Customer Reviews:
Decent analysis, but bad editing.......2003-04-26
To start off, the editors of this book must have been asleep when it crossed their desks: the numerous erros in spelling and grammar interrupt a generally lucid writing style, with numerous, critical errors even in charts and graphs. The worst editorial aspect of the book is that in several places, entire passages are repeated, sometimes immediately, other times in a different chapter. Being in the field, I know economists are not the most skilled writers, but I place all the blame at the doorstep of the publishing house.
That said, the book is fairly good at getting its point across. While the authors' stance on capitalism-vs-communism is clear, they generally present the facts in a clear manner, and they are evenhanded in their treatment of the opposing theories.
A servicable, if cursory, introduction to Soviet and transitional Russian policy. That said, though, I strongly suggest that you buy it used if at all possible. It's really not worth the $$$$ Amazon wants for it.
Book Description
What is the Russian Mafia? This unique book thoroughly researches this question and challenges widely-held views. The author charts the emergence of the Russian Mafia in the context of the transition to the market, the privatization of protection and pervasive corruption. The ability of the Russian State to define property rights and protect contracts is compared to the services offered by fragments of the state apparatus, private security firms, ethnic crime groups, the Cossacks and the Mafia. Past criminal traditions, rituals and norms have been resuscitated by the Mafia of today to forge a powerful new identity and compete in a crowded market for protection. The book draws on and reports of undercover police operations, in-depth interviews conducted over several years with the victims of the Mafia, criminals and officials, and documents from the Gulag archives. It also provides a comparative study, making references to other Mafia (the Japanese Yakuza, the Sicilian Cosa Nostra, American-Italian Mafia and the Hong Kong Triads).
Customer Reviews:
Corruption piggybacks on capitalism as Russian entrepreneurs balance profits and protection from organized crime........2007-03-20
Running a business in Russia is every bit as unsavory as you might imagine, according to Federico Varese's thoroughly researched look at that nation's organized (but not very organized) criminals. Even the lowliest shopkeeper faces shakedowns from drug addicts and teenage thugs, as well as bribe demands from tax collectors and police. In this chaotic climate, the protection racket thrives. Pay the right person, and not only will the shakedowns end - you might even gain a business partner and a fishing buddy. But the penalties for making the wrong move can be severe. One shopkeeper who refused to pay up was burned to death in his store. Varese offers an intricately detailed look at the realities of the Russian Mafia. His excellent reporting is undermined only by his frequently academic writing style. We recommend this guide to those who are doing business in Russia or who hope to. Caveat entrepreneur.
Excellent account of collective criminality.......2005-04-23
Excellent account of collective criminality, June 4, 2004
Reviewer: copilotsb from Ingatestone, Essex United Kingdom
No understanding of contemporary Russian society is possible without an understanding of how the oligarchs raped the old State to secure their wealth. And no account of that process is complete without recourse to this account of the way that organized criminality supported and prompted mass theft. The oligarchs -- the kleptocracy -- had a mutually supportive relationship with organized crime, as this book demonstrates. Written with academic rigour yet accessible to the general reader this is an outstanding achievement and deserves a wide readership -- especially among the newspaper editors and politicians who fawn over the economic criminals who now dominate Russian society simply because they have lifted the collective wealth of ordinary Russians from their pockets and placed it in their own. An excellent companion to David Slatter's "Darkness at Dawn" or Chrystia Freeland's "Sale of the Century".
Speculative, not to recommend.......2004-02-16
Spending a fair amount of time perusing criminological literature I was expecting this book with great interest. Only to be disappointed: presented as a serious study on Russian mafia this book is a highly speculative piece of journalism. Unfortunately, however, it is not as easy to read. A windy introduction is followed by a collection of poorly structured chapters stuffed with unnecessary specialist jargon.
Average customer rating:
- very good summary of the 90's
- Well researched and thorough, but not a great book.
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Yeltsin's Russia: Myths and Reality
Liliia Fedorovna Shevtsova
Manufacturer: Brookings Inst
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Putin's Russia (Revised Edition)
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ASIN: 0870031279 |
Book Description
In this comprehensive assessment of what has happened in Russia since 1991—what has been accomplished and what so has so far failed—the author argues that the new situation in Russia cannot be defined simply in terms of either authoritarianism or liberal democracy. The reality is more complicated—a heterogeneous patchwork of despotism, liberalism, populism, paternalism, and democracy all coexisting. Russia's political life is marked by plurality of views and actors. Opposition movements are proliferating. On the economic front, Russia crossed the threshold to a market economy. Strides have been made in providing guarantees for individual liberties. Russians turn out to vote, for instance, in numbers that put US voters to shame. These advances are impressive. Yet Russia is still struggling desperately to evolve from its Soviet past. New conflicts emerged that are now beginning to act as a brake on reform. The basic problems of state-building have yet to be resolved: defining the nation in an ethnically mixed population, building consensus on power-sharing among federal power and regional leaders, creating a meaningful post-superpower international role.
