Download or read book Environment and Post Soviet Transformation in Kazakhstan s Aral Sea Region written by William Wheeler and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Environment and Post-Soviet Transformation in Kazakhstan's Aral Sea Region explores how the sea's retreat and partial return has impacted the lives of people living in the area.
Download or read book Environment and Post Soviet Transformation in Kazakhstan s Aral Sea Region written by William Wheeler and published by UCL Press. This book was released on 2021-10-25 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Aral Sea is well known for its devastating regression over the second half of the twentieth century, and for its recent partial restoration. Environment and Post-Soviet Transformation in Kazakhstan’s Aral Sea Region is the first book to explore what these monumental changes have meant to those living on the sea’s shores. Following the fluctuating fortunes of the pre-Soviet, Soviet and post-Soviet fisheries, the book shows how the vast environmental changes the region has undergone cannot be disentangled from the transformations of Soviet socialism and postsocialism. This ethnographic perspective prompts a critical rethinking of the category of environmental disaster through which the region is predominantly known. Tracing how the sea’s retreat and partial return have been apprehended by diverse local actors in the former port of Aral’sk and surrounding fishing villages, as well as by scientists, bureaucrats and international development workers, William Wheeler draws out the multiple meanings environmental change acquires within different contexts. This study of how people make their lives amidst overlapping ecological and political-economic upheavals is rich in ethnographic detail that is both rooted in Soviet legacies and alive to the new transnational connections that are reshaping the region. Offering a rigorous political ecology of Soviet socialism and after, the book is a major contribution to the nascent environmental anthropology of Central Asia. It will be of interest to environmental anthropologists, environmental historians, and scholars of all disciplines working on Central Asia and the former USSR.
Download or read book Transition in Post Soviet Art written by Octavian Esanu and published by Central European University Press. This book was released on 2013-01-01 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "With an abridged translation of the Dictionary of Moscow Conceptualism."
Download or read book The Transformation of Urban Space in Post Soviet Russia written by Isolde Brade and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2006-09-27 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the years since 1989, the societies of Russia and Eastern Europe have undergone a remarkable transformation from socialism to democracy and free market capitalism. Making an important contribution to the theoretical literature of urbanism and post-communist transition, this significant book considers the change in the spatial structure of post-Soviet urban spaces since the period of transition began. It argues that the era of transformation can be considered as largely complete, and that this has given way to a new stage of development as part of the global urban and economic system: post-transformation. The authors examine the modern trends in the urban development of western and post-socialist countries, and explore the theories of the transformation and post-transformation of urban space. Providing a wealth of detailed qualitative research on the Russian city of St. Petersburg, the study examines the changing structure of its retail trade and services sector. Overall, this book is an important step forward in the study of the spatial dynamics of urban transformation in the former communist world.
Download or read book Environmental Justice and Sustainability in the Former Soviet Union written by Julian Agyeman and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2009 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An examination of the awareness of environmental and social justice issues in the former Soviet republics--from the Western-style democracies of the Baltic region to the totalitarian regimes of Central Asia--and the resulting activism in those states. The legacy of environmental catastrophe in the states of the former Soviet Union includes desertification, pollution, and the toxic aftermath of industrial accidents, the most notorious of which was the Chernobyl disaster of 1986. This book examines the development of environmental activism in Russia and the former Soviet republics in response to these problems and its effect on policy and planning. It also shows that because of increasing economic, ethnic, and social inequality in the former Soviet states, debates over environmental justice are beginning to come to the fore. The book explores the varying environmental, social, political, and economic circumstances of these countries--which range from the Western-style democracies of the Baltic states to the totalitarian regimes of Central Asia--and how they affect the ecological, environmental, and public health. Among the topics covered are environmentalism in Russia (including the progressive nature of its laws on environmental protection, which are undermined by overburdened and underpaid law enforcement); the effect of oil wealth on Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan; the role of nationalism in Latvian environmentalism; the struggle of Russia's indigenous peoples for environmental justice; public participation in Estonia's environmental movement; and lack of access to natural capital in Tajikistan. Environmental Justice and Sustainability in the Former Soviet Union makes clear that although fragile transition economies, varying degrees of democratization, and a focus on national security can stymie progress toward "just sustainability," the diverse states of the former Soviet Union are making some progress toward "green" and environmental justice issues separately.
