Download or read book Weak Strongman written by Timothy Frye and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2022-09-27 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Media and public discussion tends to understand Russian politics as a direct reflection of Vladimir Putin's seeming omnipotence or Russia's unique history and culture. Yet Russia is remarkably similar to other autocracies -- and recognizing this illuminates the inherent limits to Putin's power. Weak Strongman challenges the conventional wisdom about Putin's Russia, highlighting the difficult trade-offs that confront the Kremlin on issues ranging from election fraud and repression to propaganda and foreign policy. Drawing on three decades of his own on-the-ground experience and research as well as insights from a new generation of social scientists that have received little attention outside academia, Timothy Frye reveals how much we overlook about today's Russia when we focus solely on Putin or Russian exceptionalism. Frye brings a new understanding to a host of crucial questions: How popular is Putin? Is Russian propaganda effective? Why are relations with the West so fraught? Can Russian cyber warriors really swing foreign elections? In answering these and other questions, Frye offers a highly accessible reassessment of Russian politics that highlights the challenges of governing Russia and the nature of modern autocracy. Rich in personal anecdotes and cutting-edge social science, Weak Strongman offers the best evidence available about how Russia actually works"--

Download or read book Russia s 1996 Presidential Election The End of Polarized Politics written by Michael McFaul and published by Hoover Press. This book was released on 1997 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Rigged written by David Shimer and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2021-10-05 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The definitive history of the covert struggle between Russia and America to influence elections, why the threat to American democracy is greater than ever, and what we can do about it. This is "the first book to put the story of Russian interference into a broader context.... Extraordinary and gripping" (The New York Times Book Review). Russia's interference in the 2016 elections marked only the latest chapter of a hidden and revelatory history. In Rigged, David Shimer tells the sweeping story of covert electoral interference past and present. He exposes decades of secret operations—by the KGB, the CIA, and Vladimir Putin's Russia—to shape electoral outcomes, melding deep historical research with groundbreaking interviews with more than 130 key players, from leading officials in both the Trump and Obama administrations to CIA and NSA directors to a former KGB general. Throughout history and in 2016, both Russian and American operations achieved their greatest success by influencing the way voters think, rather than tampering with actual vote tallies. Understanding 2016 as one battle in a much longer war is essential to comprehending the critical threat currently posed to America's electoral sovereignty and how to defend against it. Illuminating how the lessons of the past can be used to protect our democracy in the future, Rigged is an essential book for readers of every political persuasion.

Download or read book When Democracy Breaks written by Archon Fung and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2024-02-02 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read on the Oxford Academic platform and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Democracy is often described in two opposite ways, as either wonderfully resilient or dangerously fragile. Both characterizations can be correct, depending on the context. When Democracy Breaks aims to deepen our understanding of what separates democratic resilience from democratic fragility by focusing on the latter. The volume's collaborators--experts in the history and politics of the societies covered in their chapters--explore eleven episodes of democratic breakdown, from ancient Athens to Weimar Germany to present-day Russia, Turkey, and Venezuela. Strikingly, in every case, various forms of democratic erosion long preceded the final democratic breakdown. Although no single causal factor emerges as decisive, linking together all of the episodes, some important commonalities--including extreme political polarization, explicitly anti-democratic political actors, and significant political violence--stand out across the cases. Moreover, the notion of democratic culture, while admittedly difficult to define and even more difficult to measure, may play a role in all of them. Throughout the volume, the contributors show again and again that the written rules of democracy are insufficient to protect against tyranny. While each case of democratic decay is unique, the patterns that emerge shed much light on the continuing struggle to sustain modern democracies and to assess and respond to the threats they face.

Download or read book People and Their Opinions written by Eric B. Shiraev and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-07-02 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Utilizing both a critical thinking approach and a comparative perspective throughout the text, Sobel and Shiraev provide comprehensive coverage of public opinion while also teaching students the basic skills necessary for measurement, understanding, and interpreting. Written in an accessible and engaging manner, this text provides a unique and practical introduction to the field of public opinion. The book begins by “schooling” the reader in how to think critically and then helps students apply those techniques as they encounter the concepts of public opinion. The text also employs a comparative perspective, demonstrating the effect and nature of public opinion in other countries while also placing American public opinion in context.

Download or read book The 1996 Russian Presidential Election written by Jerry F. Hough and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2010-12-01 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 1996 Russian presidential election is a crucial referendum on the policy of economic reform that had been conducted over the previous five years. This book, written before the election on the basis of two major public opinion surveys at the time of the 1993 and 1995 Duma elections, explores the evolution in Russian thinking, the positions and strategies of the candidates, and the dilemma of the centrists choosing between a president they profoundly dislike and a Communist party they do not trust. In the 1990s, the northern regions of Russia supported free-trade reform and the southern regions protectionism, but this reversed the more normal pattern found in Russian politics a century ago. As the book looks at the psychological and sociological factors that produced the politics of the early 1990s and began to transform it in a more "normal" direction in the mid-1990s, it goes beyond a simple analysis to discuss the more enduring problems of economic and political reform in Russia. A Brookings Occasional Paper

Download or read book The Media In Russia written by Arutunyan, Anna and published by McGraw-Hill Education (UK). This book was released on 2009-09-01 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'The Media in Russia' is an introductive volume for students of various fields, including Russian studies, media studies and political science. It explores the media landscape and sets out to identify the chief challenges that Russian journalists have grappled with throughout the 300-year history of the Russian press.

