Local Politics in Communist Countries

Local Politics in Communist Countries PDF Author: Daniel N. Nelson
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813187567
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
There are many reasons why it is important to study local politics—political culture, government, political process—in Communist party states. As in all politics, local politics in Communist party states are the political articulation of the local community. This is the political arena where policies concerning local issues are formulated by the officials. This is where the officials are approached by citizens with their particular demands. This is where citizens articulate their preferences, aspirations, and values through political participation. And this is where officials, both elected and appointed, are recruited. In this volume, Daniel N. Nelson has assembled a team of international scholars to consider local politics in Communist party states including the U.S.S.R., China, Poland, Yugoslavia, and Romania. Together, they explore how local social and political forces are articulated in the national and party organizations; they also reveal how the study of comparative local politics provides vitality for the study of national politics. Rather than treating local communities as receivers and translators of national inputs, the contributors demonstrate that the local dimension and national politics mutually influence one another and illuminate the social reality in communist societies.

Local Politics in Communist Countries

Local Politics in Communist Countries PDF Author: Daniel N. Nelson
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813187567
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 250

Get Book

Book Description
There are many reasons why it is important to study local politics—political culture, government, political process—in Communist party states. As in all politics, local politics in Communist party states are the political articulation of the local community. This is the political arena where policies concerning local issues are formulated by the officials. This is where the officials are approached by citizens with their particular demands. This is where citizens articulate their preferences, aspirations, and values through political participation. And this is where officials, both elected and appointed, are recruited. In this volume, Daniel N. Nelson has assembled a team of international scholars to consider local politics in Communist party states including the U.S.S.R., China, Poland, Yugoslavia, and Romania. Together, they explore how local social and political forces are articulated in the national and party organizations; they also reveal how the study of comparative local politics provides vitality for the study of national politics. Rather than treating local communities as receivers and translators of national inputs, the contributors demonstrate that the local dimension and national politics mutually influence one another and illuminate the social reality in communist societies.

Communism: A Very Short Introduction

Communism: A Very Short Introduction PDF Author: Leslie Holmes
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199551545
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 177

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Book Description
The collapse of communism was one of the most defining moments of the twentieth century. This Very Short Introduction examines the history behind the political, economic, and social structures of communism as an ideology.

Where the Party Rules

Where the Party Rules PDF Author: Daniel Koss
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108420664
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 409

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Book Description
Exploring the activities of the Chinese Communist Party's rank and file membership base, Koss advances our understanding of authoritarian parties.

Post-Communist Mafia State

Post-Communist Mafia State PDF Author: B lint Magyar
Publisher: Central European University Press
ISBN: 6155513546
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
Having won a two-third majority in Parliament at the 2010 elections, the Hungarian political party Fidesz removed many of the institutional obstacles of exerting power. Just like the party, the state itself was placed under the control of a single individual, who since then has applied the techniques used within his party to enforce submission and obedience onto society as a whole. In a new approach the author characterizes the system as the ?organized over-world?, the ?state employing mafia methods? and the ?adopted political family', applying these categories not as metaphors but elements of a coherent conceptual framework. The actions of the post-communist mafia state model are closely aligned with the interests of power and wealth concentrated in the hands of a small group of insiders. While the traditional mafia channeled wealth and economic players into its spheres of influence by means of direct coercion, the mafia state does the same by means of parliamentary legislation, legal prosecution, tax authority, police forces and secret service. The innovative conceptual framework of the book is important and timely not only for Hungary, but also for other post-communist countries subjected to autocratic rules. ÿ

Transnational Imaginations of Socialism

Transnational Imaginations of Socialism PDF Author: Teresa Malice
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 311067095X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 428

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Book Description
Town twinning refers to the postwar phenomenon of administrative exchange between analogous municipalities. Cold War-related research has mostly interpreted it as an instrument to pursue European integration, or to solidify détente "from below". However, municipalities were not only administrative, neutral actors, but also bearers of political content. This is particularly visible in the case of Italian towns located in the Western bloc, guided by socialist-oriented administrations, and their "twin" counterparts in the German Democratic Republic. This volume explores the connections initiated by such towns in the 1960s-1970s, focusing on socialist-specific conceptions which fueled the policies implemented by "red" municipalities, in managing local economies and social policies, but also in maintaining a lively and interconnected transnational microsociability among grassroots activists. Despite the increasing ideological divergences between Eastern and Western communists, and between Italian democratic communists and the more dogmatic and repressive, strictly pro-Soviet ones in the GDR, communication continued to flourish on the local level. The book explores what still linked the two worlds together, the "bright side of socialism": in this case, a common symbolism related to the past, practical exchanges in the present dimension, and a shared future imagination and conception of the town on the basis of a socialist horizon, built around welfare and services for citizens and workers.

