Imagined Economies: The Sources of Russian Regionalism (Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics) - Softcover

Herrera, Yoshiko M.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0521534739 ISBN 13: 9780521534734

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2008

Synopsis

This book examines the economic bases of regional sovereignty movements in the Russian Federation from 1990-1993. The analysis is based on an original data set of Russian regional sovereignty movements and the author employs a variety of methods including quantitative statistical analysis, as well as qualitative case studies of Sverdlovsk and Samara oblasts using systematic content analysis of local newspaper articles. The central finding of the book is that variation in Russian regional activism is explained not by differences in economic conditions but by differences in the construction or imagination of economic interests; to put it in the language of other contemporary debates, economic advantage and disadvantage are as imagined as nations. In arguing that regional economic interests are inter-subjective, contingent, and institutionally specific, the book addresses a major question in political economy, namely the origin of economic interests. In addition, by engaging the nationalism literature, the book expands the constructivist paradigm to the development of economic interests.

About this title

Book Description:

This book analyses the economic bases of regional sovereignty movements in the Russian Federation from 1990-1993. It addresses the literature on both nationalism and political economy and provides a novel analytic framework for explaining the origin of economic interests and the development of sovereignty movements.

About the Author:

Yoshiko M. Herrera received her B.A. from Dartmouth College (1992), and M.A. (1994) and Ph.D. (1999) from the University of Chicago. From 1999-2007 she taught at Harvard University, as an Assistant Professor and then as John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences in the Department of Government. Since 2007 she has been Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Her research interests include identity and ethnic politics, political economy, bureaucratic reform, qualitative methods, public health, and the states of the Former Soviet Union.

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0521534739
• ISBN 13: 9780521534734
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320