Beyond the Monolith: The Emergence of Regionalism in Post-Soviet Russia by Peter J. s> Stavrakis Joan Debardelaben Larry Black (review)

REVIEWS 787 country has found it expedient to use the CIS for limited purposes, supplementingits channelswith othersthatlead in quite differentdirections. As the authors correctly point out, the fundamental problem in relations among the countriesof the formerSoviet Union lies in the enormous disparity between the size, population, capabilityand ambitions of Russia and those of all the other formerSoviet republics.Unlike the EuropeanUnion, on which it was partly modelled, the CIS has not given the smaller nations any sense of equality, so that the 'Big Brother'element that characterizedrelationshipsin the Soviet Union (and in its predecessor, the Russian Empire)has continued, with inevitable suspicionson the part of the smallernations. Moreover, there were at the very outset differencesover the very purpose of the CIS: was it a way of reintegrating the territory of the USSR, or a way of managing its disintegration?While the public recordcontains few reliablestatementsof the intentions of those who set up the organization, enough is known of different perceptions to suggest that it was never likely to win the full-heartedsupport of all but a minority of the new political elites, now dependent on a public opinion that had to be won over. While not a lesson in how notto create a multi-national organization, the history of the CIS is worthy of study by anyone interested in political change, and this book is an essential startingpoint . In their final section the authors cautiously give advice for managing the post-Soviet space. They stay within the ideology of the WTO, the IMF and the World Bank in implying that 'reform' means divesting the state of its economic responsibilities and handing these over to the market. However, some West European experience over the past half-century suggests that, in establishing themselves in the world, new nations can, without resorting to protectionism, make excellent use of the resources of the state to foster training, production, marketingand promotion that will raise inexperienced populations to a level where they can effectively compete, rather than throwing them into the global pool of internationalmarketsand capital flows at the deep end before they can swim. Department ofPolitical Science RONALD J. HILL Trinity College, Dublin Stavrakis, Peter J.; Debardelaben, Joan, and Black, Larry (eds). Beyondthe Monolith/. 7heEmergence ofRegionalism inPost-Soviet Russia.WoodrowWilson Center Press, Washington and Johns Hopkins University Press, Washington , DC, I997. xii + 243 pp. Notes. Index. $45.00. THEstudy of local government, below the level of the republics, was never very fashionablein the old Soviet era and usuallyover-emphasizedthe role of local initiative and influence, with all due respect to the revisionists.With the advent of the post-Soviet era, more life entered into local politics, with many provinces clearly differingin complexion from that of the centre and indeed defying the historic primacy and the new policies of the centre in far away Moscow. Local power and influence have become more significant and worthwhileobjectsof studyfor the comprehension of the dynamicsof Russian 788 SEER, 79, 4, 200 I politics. Putin's struggle, since coming to power, to restore central control over his more rebellious and often anti-reformist provinces and republics makessuch a workall the more desirable.The way that suchchanges relateto theprospectsforany furtherdemocratizationin Russiaalsocannot be avoided as an issue of concern. Is she to fragment further, as the Chechnya case initially indicated, or will the centre be able to regain a measure of the autocraticpower of old?Indeed, can a trulyunifiedall Russian republicpolity emerge after the disruptionsof recent years, and can the growing economic and social disparitiesbetween Moscow and the provincesbe contained within that polity?All this and more is the subjectmatterof thisvolume. The book is actually based upon a collection of eleven papers presented to a conference, sponsoredby the Woodrow Wilson Center, Washingtonand Carleton University in Ottawa, on the subjectof the Regions of Russia. The contributors include a number of familiar names in the Russian studies firmament - at least thatpartof it based in the US and Canada. Additionally however, we have presentationsby AleksanderGalkinfromMoscow and Nail Moukhariamov from Kazan in the Tatar republic. Although the conference from which the book deriveswas held back in May 1995, the editors are able to take the subjectmatter on further,in general terms, through i 996, before itspublication the...

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