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Soviet Citizen Participation on the Eve of Democratization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Donna Bahry  and
Brian D. Silver
Donna Bahry
Affiliation:
University of California Davis
Brian D. Silver
Affiliation:
Michigan State University
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Abstract

We reassess the debate over Soviet citizen politics in the USSR during the Brezhnev era. We argue the need for a more complex model of citizen participation in the USSR before Gorbachev if we are to have an accurate baseline for evaluating changes in regime-society relations. We examine the connections between individual attitudes and individual behavior and show that political participation under the “old regime” was not nearly as one-dimensional and devoid of effect as many previous researchers (and current Soviet leaders) have described it. Many forms of political participation in the Soviet Union before Gorbachev did not fit the stereotype of a psychologically disengaged citizenry driven to participate only by coercion, a desire to conform, or a quest for particularized benefits from public officials.

Type
Articles
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 84 , Issue 3 , September 1990 , pp. 821 - 847
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1990

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