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Drawing upon extensive archival and other original sources, Soviet Power and the Countryside offers a new approach to understanding the political dynamics that led to the collapse of the Soviet order. A detailed analysis of the design, implementation and collapse of Soviet policy toward the countryside is used to explore the implications of a broadening of participation in the policy process from the 1960s. Neil J. Melvin argues that the new knowledge about rural society created as a result of this process provided the basis for a fundamental change in the nature of power relations in the Soviet order, leading to the decay and eventual collapse of policy making institutions.
List of contents
List of Tables Preface and Acknowledgements A Note on Transliteration and Terms List of Abbreviations Glossary of Terms PART I: THE SETTING Introduction Political Change in the Soviet Union PART II: AGENDA SETTING IN SOVIET POLITICS The Establishment of Official Rural Policy Radical Urbanism Becomes Orthodoxy The Onset of Rural Transformation PART III: POLICY ACTORS, INSTITUTIONS AND IDEAS The Formation of the Policy Community: Rural Architects The Expansion of Participation: Geographers, Sociologists and Writers The Disintegration of Policy Making Capacity PART IV: POWER IN SOVIET POLITICS Power and Decay in the Soviet State Sources Consulted
About the author
NEIL J. MELVIN is a Senior Lecturer in the Institute of Political and International Studies at the University of Leeds. He is the author of Russians Beyond Russia, Uzbekistan: Transition to Authoritarianism on the Silk Road and co-editor of Nations Abroad: Diaspora Politics and International Relations in the Former Soviet Union.
Summary
Drawing upon extensive archival and other original sources, Soviet Power and the Countryside offers a new approach to understanding the political dynamics that led to the collapse of the Soviet order.