Download or read book The Transformation of Post Communist Societies in Central and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union written by S. Serban Scrieciu and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Green Post Communism written by Mikael Sandberg and published by Routledge. This book was released on 1998-12-03 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book asks whether foreign aid can help post-communist societies to steer their technological innovation systems in more environmentally sound directions. Mikael Sandberg examines the legacy of Soviet-type innovation systems, then looks at opportunities for greener innovations in post-communist Poland, considering:* institutional transformation
Download or read book Green Activism in Post Socialist Europe and the Former Soviet Union written by Adam Fagan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-06-11 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Green activism played a critical role in the downfall of Soviet-style communism in Eastern Europe at the end of the 1980s. After the revolutions, environmentalists were expected to exert influence within the new democracies and to form the bedrock of the new civil societies that were predicted to flourish across the region; the prospect of EU membership provided activist networks with even greater optimism about their political opportunities. Two decades later what has been the impact of political and economic liberalisation on environmental campaigners and policy advocates? Has access to elites increased with democratisation and Europeanization? To what extent does the realm of environmental politics, within individual states and across the region, continue to represent an optic on change and continuity? Through country case-studies and comparative analysis of national movements, this edited volume addresses each of these questions and provides a different perspective of green politics in the region. This book was previously published as a special issue of Environmental Politics.
Download or read book Environmental Transitions written by Petr Pavlínek and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2002-09-26 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Environmental Transitions is a detailed and comprehensive account of the environmental changes in Central and Eastern Europe, both under state socialism and during the period of transition to capitalism. The change in politics in the late 1980s and early 1990s allowed an opportunity for a rapid environmental clean up, in an area once considered one of the most environmentally devastated regions on earth. The book illustrates how transformations after 1989 have brought major environmental improvements, as well as new environmental problems. It shows how environmental policy, economic change and popular support for environmental movements, have specific and changing geographies associated with them. Environmental Transitions addresses a large number of topics, including the historical geographical analysis of the environmental change, health impacts of environmental degradation, the role of environmental issues during the anti-communist revolutions, legislative reform and the effects of transition on environmental quality after 1989. Environmental Transitions contains detailed case studies from the region, which illustrate the complexity of environmental issues and their intimate relationship with political and economic realities. It gives theoretically informed ideas for understanding environmental change in the context of the political economy of state socialism and post-communist transformations, drawing on a wide body of literature from West, Central and Eastern Europe.
Download or read book In the Name of the Great Work written by Doubravka Olšáková and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2016-09-01 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beginning in 1948, the Soviet Union launched a series of wildly ambitious projects to implement Joseph Stalin’s vision of a total “transformation of nature.” Intended to increase agricultural yields dramatically, this utopian impulse quickly spread to the newly communist states of Eastern Europe, captivating political elites and war-fatigued publics alike. By the time of Stalin’s death, however, these attempts at “transformation”—which relied upon ideologically corrupted and pseudoscientific theories—had proven a spectacular failure. This richly detailed volume follows the history of such projects in three communist states—Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia—and explores their varied, but largely disastrous, consequences.
Download or read book The Role of Informal Economies in the Post Soviet World written by Colin C. Williams and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-06-19 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on extensive ethnographic and quantitative research, conducted in Ukraine and Russia between 2004 and 2012, this book’s central argument is that for many people the informal economy, such as cash in hand work, subsistence production and the use of social networks, is of great importance to everyday life. Formal work is both a facilitator of such processes and is often supported by them, as people can only afford to undertake low paid formal work as a result of their informal incomes. By looking at the informal nature of formal work and practices, informal practices, gift giving, volunteer work and the economies of the household the book is one of the first to give an overview of the nature of the informal economy in all spheres of everyday practice.
