The Social Dimensions of Perestroyka

Ruble, Blair A.

doi:10.1080/08826994.1987.10641276

Cited by 13 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…Social change within the postwar Soviet Union -rising levels of education, urbanization and so forth -was sometimes assumed to promote the rejection of authoritarian attitudes, as in established democracies (cf. Ruble, 1987;Almond and Verba, 1963;Dalton, 1988;Inglehart, 1990). This hypothesis receives some support, for more educated people are substantially more likely to reject authoritarian alternatives (Table 3).…”

Section: Determinants Of Support For Authoritarianismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Testing the Churchill Hypothesis: Popular Support for Democracy and its Alternatives

Rose

Mishler

1996

J. Pub. Pol.

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Whereas many studies of democratization evaluate it in idealist terms, Winston Churchill offered a relativist criterion, democracy being a lesser evil compared to other types of regime. Since everyone in a post-Communist society has lived in at least two different regimes, the New Democracies Barometer survey of post-Communist countries can ask people to evaluate five alternative regimes: a return to Communist rule, the army taking over, monarchy, rule by a strong leader, and decision making by economic experts. Factor analysis shows endorsement of three alternatives—the return to Communism, army rule, and personal dictatorship—form an authoritarianism scale. It also shows support for authoritarian rule is confined to a minority. Five hypotheses are tested to see what accounts for this. The political legacy of the past is more important than current government performance, economic attitudes, social structure differences, and national culture and traditions. Endorsement of economic technocrats making decisions is not related to authoritarianism; it reflects some national differences. Given the importance of experiencing both democratic and undemocratic regimes, the Churchill hypothesis does not apply in a country that has not yet attempted to introduce democratic institutions.

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Section: Determinants Of Support For Authoritarianismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Testing the Churchill Hypothesis: Popular Support for Democracy and its Alternatives

Rose

Mishler

1996

J. Pub. Pol.

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“…It has been argued that it was not the progress of modernization but its discontinuities that prompted social and political change in the Soviet Union (Ruble 1987). For instance, higher education had expanded far more rapidly than the existing occupational structure could accommodate, which led to substantial underemployment of the educated labor force.…”

Section: Post-soviet Affairsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stalin is dead, long live Stalin? Testing socialization, structural, ideological, nationalist, and gender hypotheses

Gugushvili

Kabachnik

2014

Post-Soviet Affairs

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Recently, there has been a renewed focus on analyzing post-Soviet memory, including the rekindling of debate on contemporary perspectives of Josef Stalin. Most notably, the publication of The Stalin Puzzle has helped bring attention to the persistence of positive accounts and admiration, along with ambivalent and contested images, of the former dictator of the Soviet Union. Using survey data and multivariate statistical methods, we test five broad hypotheses -socialization, structural, ideological, nationalist, and gender -to ascertain what factors might shape people's attitudes toward Stalin in Georgia. Our analysis reveals that elderly, poor men from rural areas have the most positive associations of Stalin, whereas young, wealthier women from cities, those who are open to privatization, and perceive Russia as Georgia's biggest threat judge Stalin negatively. Counterintuitively, non-Georgian minorities show higher esteem for Stalin than Georgians. We envision that the effects of cohort replacement, economic development, and urbanization will decrease positive perceptions of Stalin in years to come.

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“…By referring to these social differentiations and to a simultaneously growing self-awareness of the citizens, many authors later explained the politics of perestroika See e.g. Ruble 1987 andLapidus 1989, Skilling 1990and Starr 1989.…”

Section: Page 14mentioning

confidence: 99%

East European Studies, Neo-Totalitarianism and Social Science Theory

Mueller¹

1998

The Totalitarian Paradigm After the End of Communism

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The relevance of sociological theory for explaining the recent dramatic changes in Eastern Europe is at hand. The impact of the downfall of communism has been compared with those "Great Transformations" along which sociology evolved as a "science of crisis par excellence" (Habermas). The actual elaboration of a sociological theory of post-communist transformation and its relation to East European studies is, nevertheless, anything but clear. The unexpected collapse of socialism was perceived as a failure of prognosis and led to self-critical debates in all social science disciplines. In this rethinking its basic concepts, sociology is exposed to pressure from different sides -above all from the polemic launched with the surprising revival of the theory of totalitarianism against the ,,liberalist social sciences" across the board. Influential historians like Robert Pipes, Martin Malia, Robert Conquest, and Francois Furet followed by sociologists from Robert Nisbet to Seymour Lipset hold the fatal influence exerted by social science concepts on Eastern European and Soviet Studies during the last decades responsible for the "whole intellectual disaster in Western Academe" which became apparent after 1989. These approaches, as the neo-totalitarian accusation runs, elevated Soviet socialism to a modernization strategy and conceded a reform capacity which, in fact, was not available. Target of this critique are all attempts of a social history "from below", sociological theories of action and especially "the positivist illusion of modernization theory". Blinded by political motives, it is said, the insights of (neo-)totalitarianism theory into the inevitable collapse of communism were dismissed.

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The Social Dimensions of Perestroyka

Cited by 13 publications

References 3 publications

Testing the Churchill Hypothesis: Popular Support for Democracy and its Alternatives

Testing the Churchill Hypothesis: Popular Support for Democracy and its Alternatives

Stalin is dead, long live Stalin? Testing socialization, structural, ideological, nationalist, and gender hypotheses

East European Studies, Neo-Totalitarianism and Social Science Theory

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