General

The view that Russia has taken a decisive shift towards authoritarianism may be premature, but there is no doubt that its democracy is in crisis. In this original and dynamic analysis of the fundamental processes shaping contemporary Russian politics,...

Zimbabwe's guerrilla veterans have burst into the international media as the storm troopers in Mugabe's new war of economic liberation. In this book, Norma Kriger gives the unfolding contemporary drama a historical background, and shows continuities...

The violence following the break-up of the former Yugoslavia has lasted for more than a decade and continues to mark the region. This 2006 volume analyses the causes of the conflict and describes its course from the onset of war in Croatia to...

Overcoming Intolerance in South Africa investigates the degree to which the political culture of South Africa - the beliefs, values, and attitudes toward politics held by ordinary people - impedes or promotes the consolidation of democratic reform. One...

The authors of Informal Politics in East Asia, first published in 2000, argue that political interaction within the informal dimension (behind-the-scenes politics) is at least as common and influential, though not always as transparent or coherent, as...

Edited by two of the world's leading analysts of post-communist politics, this book brings together distinguished specialists on the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania), Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. The authors analyse the...

Edited by two of the world's leading analysts of post communist politics, this book brings together distinguished specialists on Bosnia-Hercegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Slovenia, Serbia/Montenegro, Albania, Bulgaria, and Romania. The authors analyse the...

Edited by two of the world's leading analysts of postcommunist politics, this 1997 book brings together distinguished specialists on the former communist countries of Russia and the Western Newly Independent States. Chapters on Belarus, Moldova, and...

Edited by two of the world's leading analysts of post communist politics, this book brings together distinguished specialists on the former Soviet states of Central Asia and the Caucasus. Chapters on Kazakhstan, Kyrkyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan,...

Just as the Bolshevik revolution defined the early politics of the 20th century, the transition from communist rule is the landmark event of its final years. In this important 1999 textbook, based on a wealth of references including interview and survey...

Since its publication in 1993, Nations and Politics in the Soviet Successor-States edited by Ian Bremmer and Ray Taras has established itself internationally as the genuinely comprehensive, systematic and rigorous analysis of the nation- and...

Blending first hand accounts of grassroots politics with an original theory of social relations under communism, this 1997 book seeks to explain one of the seminal events of this century: the rebirth of politics in Russia amid the collapse of the USSR...

Blending first hand accounts of grassroots politics with an original theory of social relations under communism, this 1997 book seeks to explain one of the seminal events of this century: the rebirth of politics in Russia amid the collapse of the USSR...

Latvia in Transition provides the material necessary to understand present-day Latvia. The author examines the main events, processes and problems of the transitional period of this country from a dependent and Moscow-dominated Soviet Republic to an...

Russians are the world's heaviest drinkers. The consumption of alcohol permeates family life, shapes the economy, and plays an occasional but striking role in the political leadership. It was in Russia in the 1980s that the most sustained attempt of its...

Alyssa Ayres' fascinating study examines Pakistan's troubled history by exploring the importance of culture to political legitimacy. Early leaders selected Urdu as the natural symbol of the nation's great cultural past, but due to its limited base great...

This book seeks to understand the evolution of Soviet policy towards the countries of South Asia, the regional constraints and policy opportunities which influenced the policy process in Moscow, and the relationship between Soviet perceptions and policy...

The Soviet Union remains a superpower with global security interests and ambitions. The doctrines, practices, and capabilities of its still formidable armed forces are shaping world politics just at the same time that the future of the country that...

The Soviet Union remains a superpower with global security interests and ambitions. The doctrines, practices, and capabilities of its still formidable armed forces are shaping world politics just at the same time that the future of the country that...

In this 1990 book Gareth Winrow provides a comprehensive account in English of East German foreign policy towards Africa since the early 1950s. He challenges the view of the GDR's role in Africa as solely that of a proxy for the Soviet Union. Instead, as...

This study investigates the overall Soviet conception of non-alignment in the Third World and assesses Soviet policy in relation to this issue. The author argues that official Soviet encouragement for the policy of non-alignment and Soviet support for...

The emergence of East Germany as one of Europe's most vocal advocates of East-West detente in the 1980s represented a remarkable political transformation. Prior to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, East Germany had been amongst the most intransigent...

Ideology in a Socialist State describes the changes in the ideology of Poland's rulers from the October events of 1956 to the lifting of martial law in 1983. Ideology has been one of the most debated and equivocal concepts in social science, yet this is...

Thirty years ago, China was emerging from one of the most traumatic periods in its history. The Chinese people had been ravaged by long years of domestic struggle, terrible famine and economic and political isolation. Today, China has the world's second...

In Russian politics reliable information is scarce, formal relations are of relatively little significance, and things are seldom what they seem. Applying an original theory of political language to narratives taken from interviews with 34 of Russia's...

As countries in Asia try to create unified polities, many face challenges from minority groups within their own borders seeking independence. This volume brings together international experts on countries in all regions of Asia to debate how differently...

Gregory Gause's masterful book is the first to offer a comprehensive account of the international politics in the Persian Gulf across nearly four decades. The story begins in 1971 when Great Britain ended its protectorate relations with the smaller...

How do Soviet politicians rise to power? How are national and regional regimes formed? How are conflicting political interests brought together as policies are developed in the Soviet Union? In Patronage and Politics in the USSR, first published in 1991,...

Jonathan Valdez explores the role of ideology in the maintenance and subsequent collapse of Soviet influence in Eastern Europe. He looks at how Marxism-Leninism was used to legitimise Soviet influence in Eastern Europe, to rationalise policy decisions,...

In this 1992 book Professor Peter Rutland analyses the role played by regional and local organs of the Soviet Communist Party in economic management from 1970 to 1990. Using a range of political and economic journals, newspapers and academic...

Uruguay was once the most stable democracy in Latin America, but in 1973 the military seized power for the first time. Political parties did not disappear, however, even though they were made illegal. By the 1980s Uruguay's generals were anxious to find...

This full-length study of the relations between Church and state in communist regime is set in the only communist country where free research into the subject has ever been possible; it gains additional interest and topicality from the identification of...

Ideology in a Socialist State describes the changes in the ideology of Poland's rulers from the October events of 1956 to the lifting of martial law in 1983. Ideology has been one of the most debated and equivocal concepts in social science, yet this is...

The late twentieth century witnessed remarkable changes in Soviet domestic and foreign policy. Eastern Europe sprang free of the country that held it in its grip for over forty years. The Soviet leadership has accepted the reunification of Germany and...

Democracy is not just a matter of constitutions, parliaments, elections, parties and the rule of law. In order to see if or how democracy works, we must attend to what people make of it, and what they think they are doing as they engage with politics, or...

This book considers the remarkable transformations that have taken place in India since 1980, a period that began with the assassination of the formidable Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Her death, and that of her son Rajiv seven years later, marked the...

The violence following the break-up of the former Yugoslavia has lasted for more than a decade and continues to mark the region. This 2006 volume analyses the causes of the conflict and describes its course from the onset of war in Croatia to...

A fresh and compelling interpretation of Russian politics by a leading authority, this textbook focuses on political developments in the world's largest country under Putin and Medvedev. Using a wealth of primary sources, it covers economic, social and...

This book examines the coexistence of crony capitalism and traditionally democratic institutions such as political competition and elections in Russia after the collapse of communism. The combination, Gulnaz Sharafutdinova argues, has produced a distinct...

Russia's renewal since the collapse of Communism has proved extraordinarily disturbed, and was marked by escalating conflict between President Yeltsin and the Congress of People's Deputies inherited from the Soviet era. This culminated in insurrection...