Russian Politics Today: Stability and Fragility

Edited by Susanne A. Wengle, University of Notre Dame

Russian Politics Today: Stability and Fragility provides an accessible and nuanced introduction to contemporary Russian politics at a time of increasing uncertainty. Using the theme of stability versus fragility as its overarching framework, this innovative textbook explores the forces that shape Russia’s politics, economy, and society. The volume provides up-to-date coverage of core themes – Russia’s strong presidency, its weak party system, the role of civil society, and its dependence on oil and gas revenues – alongside path-breaking chapters on the politics of race, class, gender, sexuality, and the environment. An international and diverse team of experts presents the most comprehensive available account of the evolution of Russian politics in the post-Soviet era, providing the tools for interpreting the past and the present while also offering a template for understanding future developments.

Read More © Russian Politics Today: Stability and Fragility (Cambridge University Press)

Contents

1 – Stability and Fragility in Contemporary Russian Politics

By Susanne A. Wengle

Part I – Political Institutions

2 – Russia’s Superpresidency

By Jody LaPorte

3 – Party Politics and Voting in Russia

By Ora John Reuter, David Szakonyi

4 – Law, Legal Enforcement, and the Courts

By Lauren A. McCarthy

5 – The Pendulum of Center–Region Relations in Russia

By Evgenia Olimpieva

6 – The Politics of Race, Racism, and Antiracism

By Nikolay Zakharov

7 – The Politics of Gender and Sexuality

By Alexander Sasha Kondakov, Alexandra Novitskaya

8 – The Foreign Policy of an Aspiring Great Power

By Andrei P. Tsygankov

Part II – Political Economy

9 – Property Rights: Forging the Institutional Foundations for Russia’s Market Economy

By Jordan Gans-Morse

10 – Economic Policies and Russia’s Global Economic Integration

By Laura Solanko

11 – Russia’s Oil and Gas Industry: Soviet Inheritance and Post-Soviet Evolution

By Mikhail Strokan, Rudra Sil

12 – Russia’s Oligarchs

By Stanislav Markus

13 – Inequality and Social Policy in Russia

By Ilya Matveev, Sarah Wilson Sokhey

14 – Russian Labor: Between Stability and Stagnation

By Stephen Crowley

15 – Everyday Economic Life on Russia’s Margins

By Ann-Mari Sätre, Leo Granberg

Part III – Politics and Society

16 – Russia’s Conservative Forces and the State: A Dynamic Balancing Act

By Marlene Laruelle

17 – The Russian Media

By Scott Gehlbach, Tetyana Lokot, Anton Shirikov

18 – Civil Society in Russia: Compliance with and Resistance to the State

By Natalia Forrat

19 – Protest in Russia: Discovering Power

By Samuel A. Greene

20 – The Politics of the Environment in Russia: Extraction, Climate Change, and Indigenous Rights in the Russian Arctic

By Laura A. Henry

21 – Ethnicity and Religion in Russia

By Şener Aktürk