Shevtsova analyzes the major issues of Russian development: the behavior of major interest groups, the emergence of new oligarchic clans, the clashes of branches of power and what is behind them, the real causes of Chechen war, the interaction of stability and instability. She scrutinizes the major political personalities who have had and continue to have an impact on Russian developments--Gaidar, Rutzkoi, Kchasbulatov, Chernomyrdin, Chubais. The main focus is on Yeltsin, who has managed stunning political transformations--from communist to populist, to liberal, democrat, and statist. Over and over, he has regained preeminence at the very moment when even his own supporters had virtually written him off. Much will depend on the manner, character, and timing of his departure from the political scene--as well as on the legacy he leaves behind.
Customer Reviews:
very good summary of the 90's.......2007-10-09
It was for a class, but anyone interested in the Yeltsin's 90's period in Russia, it is a very good consice summary of events behind the red tape.
Well researched and thorough, but not a great book........1999-08-16
This book provides a chronological history of political events in Russia under Yeltsin. It is well researched and very thorough, but it has some problems that keep it from being a great book.
There is little social and economic context provided. It assumes the reader has a knowledge of what social and economic forces are impinging on the political events. Who for example are the "oligarchs," or the "natural monopolies," and what role do they play? This gets little explanation.
This is not an insider's story. There is no feeling of seeing deeply into the different personalities. You can argue that the book is about history and is not investigative reporting, but nevertheless the 2-dimensionality of the main players in the drama leaves the book flat.
There is nothing to help the reader separate out the more significant from the less significant events. This is an important role for the historian, to bring out the defining and pivotal moments of historical events. This book is simply a chronology.
The book gives a glimpse into the nature of politics in Russia today and for this reason it is valuable. But the academic historian will find it more valuable than the general reader who, like me, may find it a disappointment.
Book Description
This book offers the most comprehensive empirical analysis of the economic transformation of the countries comprising the former Soviet bloc during the first decade after communism. It debunks many myths, seeing transition as a struggle between radical reformers and those thriving on rent seeking. Privatization has undoubtedly been beneficial, and its positive effects will grow over time. The main problem has been the continuation of large, unregulated and ubiquitous state apparatuses living on corruption, while no country has suffered from too radical reforms. Where malpractices of the elite can be checked, market reforms and democracy have proceeded together.
Customer Reviews:
Market Bolshevism.......2003-02-16
Aslund can only be described as a right-wing free market ideologue bent on coloring the Post-Soviet transition in the most glowing terms for free markets and the IMF. Read any unbiased author and some clear and valid critiques of the "shock therapy" economics that Russia endured are explained. Aslund, on the other hand believes that a problem like crime, endemic in post-Soviet Russia, only occurs because of the imperfect transition to completely free markets. Believing that once the markets are completely free and unfettered crime will magically disappear as the economic incentive decrease and opportunity costs rise. Thouroughly unconving to me, or anyone else who believes in the costs of social turmoil.
Read this book only if you want to know how the "Washington Consensus" works and the lengths that one of their own will go to justify (at times the justification is so one sided it is humorous, is anyone comforted that the murder rate in Russia is still only a fraction of Colombia's?, Aslund, apparently is....) their damaging and ill-conceived policies.
Book Description
In order to understand today's Russia and former Soviet republics, it is vital to consider their socialist past. Caroline Humphrey, one of anthropology's most highly regarded thinkers on a number of topics including consumption, identity, and ritual, is the ideal guide to the intricacies of post-Soviet culture. The Unmaking of Soviet Life brings together ten of Humphrey's best essays, which cover, geographically, Central Russia, Siberia, and Mongolia; and thematically, the politics of locality, property, and persons.
Bridging the strongest of Humphrey's work from 1991 to 2001, the essays do a great deal to demystify the sensational topics of mafia, barter, bribery, and the new shamanism by locating them in the lived experiences of a wide range of subjects. The Unmaking of Soviet Life includes a foreword and introductory paragraphs by Bruce Grant and Nancy Ries that precede each essay.
