The Agony of the Russian Idea

McDaniel, Tim

doi:10.1515/9781400822157

Cited by 57 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Critics of shock therapy for post‐Communist countries, for example, made exactly the same class of arguments. McDaniel (1996) is a classic discussion of the historical and cultural impediments to reform in Russia under Gorbachev and Yeltsin. Links to geography and genetic diversity as deep roots to these would have added nothing to such arguments.…”

Section: What Is the Value Of A Theory Of Everything?mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Journey of Humanity by Oded Galor: A Review Essay

Durlauf¹

2023

Population & Development Rev

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Section: What Is the Value Of A Theory Of Everything?mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Journey of Humanity by Oded Galor: A Review Essay

Durlauf¹

2023

Population & Development Rev

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…'The longed-for new world', as McDaniel put it, 'can only be constructed on the utter ruins of the old, which was wholly corrupt.' 34 Russia's dilemma has been that neither side has been able to accept the ideological rival as an essential expression of the Russian tradition. The idea and practice of eradicating the 'Other' has made it difficult (if not, as some would argue, impossible) for Russia to accept the 'Other' as a valuable account of itself.…”

Section: Russia As a Torn Societymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…He wrote that: 'Rod', which basically should be translated as clan or kin, contains a richness of various connotations once it is used in association with additional syllabus: rodit means to give birth; rozhdenie means birth; roditeli means parents; a rodstvennik is a relative; rodina can be roughly translated as motherland or homeland; rodnoi is an adjective that refers to something familiar, close, deeply connected to oneself (as opposed to what is chuzoi -foreign, alien). 48 The conceptualisation of the term rod indicates a sense of community that evolves around the membership of the rod. Rod is representative of the wholeness of a community of spirit, held together by the belief in a common origin and destiny.…”

Section: Aspects Of Russian Culture As Obstacles To Westernisationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…'Community and equality were inseparable in the life of the village.' 55 Later on, Russian anti-Western intellectuals saw equality, like community, as the true alternative to the material injustices of the industrialised bourgeoisie of the city and, in a second step, of the West. Thus, in the Russian binary logic of opposition, these terms became defined as the foreign 'Other' to everything that was distinctively Russian.…”

Section: Aspects Of Russian Culture As Obstacles To Westernisationmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Russia: A Part of the West or Apart from the West?

Kaempf¹

2010

International Relations

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Outlining the century-old debates about ‘What is Russia?’, this article — by drawing on a variety of sources such as fiction, culture, cartoons and identity — shows how Russian and Western answers to this question have impacted on each other. To do so, the article first examines the extent to which Russian society — ever since the Mongolian Yoke — has been culturally torn between Westerniser and anti-Westerniser positions. It then complements the insights into Russia’s self-reflective identity formation in two ways: by illustrating how Russia, in the West, has become portrayed as a caricature of the Western consciousness and by demonstrating how the Russian ‘Self’, in return, has been defined through the prism of Western expectations.

show abstract

“…Likewise, McDaniel defined ‘the Russian idea’ as ‘the conviction that Russia has its own independent, self‐sufficient, and eminently worthy cultural and historical tradition that both sets it apart from the West and guarantees its future flourishing’ (McDaniel, 1996, pp. 10–11).…”

Section: Debates Over Russian Identitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Elites and the Diffusion of Foreign Models in Russia

Rivera

2004

Political Studies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Globalization has sparked renewed interest in the diffusion of ideas and norms across boundaries. Although much work has focused on diffusion at the macro‐level and on the groups that transmit ideas, few researchers have studied the cognitive processes of political elites as they weigh the merits of various foreign‐inspired models. Drawing on a series of original, in‐depth interviews with Russian parliamentarians and high‐ranking bureaucrats conducted in 1996, this paper makes two contributions to the study of individual‐level borrowing in the Russian context. First, the openness of Russian elites to foreign borrowing is investigated; despite the public rhetoric about Russia's uniqueness, a substantial number of Russian elites are willing to borrow from foreign experience – particularly from models of European welfare capitalism. Second, three explanations of why policy‐makers prefer to emulate some countries rather than others are tested – because they are similar to their own country either geographically, historically or culturally (comparability); because they have geostrategic prominence (prestige); or because they excel economically and/or politically (performance). Comparability and prestige are found to be of lesser importance than performance to Russian elites when considering the merits of various foreign models. Given that Russia closely approximates a most‐likely case for validating explanations stressing comparability, this suggests that the array of foreign ideas that could become part and parcel of Russia's transition process is probably wider than is usually assumed. It also implies that, in general, the regional dimension of diffusion plays a smaller role than previously theorized.

show abstract

The Agony of the Russian Idea

Cited by 57 publications

References 0 publications

The Journey of Humanity by Oded Galor: A Review Essay

The Journey of Humanity by Oded Galor: A Review Essay

Russia: A Part of the West or Apart from the West?

Elites and the Diffusion of Foreign Models in Russia

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About