Russia's transition from communism holds great significance not only for itself but also for the wider world. This collection of essays examines the spectrum of Russia's transition since 1991 - considering not only the pattern of events but also what the changes have meant for Russians themselves.

How has the collapse of communism across Europe and Eurasia changed gender? In addition to acknowledging the huge costs that fell heavily on women, Living Gender after Communism suggests that moving away from communism in Europe and Eurasia has provided an opportunity for gender to multiply, from varieties of neo-traditionalism to feminisms, from overt negotiation of femininity to denials of gender. This development, in turn, has enabled some women in the region to construct their own gendered identities for their own political, economic, or social purposes. Beginning with an understanding of gender as both a society-wide institution that regulates people's lives and a cultural "toolkit" which individuals and groups may use to subvert or "transvalue" the sex/gender system, the contributors to this volume provide detailed case studies from Belarus, Bosnia, the Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Russia, and Ukraine. This collaboration between young scholars -- most from postcommunist states -- and experts in the fields of gender studies and postcommunism combines intimate knowledge of the area with sophisticated gender analysis to examine just how much gender realities have shifted in the region. Contributors are Anna Brzozowska, Karen Dawisha, Nanette Funk, Ewa Grigar, Azra Hromadzic, Janet Elise Johnson, Anne-Marie Kramer, Tania Rands Lyon, Jean C. Robinson, Iulia Shevchenko, Svitlana Taraban, and Shannon Woodcock.

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.

Developments of the 1970s suggest the need for a new approach to the analysis of communism in Western Europe. During the early years after World War II, Western observers tended to look upon the West European Communist parties as fundamentally an extension of communism in the USSR-as national only in the narrow, formal sense. With the growing signs

Christopher Pierson assesses the evidence of terminal decline, but finds rather a whole series of deep-seated challenges to traditional forms of socialist and social democratic thinking. Above all, these problems are to be found in the political economy of social democracy and its commitment to incremental change in the context of an increasingly globalized market economy. The latter chapters of the book are devoted to an assessment of market socialism, one of the most vigorous and innovative attempts to seek to recast socialist aspirations under these quite changed circumstances. In essence, market socialism represents an attempt to reconcile new forms of social ownership with the seeming ubiquity of the market. Having outlined this position, Pierson carefully and systematically critiques it and, in the process, develops a set of distinctive arguments about the nature of social ownership, the potential of the labor-managed economy, and the appropriate forms for an extension of economic democracy.

The last quarter of the twentieth century was marked by two dramatic political trends that altered many of the world's regimes: the global resurgence of democracy and the collapse of communism. Was the process that brought down communism in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union fundamentally different from the process that gave birth to new democracies in other regions of the world? Were the transitions away from communism mostly like or mostly unlike the transitions away from authoritarianism that took place elsewhere? Is the challenge of building and consolidating democracy under postcommunist conditions unique, or can one apply lessons learned from other new democracies? The essays collected in this volume explore these questions, while tracing how the countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union have fared in the decade following the fall of communism. Contributors: Anders Åslund, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C.; Leszek Balcerowicz, Warsaw School of Economics; Archie Brown, Oxford University and St. Antony's College; Zbigniew Brzezinski, Johns Hopkins University, a former U.S. national security advisor; Valerie Bunce, Cornell University; Nadia Diuk, National Endowment for Democracy in Washington, D.C.; M. Steven Fish, University of California–Berkeley; Charles H. Fairbanks Jr., the Johns Hopkins University; Bronislaw Geremek, former foreign minister of Poland; John Higley, University of Texas at Austin; Judith Kullberg, University of Michigan–Ann Arbor; Mart Laar, prime minister of Estonia; Michael McFaul, Stanford University; Ghia Nodia, Tbilisi State University; Jan Pakulski, University of Tasmania in Australia; Richard Rose, University of Strathclyde in Glasgow; Jacques Rupnik, College of Europe in Bruges; Lilia Shevtsova, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C.; Aleksander Smolar, Stefan Batory Foundation in Warsaw and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris; G.M. Tamás formerly of Georgetown University; Vladimir Tismaneanu, University of Maryland at College Park; Grigory Yavlinsky, member of the Russian State Duma (parliament).

How homophobic backlash unexpectedly strengthened mobilization for LGBT political rights in post-communist Europe While LGBT activism has increased worldwide, there has been strong backlash against LGBT people in Eastern Europe. Although Russia is the most prominent anti-gay regime in the region, LGBT individuals in other post-communist countries also suffer from discriminatory laws and prejudiced social institutions. Combining an historical overview with interviews and case studies in Poland, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic, Conor O’Dwyer analyzes the development and impact of LGBT movements in post-communist Eastern and Central Europe. O’Dwyer argues that backlash against LGBT individuals has had the paradoxical effect of encouraging stronger and more organized activism, significantly impacting the social movement landscape in the region. As these peripheral Eastern and Central European countries vie for inclusion or at least recognition in the increasingly LGBT-friendly European Union, activist groups and organizations have become even more emboldened to push for change. Using fieldwork in five countries and interviews with activists, organizers, and public officials, O’Dwyer explores the intricacies of these LGBT social movements and their structures, functions, and impact. The book provides a unique and engaging exploration of LGBT rights groups in Eastern and Central Europe and their ability to serve as models for future movements attempting to resist backlash. Thorough, theoretically grounded, and empirically sound, Coming Out of Communism is sure to be a significant work in the study of LGBT politics, European politics, and social movements.

One dilemma facing new or newly independent states, such as those of the former Soviet Union, is how to design effective legislatures when political parties are weak and fragmented or even nonexistent. In this book, Joel M. Ostrow develops a comparative institutional framework to explain marked differences in behavior across three post-Soviet legislatures: the Russian Supreme Soviet, the Russian State Duma, and the Estonian legislature. He argues that these differences in ability to manage political conflict can be explained in large measure by the design of the legislatures. Most significant is the choice of whether and how to include parties or partisan factors. Legislatures are an omnipresent component of modern democracy. Ostrow's comparative institutional design confirms the presumption of many political scientists that parties are essential for legislative consensus building. However it also reveals that parties may have paradoxical effects on a legislature's performance. In following the budget process in Russia and Estonia, Ostrow explores the consequences that different institutional designs have had on post-Soviet legislatures. He has found that how parties are included may determine how capable a legislature is at managing political conflict, both internally and with the executive branch of the government. The author was present at many of the committee hearings and legislative sessions he describes, and his firsthand observations and interviews with committee members enhance his analysis.

Publisher Description

During the first two decades of the twentieth century, amidst an extraordinary international upsurge in strike action, the ideas of revolutionary syndicalism developed into a major influence within the world wide trade union movement. Committed to destroying capitalism through direct industrial action and revolutionary trade union struggle, the movement raised fundamental questions about the need for new and democratic forms of power through which workers could collectively manage industry and society. This study provides an all-embracing comparative analysis of the dynamics and trajectory of the syndicalist movement in six specific countries: France, Spain, Italy, America, Britain and Ireland. This is achieved through an examination of the philosophy of syndicalism and the varied forms that syndicalist organisations assumed; the distinctive economic, social and political context in which they emerged; the extent to which syndicalism influenced wider politics; and the reasons for its subsequent demise. The volume also provides the first ever systematic examination of the relationship between syndicalism and communism, focusing on the ideological and political conversion to communism undertaken by some of the syndicalist movement's leading figures and the degree of synthesis between the two traditions within the new communist parties that emerged in the early 1920s.