Central and Local Government Relations

Central and Local Government Relations PDF Author: Edward Page
Publisher: Sage Publications (CA)
ISBN: 9780803980716
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
Central and Local Government Relations considers how best to organize local government units, and what powers and responsibilities should be devolved to local government. The book presents a comparative analysis of local governments in seven unitary states - Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Britain, France, Italy and Spain. It tests the hypothesis that any convincing explanation for the emergence of a particular pattern of central-local relations in one country must be able to explain why identical patterns are or are not found in others. The ability of local government to shape public services is discussed on the basis of three dimensions - the functions of local government, the type of discretion that it has, and the extent to which local political actors can influence central processes of decision making. The editors distinguish between the type of local governmnent system found in Britain and Scandinavia and that found in Southern European nations, and explore the reasons which explain these differences.

Elections Without Choice

Elections Without Choice PDF Author: G. Hermet
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1349033421
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description


Politics in the Communist World

Politics in the Communist World PDF Author: Leslie Holmes
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN:
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 488

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Book Description
This book analyses communist theory briefly, then compares it with the differing practice of more than twenty states under various forms of communist government.

The Anatomy of Post-Communist Regimes

The Anatomy of Post-Communist Regimes PDF Author: Bálint Magyar
Publisher: Central European University Press
ISBN: 9633863708
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 834

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Book Description
Offering a single, coherent framework of the political, economic, and social phenomena that characterize post-communist regimes, this is the most comprehensive work on the subject to date. Focusing on Central Europe, the post-Soviet countries and China, the study provides a systematic mapping of possible post-communist trajectories. At exploring the structural foundations of post-communist regime development, the work discusses the types of state, with an emphasis on informality and patronalism; the variety of actors in the political, economic, and communal spheres; the ways autocrats neutralize media, elections, etc. The analysis embraces the color revolutions of civil resistance (as in Georgia and in Ukraine) and the defensive mechanisms of democracy and autocracy; the evolution of corruption and the workings of “relational economy”; an analysis of China as “market-exploiting dictatorship”; the sociology of “clientage society”; and the instrumental use of ideology, with an emphasis on populism. Beyond a cataloguing of phenomena—actors, institutions, and dynamics of post-communist democracies, autocracies, and dictatorships—Magyar and Madlovics also conceptualize everything as building blocks to a larger, coherent structure: a new language for post-communist regimes. While being the most definitive book on the topic, the book is nevertheless written in an accessible style suitable for both beginners who wish to understand the logic of post-communism and scholars who are interested in original contributions to comparative regime theory. The book is equipped with QR codes that link to www.postcommunistregimes.com, which contains interactive, 3D supplementary material for teaching.

Federalism and Local Politics in Russia

Federalism and Local Politics in Russia PDF Author: Cameron Ross
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134075561
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 323

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Book Description
This book examines federalism and regional and local politics in Russia. Many commentators have alluded to the unique nature of Russia's dual transition and its difficult task of simultaneously reforming its economy and polity. But there is in fact a third transition under way in Russia that is of no less importance, the need to reconfigure central-local relations and to create a stable and viable form of federalism. Federal states are much more difficult to set up than unitary ones, and forging a new federal system at the same time as privatising the economy and trying to radically overhaul the political system has clearly made Russia's transition triply difficult. The book discusses how Vladimir Putin has re-asserted the power of the centre in Russia, and tightened the federal government's control of the regions. It shows how, contrary to his rhetoric about developing Russia as a free and democratic state, authoritarianism has been extended - through his reorganisation of the Federation Council, his usurpation of powers to dismiss regional assemblies and chief executives, and his creation of seven unelected super-governors. The book explores a wide range of issues related to these developments, including a comparative study of Russian federalism and local politics, ethnic federalism, the merging of federal units, regional governors, electoral and party reforms, and regional and local politics. It also includes case studies of local and regional politics in specific regions.