Abstract
The edited volume After the Soviet Empire: Legacies and Pathways has the intended goal of providing a broad examination of processes that led to the break-up of the Soviet Union and to the emergence of a variety of post-Soviet paths of development (p. xxiii). The materials that were included in this volume were presented at the 39th World Congress of the International Institute of Sociology that took place in Yerevan in June 2009. The editors represent political science (Sven Eliaeson, Uppsala University) and sociology (Lyudmila Harutyunyan, Yerevan State University, and Larissa Titarenko, Belarus State University). The 17 contributing authors are doctors in different social disciplines and in humanities, teaching in universities in Western and Eastern Europe, and in republics of the former Soviet Union. The editors see the individual contributions as a collection of supplementary views that underline path dependency as a key for understanding particular cases of post-Soviet transformation (p. 4).
The volume is divided into four parts, each of which is subdivided into a few chapters. Part I, ‘Utility of the Classics,’ emphasizes the methodological relevance of a few classics in social sciences regarding important contemporary social processes, including the implosion of the Soviet empire. Sven Eliaeson dedicates a chapter to the ideas of Gunnar Myrdal, the Swedish Nobel laureate in economics, a sociologist, and politician. In the late 1950s, Myrdal, inspired by the then-dominant paradigm of modernization, predicted the future democratization of the Soviet Union as a result of the fast industrialization and rising level of education. He also predicted the possible disintegration of the Soviet bloc based on the economic autarchy of its constituent parts. From a different perspective, Karl-Ludwig Ay focuses on Max Weber’s writings on the Russian Revolution of 1905–1906. Among the key topics advanced by Weber for understanding political development in Russia is the role of autocratic rule. Cesaropapism was the way Russia was ruled for centuries; it is almost the same system that Presidents Yelzin and Putin have tried to run for the last few decades (p. 59). In the next chapter, Christopher Schlembach is interested in the legitimation of authority and social change in times of revolution, and draws his illustrations from evidence from post-communist Russia and France’s ancien régime. As far as the Russian case is concerned, the author sees the intention of adapting the political system to the economy. In the process of the transformation, the old Communist Party elite finds new forms of legitimation. The most important aspect of the transformation is that institutional change takes place under the condition that modern civil society does not exist (p. 77). Finally, Hedwig Ekerwald brings the Swedish sociologist Alva Myrdal’s writings on nation building in Sweden into the discussion. The author relates this study to the turbulent process of nation building that has followed the transformation in the former Soviet Union and in Eastern Europe. Myrdal’s perspective, according to Ekerwald, may be of special importance to post-Soviet countries that are currently facing a population decline, such as Russia and Ukraine.
Part II, ‘Rethinking the Legacy of the Second World,’ looks at Russia and Eastern Europe as a laboratory for verifying new theoretical models. Nikolai Genov explains the changes in the region with the opening of communist countries to global trends. Such a shift from predominantly domestic to international factors represents a paradigmatic change. It is the relation of each post-communist country with globalization that finally determines the content, speed, and effects of social transformation. On a different note, Adam Czarnota discusses whether lustration can be used in the law-governed state. The author answers in the affirmative, using Poland as a case study. In the following chapter, Nikolai Rozov asks what type of paradigm may lead to understand post-Soviet social transformation. To answer this question, the author, inspired by Max Weber, presents a multivariable model embracing not only economy, but also politics, culture, and enforcing groups. Rozov pays special attention to political culture, which in post-communist countries is an obstacle to political change. Finally, Larissa Titarenko focuses on what she calls ‘paradoxes of democracy.’ Taking Russia and Belarus as case studies, she suggests the presence of divergence in the interpretation of democracy, which leads to mass anti-democratic attitudes.
Part III, on Armenia as a case study within the context of post-Soviet social development, provides interesting food for thought from an ethnographic point of view. Six texts look specifically at or touch upon this post-Soviet republic as it stands at the crossroads between national, regional, and global, and between the West and the East in their political, economic, and cultural dimensions. Lyudmila Harutyunyan and Maria Zaslavskaya focus on the process of economic migration between post-Soviet republics, including those from Armenia to Russia. They discuss the negative social consequences due to this process for the countries who export or import economic migrants. In the following short chapter, Antranig Kasbarian sketches a picture of post-Soviet nationalism in which ethnic minorities are still politically subordinate to ethnic majorities as in the times of the imperial past. After discussing the history and the present-day situation in and around the Nagorno-Karabakh region, the author calls for a new theoretical framework to explain its features. In a separate chapter, Hayk Demoyan tackles the same issue of nationalism from the perspective of the symbols attached to geographic locations. The post-Soviet republics in South Caucasus construct geographic myths in order to claim historical rights on territories populated by many ethnic groups. Thus, toponymy becomes one of the front lines of the conflict in the region. Zooming out toward a more general view of the post-Soviet area, Arthur Atanesyan discusses political democracy as a new ideological game in his short chapter. Behind similar political structures inherited from the former Soviet Union, the new ideological veil is rejected by the people who need improvements in their lives. Along similar lines, Levon Chorbajian discusses the global trend of neoliberalism and briefly examines its agenda in the context of Armenian social and economic development. He concludes that more than 80% of Armenians did not benefit from the neoliberal economic model imposed in the 1990s. Finally, Gohar Shahnazaryan presents Armenia as an interesting case of identity struggle due to conflicting sources for cultural influence. These are, on the one hand, millions of ethnic Armenians living in the West, and, on the other hand, large groups of economic migrants in Russia, in addition to the security guarantees that Moscow provides to Armenia. The author presents results of surveys among the Armenian youth enriched with results from focus groups.
Part IV, ‘Widening the Horizons,’ looks to future development in post-Soviet countries. Henryk Domanski discusses the social base for contentious policy in different historical and geographic contexts. His analysis is illustrated with data of the pre-1989 Solidarity movement in Poland as well as aggregated statistics from the 1980s and the early 2000s from different European countries. In a different vein, Ewa Morawska discusses the emergence of multiple identities as a result of the international migration movement. Without explicitly mentioning post-Soviet cases, the author paints a pluralist picture of host societies that depends on the type of newcomers’ symbolic integration. Focusing on the former imperial center, Igor Torbakov argues that collective memories and historical narratives shape post-Soviet Russia’s international conduct. The author does not see this process as something exceptional; in fact, societies use history to forge nation-states and patriotic sentiments, and to legitimize the rule of the powers that be (p. 358).
After the Soviet Empire is a collection of heterodox views, most of them loosely linked by the common topic, rather than supplementary views as the editors hope. Some chapters are not even thematically linked to the title. Thus, Chapter 4 on Heidegger and Chapter 19 on varieties of cosmopolitanism can fit more than one edited volume without contributing to the knowledge of their specific subject matter. The presence of Part I is more than questionable. Apart from the chapter on Gunnar Myrdal, it hardly brings any food for thought regarding the general topic. The placement of some chapters to one or another part is also a matter of discussion. Thus, some chapters from Part III are less oriented toward Armenia than toward larger groups of post-Soviet countries. Overall, the difference between the chapters in terms of their length and their theoretical achievement leaves the impression of an edited volume that took conference presentations without further editing. For these reasons, reading the volume as a unified body will be counterproductive and unnecessarily time-consuming. A much better strategy would be to pick a few chapters that correspond to readers’ interests. I recommend Genov’s and Titarenko’s chapters from Part II, Demoyan’s and Shahnazaryan’s chapters from Part III, and Torbakov’s chapter from Part IV. This recommendation addresses undergraduate and graduate students as well as faculty members.