Asset Details
Do you wish to reserve the book?
Secret Leviathan
Hey, we have placed the reservation for you!
By the way, why not check out events that you can attend while you pick your title.
Oops! Something went wrong.
Looks like we were not able to place the reservation. Kindly try again later.
Are you sure you want to remove the book from the shelf?
Secret Leviathan
Do you wish to request the book?
Secret Leviathan
Please be aware that the book you have requested cannot be checked out. If you would like to checkout this book, you can reserve another copy
We have requested the book for you!
Your request is successful and it will be processed during the Library working hours. Please check the status of your request in My Requests.
Oops! Something went wrong.
Looks like we were not able to place your request. Kindly try again later.
eBook
Secret Leviathan
2023
Overview
The Soviet Union was one of the most secretive states that ever
existed. Defended by a complex apparatus of rules and checks
administered by the secret police, the Soviet state had seemingly
unprecedented capabilities based on its near monopoly of productive
capital, monolithic authority, and secretive decision making. But
behind the scenes, Soviet secrecy was double-edged: it raised
transaction costs, incentivized indecision, compromised the
effectiveness of government officials, eroded citizens' trust in
institutions and in each other, and led to a secretive society and
an uninformed elite. The result is what this book calls the
secrecy/capacity tradeoff: a bargain in which the Soviet state
accepted the reduction of state capacity as the cost of ensuring
its own survival.
This book is the first comprehensive, analytical, multi-faceted
history of Soviet secrecy in the English language. Harrison
combines quantitative and qualitative evidence to evaluate the
impact of secrecy on Soviet state capacity from the 1917 Bolshevik
Revolution to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Based on
multiple years of research in once-secret Soviet-era archives, this
book addresses two gaps in history and social science: one the core
role of secrecy in building and stabilizing the communist states of
the twentieth century; the other the corrosive effects of secrecy
on the capabilities of authoritarian states.
Publisher
Stanford University Press
Subject
ISBN
9781503628892, 1503628892, 9781503635845, 1503635848
We currently cannot retrieve any items related to this title. Kindly check back at a later time.