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"Constitutions Soviet Union."
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Russian Politics and Society
Sakwa's Russian Politics and Society is the most comprehensive study of Russia's post-communist political development.It has, since its first publication in 1993, become an indispensable guide for all those who need to know about the current political scene in Russia, about the country's political stability and about the future of democracy under.
eBook
Chinese-Style Constitutionalism: On Backer's Chinese Party-State Constitutionalism
Currently, besides traditional national constitutionalism, there are three general approaches to constitutionalism in the world: transnational constitutionalism, theocratic constitutionalism, and party-state constitutionalism. The focus of this article is on Larry Backer's research concerning China's party-state system. Party-state constitutionalism is rooted in Marxism-Leninism, and was initially put into practice by the former Soviet Union. The People's Republic of China in its early years largely followed in the USSR's footsteps and developed its constitutional system under the traditional Soviet framework. However, since 1982, the Chinese party-state constitutional system has undergone several major reforms, and China has been gradually transforming into a \"single-party constitutional state.\" Grounded in the separation of powers between the party and the state, this new constitutional model serves to further the rule of law, reaffirm the paramount authority of the constitution, and dynamically balance the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP's) leadership position with the rule of law. The CCP, being an articulator of social norms and values, provides the substantive norms and values that form the basis of the rule-of-law constitution. The constitution, in turn, serves to limit the behavior of the party, so that the CCP will be subject to the constraints of the constitution and the rule of law.
Journal Article
The Imperfect Union
In the mid-summer of 1989 the German Democratic Republic-- known as the GDR or East Germany--was an autocratic state led by an entrenched Communist Party. A loyal member of the Warsaw Pact, it was a counterpart of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), which it confronted with a mixture of hostility and grudging accommodation across the divide created by the Cold War. Over the following year and a half, dramatic changes occurred in the political system of East Germany and culminated in the GDR's \"accession\" to the Federal Republic itself. Yet the end of Germany's division evoked its own new and very bitter constitutional problems.The Imperfect Uniondiscusses these issues and shows that they are at the core of a great event of political, economic, and social history.
Part I analyzes the constitutional history of eastern Germany from 1945 through the constitutional changes of 1989-1990 and beyond to the constitutions of the re-created east German states. Part II analyzes the Unification Treaty and the numerous problems arising from it: the fate of expropriated property on unification; the unification of the disparate eastern and western abortion regimes; the transformation of East German institutions, such as the civil service, the universities, and the judiciary; prosecution of former GDR leaders and officials; the \"rehabilitation\" and compensation of GDR victims; and the issues raised by the fateful legacy of the files of the East German secret police. Part III examines the external aspects of unification.
eBook
RUSSIA’S NEW SOFT POWER: THE MIR CARD SYSTEM
After the onset of Western sanctions in 2014, the Russian National Card Payment System (NSPK) and its corresponding Mir bank cards launched the following year. Five years later, estimates show that 56 million people are using Mir cards, more than 20 percent of Russia’s bank card market and will be operational in twelve foreign countries. Traditionally, scholars have examined Russian soft power as aiming to integrate post-Soviet countries with Russia and Central Asian countries through promoting beneficial economic and cultural relationships. With the Mir card system, Russia is seeking primarily to become less dependent on a dollar-dominated financial system, as well as to avoid potentially increasing US sanctions and to overarchingly seek to build a multipolar system. This research will investigate the Mir card system.
Journal Article
Constitution and narrative: peculiarities of rhetoric and genre in the foundational laws of the USSR and the Russian federation
Constitutions are not just legal texts but form a narrative with an engaging plot, a hierarchy of actors and a distinct ideology. They can be read and interpreted as literary texts. The four constitutions in 20th century Russia (1924, 1936, 1977, 1993) can be attributed to specific genres (drama, fairy tale, gospel, performance). Moreover, they interact closely with the official culture of their time (painting, collage, film, literature). The constitutions serve an important task in the cultural self-definition of Russian society which as a rule occurred in moments of ideological crisis. The case of Russia is especially intriguing since the Utopian project of a just society needed in every stage of its evolution (revolution, consolidation, \"developed socialism\", postcommunism) a new convincing design which was able to guarantee the citizens' loyalty to the state.
Journal Article
'The Full Weight of the State': The Logic of Random State-Sanctioned Violence
The literature on political violence has advanced some hypotheses concerning the forms and the causes of state-sanctioned violence and terror: why some governments make more widespread use of violence than others. However, one aspect of this question that has scarcely been considered concerns the conditions under which state violence achieves its goal, that is, to secure citizens' submission to the state. This article offers an analysis of the conditions of success of a certain form of state violence: random repression by the state. It shows that random repression usually does not prevent a shift in popular support from the regime to the opposition. But under certain circumstances, if the state resorts to random violence but at the same time mimics, to a certain extent, the behaviour of a non-arbitrary repressor, this form of political violence by the state can achieve success. This explanation is illustrated with various cases of random state-sanctioned violence, including occupied Europe during World War II, El Salvador in the 1980s, present-day Israel and, especially, the terror in the Soviet Union during the Stalinist period. The Soviet regime combined random violence, through the imposition of quotas of arrests on each region, with signals about the legality of the arrests both before and during the terror process. These signals included the 1936 Soviet Constitution and the extraction of confessions of imaginary crimes. This strategy was largely successful.
Journal Article
The Concise Princeton Encyclopedia of American Political History
With 150 accessible articles written by more than 130 leading experts, this essential reference provides authoritative introductions to some of the most important and talked-about topics in American history and politics, from the founding to today. Abridged from the acclaimedPrinceton Encyclopedia of American Political History, this is the only single-volume encyclopedia that provides comprehensive coverage of both the traditional topics of U.S. political history and the broader forces that shape American politics--including economics, religion, social movements, race, class, and gender. Fully indexed and cross-referenced, each entry provides crucial context, expert analysis, informed perspectives, and suggestions for further reading.
Contributors include Dean Baker, Lewis Gould, Alex Keyssar, James Kloppenberg, Patricia Nelson Limerick, Lisa McGirr, Jack Rakove, Nick Salvatore, Stephen Skowronek, Jeremi Suri, Julian Zelizer, and many more.
Entries cover:
Key political periods, from the founding to todayPolitical institutions, major parties, and founding documentsThe broader forces that shape U.S. politics, from economics, religion, and social movements to race, class, and genderIdeas, philosophies, and movementsThe political history and influence of geographic regions
eBook
The Party System in Russia, the Asymmetry to Opus Dei Ideologies, Organizations, Strategies
Over twenty years after the reform of Article 6 of the Constitution abolishing the Soviet leadership of the Communist Party, which is the political pluralism in Russia today? While the presidential term of Dmitri Medvedev to an end and after two terms of Vladimir Putin, during which a series of institutional reforms has come to reduce the space of plural expressions, it seems instructive to take stock of the development of detailed party system in Russia. Adapted from the source document.
Journal Article
Religion, Constitutional Courts, and Democracy in Former Communist Countries
This article offers two main arguments, both of which have important corollaries. First, the author argues that religion, and a specific form of religion, played a major role in the downfall of communism and the Soviet Union. A corollary is that religious motivations furnished important impetus to the development of democracy in former communist countries (FCC). Second, the author argues that courts, and more specifically constitutional courts in FCC, played a major role in promoting democracy in those nations. A corollary to that assertion is that constitution courts in most FCC have demonstrated considerable respect for and promotion of the role of religion in FCC. These assertions and their corollaries are discussed in light of scholarly studies on the place of religion in the modern constitutionalism movement in former colonial and communist countries.
Journal Article