Download or read book The Communist Party in Post Soviet Russia written by Luke March and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This pioneering analysis uses the results from the first ever Irish election study to provide a comprehensive survey of the motives, outlook and behaviour of voters in the Republic of Ireland. Building on the foundations laid down by previous work on comparative electoral behaviour, it explores long-term influences on vote choice, such as party loyalties and enduring values, as well as short-term ones, such as the economy, the party leaders and the candidates themselves. It also examines how people use their vote and why so many people do not vote at all.Many features of Irish elections make such a detailed study particularly important. The single transferable vote system allows voters an unusual degree of freedom to pick the candidates they prefer, while electoral trends observed elsewhere can be found in a more extreme form in Ireland. For example, attachment to parties is very low, differences between them are often obscure, candidate profiles are very high and turnout is falling rapidly. However, Irish elections defy international trends in other respects, most notably in the degree of personal contact parties and candidates make with their voters. Findings are presented in a manner that is highly accessible to anyone with an interest in elections, electoral systems and electoral behaviour. The book is essential reading for anyone interested in Irish politics and is an important text for students of European Politics, Parties and Elections, Comparative Politics and Political Sociology.

Download or read book The Social History of Post Communist Russia written by Piotr Dutkiewicz and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-03-17 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book tells the untold story of how ordinary Russian people experienced and coped with Russia’s transformations after the end of communism. Unlike most studies of the subject which focus on high politics, developments in the elite and events at the centre, this book, which includes findings from interviews, memoirs, public opinion surveys and press articles and documents from the regions, portrays a multi-ethnic, multi-confessional society with different groups affected by the deep and varied changes in diverse and different ways. The book covers economic developments, social changes, how official policies played out at the grass-roots level, the psychological impact of the changes and the impact on public opinion, and how different regions were affected differently. Overall, the book reveals the hidden dynamics of Russian society, including its formal and informal mechanisms and rules for relating to the state and other citizens, and shows how millions of Russians coped, despite all the odds, and maintained the integrity and stability of the country.

Download or read book Russian Studies and Comparative Politics written by Frederic J. Fleron and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2016-12-27 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book brings together several of the author’s empirical studies that demonstrate the strength and utility of sociologist Robert Merton’s classic middle-range theory for understanding aspects of both Soviet and post-Soviet Russian politics. Some of those studies demonstrate that testing middle-range social science theory could take place even in the Soviet era when there were significant limitations of access to empirical data, and meaningful field research in the USSR was all but impossible. In the introductory chapter, the author explains the need for and advantages of studying Russian and Soviet politics from the perspective of middle-range social science theory. Then follow three chapters analyzing methodological issues in Soviet/post-Soviet studies. The author presents his six empirical studies employing middle-range social science theories to explore in Russia/USSR dimensions of organizations, ideology and decisionmaking, technology transfer and cultural diffusion, political culture, public opinion and democratization, and congruence of authority patterns in state-society relations. The book concludes with a chapter arguing the advantages of thinking theoretically about Russian and Soviet politics with the establishment of a new epistemic community organized around studies employing middle-range theory. This book presents examples of solutions to long-standing debates between area studies and the academic disciplines and between idiographic and nomothetic approaches to knowledge in the social sciences. In contrast to the tradition of Carnivals and Cockfights in Russian/Soviet area studies since the mid-20th Century, the book offers a new way of approaching the study of Russian politics for the 21st Century.

Download or read book International Public Opinion and the Bosnia Crisis written by Eric Shiraev and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2003 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Does public opinion matter in international conflict resolution? Does national foreign policy remain independent of public opinion and the media? International Public Opinion and the Bosnia Crisis examines, through U.S., Canadian, and European case studies, how public reaction impacted democratic governments' response to the ethnic and religious conflict in Bosnia during the period from 1991-1997. Each case study offers an overview of the national media coverage and public reaction to the war in the former Yugoslavia and examines the links between public opinion and political and military intervention in Bosnia. The result is a comprehensive evaluation of the complex relationship between public opinion, media coverage, and foreign policy decision-making.