Download or read book Making Nature Modern Economic Transformation and the Environment in the Soviet North written by Andy R. Bruno and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How should we understand the economic relationship of the Soviet Union to the natural environment? This dissertation explores this broad question through a fine-grained study of the environmental history of one particular Russian region in the far north throughout the entire twentieth century. It emphasizes the commonalities embedded in different political economies that existed in Russia: the state capitalism of the late imperial era, Soviet communism, and post-Soviet neo-liberalism. It suggests that a unified, but deeply political, process of seeking to make the natural world modern belongs at the center of an account of Soviet environmental history. It also highlights the significant role of the physical environment itself in shaping the trajectories of Soviet economic development. The study focuses on the Arctic territory of the Kola Peninsula or the Murmansk region and considers five different economic branches that emerged there during the twentieth century. A discussion of efforts to use a railroad line to enliven a desolate periphery and of the difficult experiences of wartime construction elaborates some of the overarching methods and visions of modernization. An examination of phosphate mining and processing in the Khibiny Mountains stresses the place of the environment in the Stalinist system and the anthropocentric holism of many Soviet planners. The campaigns to transform reindeer herding into a productive socialist industry and to protect wild caribou reveal how diverse ways of knowing nature influenced the behavior of elite and marginal actors. An investigation into the development of the Kola nickel industry suggests that excessive pollution in the Soviet Union is best accounted for by specific historical contexts instead of by structural factors. Finally, a review of the energy economy of the Kola Peninsula points to the tremendous transformation of human relations with the environment during modernization, while also exposing abiding, though reconfigured, connections between nature and society.
Download or read book Geography and Transition in the Post Soviet Republics written by Michael J. Bradshaw and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of essays follows on from the Soviet Union: A New Regional Geography published in 1991. It examines the events that have taken place since 1994 in the context of theoretical developments in contemporary geography. Written by authorities from all over the world, it brings us up-to-date with the events in the former Soviet Union - and uncertainty over the future.
Download or read book Nature and the Iron Curtain written by Astrid Kirchhof and published by University of Pittsburgh Press. This book was released on 2019-06-05 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Nature and the Iron Curtain, the authors contrast communist and capitalist countries with respect to their environmental politics in the context of the Cold War. Its chapters draw from archives across Europe and the U.S. to present new perspectives on the origins and evolution of modern environmentalism on both sides of the Iron Curtain. The book explores similarities and differences among several nations with different economies and political systems, and highlights connections between environmental movements in Eastern and Western Europe.
Download or read book Eurasian Environments written by Nicholas Breyfogle and published by University of Pittsburgh Press. This book was released on 2018-11-06 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through a series of essays, Eurasian Environments prompts us to rethink our understanding of tsarist and Soviet history by placing the human experience within the larger environmental context of flora, fauna, geology, and climate. This book is a broad look at the environmental history of Eurasia, specifically examining steppe environments, hydraulic engineering, soil and forestry, water pollution, fishing, and the interaction of the environment and disease vectors. Throughout, the authors place the history of Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union in a trans-chronological, comparative context, seamlessly linking the local and the global. The chapters are rooted in the ecological and geological specificities of place and community while unveiling the broad patterns of human-nature relationships across the planet. Eurasian Environments brings together an international group scholars working on issues of tsarist/Soviet environmental history in an effort to showcase the wave of fascinating and field-changing research currently being written.
Download or read book The Autocratic Middle Class written by Bryn Rosenfeld and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-12 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The conventional wisdom is that a growing middle class will give rise to democracy. Yet the middle classes of the developing world have grown at a remarkable pace over the past two decades, and much of this growth has taken place in countries that remain nondemocratic. Rosenfeld explains this phenomenon by showing how modern autocracies secure support from key middle-class constituencies. Drawing on original surveys, interviews, archival documents, and secondary sources collected from nine months in the field, she compares the experiences of recent post-communist countries, including Russia, the Ukraine, and Kazakhstan, to show that under autocracy, state efforts weaken support for democracy, especially among the middle class. When autocratic states engage extensively in their economies - by offering state employment, offering perks to those to those who are loyal, and threatening dismissal to those who are disloyal - the middle classes become dependent on the state for economic opportunities and career advancement, and, ultimately, do not support a shift toward democratization. Her argument explains why popular support for Ukraine's Orange Revolution unraveled or why Russians did not protest evidence of massive electoral fraud. The author's research questions the assumption that a rising share of educated, white-collar workers always makes the conditions for democracy more favorable, and why dependence on the state has such pernicious consequences for democratization"--
Download or read book Institutional Change and Political Continuity in Post Soviet Central Asia written by Pauline Jones Luong and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2002-04-29 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The establishment of electoral systems in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan presents both a complex set of empirical puzzles and 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 these three states designed new electoral rules necessitates an approach that explicitly links process and outcome in a dynamic setting. This book provides such an approach. Finally, it both builds on the key insights of the dominant approaches to explaining institutional origin and change and transcends these approaches by moving beyond the structure versus agency debate.
