Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-31T17:23:16.229Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Decolonization in the Former Soviet Borderlands: Politics in Search of Principles

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Gregory W. Gleason  and
Susan J. Buck
Gregory W. Gleason
Affiliation:
University of New Mexico
Susan J. Buck
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Marx is reputed to have said that “there is nothing so practical as a good theory.” Seventy-odd years of Soviet theorizing have left little useful practical theory behind, as demonstrated by the transformations currently taking place in Russia's borderlands. As the Soviet Union crumbles, the successor states face a unique and troubling situation. For over 70 years, their administrative structures have been centralized; their economies, transportation and communications systems, and the physical infrastructure all controlled from Moscow under a coherent ideological regime. The successor states find themselves adrift ideologically and administratively, but the centralized physical infrastructure remains.

How are these states to design new administrative structures? How are they to cope with the utter failure of their theoretical principles? How may they cooperate in the use of the physical systems while establishing their political independence? Soviet administrative theory—the “scientific theory of socialism” as it was called—has been unable to provide even the most basic guidance for the process, and western administrative theory is not equipped to address the special problems of the new states. The insights of the neo-institutionalists can provide guidelines for these urgent problems.

Type
Research Article
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 26 , Issue 3 , September 1993 , pp. 522 - 525
Copyright
Copyright © The American Political Science Association 1993

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alchian, A., and Demsetz, H. 1973. “The Property Right Paradigm.” Journal of Economic History 33:16–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Axelrod, R. 1981. The Evolution of Cooperation. New York: Basic Books.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bennett, Robert, ed. 1990. Decentralization, Local Governments, and Markets. Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
Buck, Susan J., and Gleason, Gregory W. 1993. “The ‘Institutional Imperative’: Resolving Transboundary Water Conflict in Arid Agricultural Regions of the US and CIS.” Natural Resources Journal (forthcoming in October).Google Scholar
de Soto, Hernando. 1989. The Other Path: The Invisible Revolution in the Third World. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Cameron, Rob. 1990. “Decentralization: A Framework for Analysis.” Politikon 17: 39–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coase, R. H. 1937. “The Nature of the Firm.” Econometrica 4:386–405.Google Scholar
DeAlessi, L. 1987. “Property Rights and Privatization: Prospects for Privatization.” Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science 36:24–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Demsetz, Harold. 1967. “Toward a Theory of Property Rights.” American Economic Review 57:347–59.Google Scholar
Eggertsson, Thrainn. 1990. Economic Behavior and Institutions. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fallenbuchl, Adam, and Fallenbuchl, Zbigniew. 1990. “Privatization and Marketization in Poland.” Studies in Comparative Communism 23:349–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heald, David. 1990. “The Relevance of Privatization to Developing Economies.” Public Administration and Development 10:3–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaminski, Antoni. 1992. An Institutional Theory of Communist Regimes: Design, Function, and Breakdown. San Francisco: Institute for Contemporary Studies Press.Google Scholar
Kornai, Janos. 1992. The Socialist State: The Political Economy of Communism. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Micklin, Philip P. 1991. The Water Management Crisis in Soviet Central Asia. The Carl Beck Papers No. 905. University of Pittsburgh Center for Russian and East European Studies.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moe, Terry. 1984. “The New Economics of Organization.” American Journal of Political Science 28:739–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
North, Douglass C. 1990. Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ohashi, T. M., and Roth, T. P. 1980. Privatization Theory and Practice. Vancouver, BC: Fraser Institute.Google Scholar
Olson, Mancur. 1965. The Logic of Collective Action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Olson, Mancur. 1969. “The Principles of ‘Fiscal Equivalence’: The Division of Responsibilities Among Different Levels of Government.” American Economic Review 59: 479–87.Google Scholar
Ostrom, Elinor. 1990. Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ostrom, Elinor. 1986. “An Agenda for the Study of Institutions.” Public Choice 48: 3–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ostrom, Vincent. 1976. “The Contemporary Debate over Centralization and Decentralization.” Publius 6:21–32.Google Scholar
Pirie, Madsen. 1985. Dismantling the State: The Theory and Practice of Privatization. Dallas: National Center for Policy Analysis.Google Scholar
Pryor, Frederic L. 1991. “When Is Collectivization Reversible?” Studies in Comparative Communism 24:3–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Savas, Emmanuel S. 1987. Privatization: The Key to Better Government. Chatham, NJ: Chatham House Publishers.Google Scholar
Schroeder, Gertrude E. 1988. “Property Rights Issues in Economic Reforms in Socialist Countries.” Studies in Comparative Communism 21:175–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar