reasons for this state of affairs. The author gives an account of the emergence, development and performance of private agriculture in the Soviet Union. In particular he describes the essentials of the peculiarly Soviet hybrid of private and socialized agriculture. He places the private sector within the broader framework of Soviet agriculture. He saw Soviet agriculture as a ‘Black Hole’, ready to absorb any resources that came near, be they private plots, urban gardens, factory workshops or military units. Hedlund also examines the impact on the peasants as producers of decades of negative ideological pronouncements in Party propaganda, and of discrimination and at times outright harassment by local officials. He points out that this background makes the prospect of any positive response from the peasants to Gorbachev’s call for perestroika in agriculture extremely unlikely.
Power and Legitimacy - Challenges from Russia
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 – 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.
Russia Since 1980
Russia since 1980 recounts the epochal political, economic, and social changes that destroyed the Soviet Union, ushering in a perplexing new order. Two decades after Mikhail Gorbachev initiated his regime-wrecking radical reforms, Russia has reemerged as a superpower. It has survived a hyperdepression, modernized, restored private property and business, adopted a liberal democratic persona, and asserted claims to global leadership. Many in the West perceive these developments as proof of a better globalized tomorrow, while others foresee a new cold war. Globalizers contend that Russia is speedily democratizing, marketizing, and humanizing, creating a regime based on the rule of law and respect for civil rights. Opponents counterclaim that Russia before and during the Soviet period was similarly misportrayed and insist that Medvedev's Russia is just another variation of an authoritarian "Muscovite" model that has prevailed for more than five centuries. The cases for both positions are explored while chronicling events since 1980, and a verdict is rendered in favor of Muscovite continuity. Russia will continue challenging the West until it breaks with its cultural legacy.
The Baltic States and the End of the Soviet Empire
First published in 1993. How is it possible for the three tiny Baltic republics to gain their freedom from the Soviet Union, without a single shot being fired or a single stone thrown at the oppressor? The topic of this book is the implosion of the Soviet empire. It tells the parallel stories of how the three Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania struggled successfully to gain their freedom, and how the policies pursued by Mikhail Gorbachev served to mobilize and politicize Baltic demands. Particular emphasis is placed on unintended consequences that resulted from repeated interventions by Moscow. The authors develop a loose theoretic framework for the examination of this critica...
Russia's Market Economy
Russia's Market Economy is a seminal account of Russia's transition to the market, its tortuous development as a fledgling market economy through the 1990s, right through to its spectacular collapse in August 1998. Rather than beginning with the economic collapse, the book traces the historical mismanagement of Russian wealth through to the Soviet command economy, and on to Gorbachev. Stefan Hedlund finally discusses what lessons should be learned from the damage inflicted on the Russian economy, as well as its social, legal and political infrastructure, by the race of reform.