Book Description
The Burdens of Freedom is a history of fifteen countries -- some newly-created -- as they make their way from communism to the present day. For some, the story ends happily, with triumphant entry into the European Union in 2004. Others are caught in limbo, destroyed by nationalist politics, war, and genocide, or crippled by corrupt political practices. Domestically, each country, and the region as a whole, has seen a divide emerge between winners and losers, as the emergence from one particular political and economic system has proved easy for some social groups, impossible for others. Both the winners and losers, though, represent the New Europe, moving simultaneously forward to democracy, unity, and prosperity, and toward national division, corruption, and economic disparity.
Book Description
This book examines the little-known phenomenon of blat--the use of informal contacts and personal networks to obtain goods and services under the rationing that pervaded Soviet Russia. Alena Ledeneva analyzes the historical, socioeconomic and cultural aspects of blat, and explores its implications for post-Soviet Russia. The political and economic reforms introduced since the collapse of the Soviet Union have radically affected everyday practices, but an understanding of blat remains crucial for interpreting the social, economic and criminal problems that affect the development of a market economy in post-Soviet Russia.
Book Description
This book is a short history of Russia since the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe. In a matter of months, Russia was apparently demoted from "evil empire" to despondent poor relation of the prosperous West. Yet the country also seemed extraordinarily -- and alarmingly -- open to all manner of political outcomes: from the return of Communism to the creation and consolidation of liberal democracy. Many of the scripts written for Russia in 1991 have had to be drastically revised in subsequent years. This book is a historian’s attempt to stand back from the turbulent post-Soviet era and inquire into the nature of the "Second Russian Revolution."
Average customer rating:
- Winner of the 2003 AAASS Marshall Shulman Book Prize
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National Purpose In The World Economy: Post-Soviet States In Comparative Perspective (Cornell Studies in Political Economy)
Rawi Abdelal
Manufacturer: Cornell University Press
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ASIN: 0801489776 |
Book Description
How do national identities affect the world economy? Building on the insight that nationalisms and national identities endow economic policy with social purpose, Rawi Abdelal proposes a novel theoretical framework, a distinctively Nationalist perspective on international political economy, to answer this question. Using this framework, and drawing on field research in Lithuania, Ukraine, and Belarus, he provides an in-depth look at the link between national identity and the economic policies of the new states formed by the breakup of the Soviet Union.
All these states, from the Baltic coast to central Asia, were economically dependent on Russia during the 1990s. However, they reacted very differently to that dependence, and their reactions can be traced, Abdelal contends, to their individual societies. Some, such as Belarus, found dependence inevitable and sought economic reintegration with Russia. Others, like Lithuania, interpreted dependence as a large-scale security threat and reoriented their economies away from Russia. A third group, typified by Ukraine, demonstrated no coherent economic policy at all regarding dependence.
Abdelal distinguishes the Nationalist tradition in international political economy from the Realist tradition, and shows that economic nationalism is different than mercantilism. He demonstrates the ways that national identity affects economic policy and explains why some governments seek economic autonomy while others prefer regional reintegration. He then applies his approach to other cases of economic reorganization after the end of empire--eastern Europe in the 1920s after the Habsburgs, 1950s Indonesia, and French West Africa in the 1960s.
Customer Reviews:
Winner of the 2003 AAASS Marshall Shulman Book Prize.......2003-02-22
2002 Marshall Shulman Book Prize sponsored by the Harriman Institute at Columbia University is awarded annually by the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (AAASS) for an outstanding monograph on the international behavior of the countries of the former communist bloc.
The award committee wrote:
In National Purpose in the World Economy: Post-Soviet States in Comparative Perspective, Rawi Abdelal combines considerable theoretical sophistication with extraordinarily in-depth empirical grounding. Asking how states develop foreign economic policy in the aftermath of imperial domination, Abdelal builds a new approach distinct from the dominant realist and liberal paradigms within the field of International Political Economy. He argues that neither statist realism nor economic liberalism captures the importance of national identity, and he demonstrates the power of his nationalist approach by comparing the foreign economic policies developed by Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine after the collapse of the Soviet Union. His rich case studies are based on extensive interviewing with the key actors. Finally, lest the readers believe the argument is relevant only to the experience of post-Soviet states, Abdelal concludes with additional evidence from the experience of post-Habsburg Eastern Europe, 1950s Indonesia, and 1960s French West Africa. In this outstanding book, Abdelal makes a major contribution to the fields of post-Soviet studies and international political economy.
The 2002 Marshall Shulman Book Prize was awarded during the AAASS National Convention in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on November 23, 2002 at the Saturday Reception and Awards Presentation.
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