Download or read book Russia After Communism written by Anders Aslund and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2013-01-25 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Five years have passed since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and a new political and economic system has evolved in Russia. Russia After Communism provides an overall assessment of what has been accomplished and what has failed to date, and where Russia is heading. In a unique collaborative effort, the book features chapters on major issues written by pairs of leading Russian and American scholars. Michael McFaul and Nikolai Petrov analyze the Russian elections since 1989 and assess voting behavior. Scott Bruckner and Lilia Shevtsova address the question of whether Russia has become a stable pluralist society. Martha Brill Olcott and Valery Tishkov focus on the nature of the Russian nation as well as regional relations. Russia has become a market economy, but what kind of capitalism is being formed? Anders Aslund and Mikhail Dmitriev examine the continuing challenge of economic reform. Sherman Garnett and Dmitri Trenin analyze Russia's relations with its nearest neighbor. Stephen Sestanovich examines Russia's place in the world.

Download or read book War with Russia written by Stephen F. Cohen and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2018-11-27 with total page 403 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is America in a new Cold War with Russia? How does a new Cold War affect the safety and security of the United States? Does Vladimir Putin really want to destabilize the West? What should Donald Trump and America’s allies do? America is in a new Cold War with Russia even more dangerous than the one the world barely survived in the twentieth century. The Soviet Union is gone, but the two nuclear superpowers are again locked in political and military confrontations, now from Ukraine to Syria. All of this is exacerbated by Washington’s war-like demonizing of the Kremlin leadership and by Russiagate’s unprecedented allegations. US mainstream media accounts are highly selective and seriously misleading. American “disinformation,” not only Russian, is a growing peril. In War With Russia?, Stephen F. Cohen—the widely acclaimed historian of Soviet and post-Soviet Russia—gives readers a very different, dissenting narrative of this more dangerous new Cold War from its origins in the 1990s, the actual role of Vladimir Putin, and the 2014 Ukrainian crisis to Donald Trump’s election and today’s unprecedented Russiagate allegations. Topics include: Distorting Russia US Follies and Media Malpractices 2016 The Obama Administration Escalates Military Confrontation With Russia Was Putin’s Syria Withdrawal Really A “Surprise”? Trump vs. Triumphalism Has Washington Gone Rogue? Blaming Brexit on Putin and Voters Washington Warmongers, Moscow Prepares Trump Could End the New Cold War The Real Enemies of US Security Kremlin-Baiting President Trump Neo-McCarthyism Is Now Politically Correct Terrorism and Russiagate Cold-War News Not “Fit to Print” Has NATO Expansion Made Anyone Safer? Why Russians Think America Is Attacking Them How Washington Provoked—and Perhaps Lost—a New Nuclear-Arms Race Russia Endorses Putin, The US and UK Condemn Him (Again) Russophobia Sanction Mania Cohen’s views have made him, it is said, “America’s most controversial Russia expert.” Some say this to denounce him, others to laud him as a bold, highly informed critic of US policies and the dangers they have helped to create. War With Russia? gives readers a chance to decide for themselves who is right: are we living, as Cohen argues, in a time of unprecedented perils at home and abroad?

Download or read book The Rhetorical Rise and Demise of Democracy in Russian Political Discourse Volume 3 written by David Cratis Williams and published by Academic Studies PRess. This book was released on 2024-02-20 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Volume Three of this four-volume series, we examine the rhetorical development that occurred during the first two terms of Vladimir Putin’s tenure as president of the Russian Federation. Initially, Putin appeared to follow in the path set by his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, vowing that Russia was, at heart, a European nation and would be a westward facing democracy going forward. He even mentioned partnering with the EU and NATO. Eight years later, at the 2007 Munich Security Conference, Putin excoriated the West for, in his words, attempting to create a “unipolar world” in which NATO expansion threatened Russia’s security, the United States acted as the world’s sole “hegemon,” and Europe simply followed orders, relinquishing any sense of agency in its own affairs.

Download or read book Russian Politics written by Zoltan D. Barany and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2001-08-27 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What went wrong in Russia's decade-old post-communist transition? A group of leading young scholars answer this question by offering assessments of five crucial political arenas during the Yeltsin era: elections, executive-legislative relations, interactions between the central state and the regions, economic reforms, and civil-military relations. All of the contributors recognize that adverse historical legacies have complicated Russian democratization. They challenge structural explanations that emphasize constraints of the pre-existing system, however, and concentrate instead on the importance of elite decisions and institution-building. The authors agree that elites' failure to develop robust political institutions has been a central problem of Russia's post-communist transition. The weakness of the state and its institutions has contributed to a number of serious problems threatening democratic consolidation. These include the tensions between the executive and the legislature, the frail infrastructure for successful market reform, and the absence of proper civilian control over the armed forces.

Download or read book Ibss Political Science 1997 written by British Library of Political and Economic Science and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 1999-01-14 with total page 608 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides an unrivalled overview of intellectual development in political science.

Download or read book Presidential Power in Russia written by Eugene Huskey and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-09-16 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first major assessment of the role of the presidency in Russia's difficult transition form communist rule. Huskey analyzes the establishment and functioning of the Russian presidency as an institution and in relation to the other leading institutions of state: the government, parliament, courts, and regional authorities. Although this is not a biography of the first president, Boris Yeltsin, his allies and his rivals loom large in the study of a critical phase in the creation of a new Russian political system.