Building an Authoritarian Polity: Russia in Post-Soviet Times - Softcover

Gill, Graeme

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1107562422 ISBN 13: 9781107562424

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2015

Synopsis

Graeme Gill shows why post-Soviet Russia has failed to achieve the democratic outcome widely expected at the time of the fall of the Soviet Union, instead emerging as an authoritarian polity. He argues that the decisions of dominant elites have been central to the construction of an authoritarian polity, and explains how this occurred in four areas of regime-building: the relationship with the populace, the manipulation of the electoral system, the internal structure of the regime itself, and the way the political elite has been stabilised. Instead of the common 'Yeltsin is a democrat, Putin an autocrat' paradigm, this book shows how Putin built upon the foundations that Yeltsin had laid. It offers a new framework for the study of an authoritarian political system, and is therefore relevant not just to Russia but to many other authoritarian polities.

About this title

Book Description:

Shows why post-Soviet Russia followed an authoritarian political trajectory rather than the democratic one widely expected at the time of the fall of the Soviet Union. Graeme Gill also introduces a new framework for the study of an authoritarian political system.

About the Author:

Graeme Gill is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney. He specialises in Soviet and Russian politics and has published nineteen books and more than eighty papers in this area, including Symbolism and Regime Change in Russia (Cambridge, 2013) and Symbols and Legitimacy in Soviet Politics (Cambridge, 2011).

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1107562422
• ISBN 13: 9781107562424
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 238