Postcommunist Studies And Political Science: Methodology And Empirical Theory In Sovietology

Serious stock-taking is in progress now among practitioners of whathas been called Sovietology, meaning studies of the Union of SovietSocialist Republics. The reason is that the field for the most part hadnot been expecting what happened in 1991: The USSR collapsed andwent out of existence as a unified state system governing a sixth ofthe world's territory, having allowed its East European empire tofree itself from Soviet dominance somewhat earlier.It might be said in defense of Sovietology that, by the beginningof the 1980s, it understood that economic and political crises werebrewing in the Soviet Union and its outer empire. But the field asa whole failed to grasp the full depth of the systemic crisis in SovietRussia and the destructive or self-destructive potentialities inherentin it. As the editors of this valuable volume write in the Introduction:"Sovietology was not prepared for perestroika and postcommunism."

Table of Contents:
Foreword /Robert C Tucker -- List of Contributors -- List of Credits -- Part One -- Introduction -- 1 . Communist Studies and Political Science: Cold War and Peaceful Coexistence /Frederic J Fleron, Jr., and Erik P. Hoffmann -- Part Two -- Methodology and lessons from the Past -- 2. Model Fitting in Communism Studies /Gabriel A. Almond and Ulura Roselle -- 3. The Dilemmas of Sovietology and the -- labyrinth of Theory /Alexander J Motyl -- 4 . Science and Sovietology: Bridging the -- Methods Gap in Soviet Foreign Policy Studies /Jack Snyder -- 5. The Uses and Abuses of Russian History /Alexander Dallin -- 6 . Historical Consciousness and the Incorporation -- of the Soviet Past /J Thomas Sanders -- 7. Politics and Methodology in Soviet Studies /Alfred G. Meyer -- 8. The Harvard Project and the Soviet Interview -- Project /Joseph R. Berliner -- 9. History, Method, and the Problem of Bias /James R. Millar -- 10. The August Revolution and Soviet Studies /Robert T. Huber and Susan Bronson -- Part Three -- Empirical Theory and Understanding the Present -- 11. Soviet Reform and the End of the Cold War: Explaining large-Scale Historical Change /Daniel Deudney and G. fohn Ikenberry -- 12. Political Dynamics of the Post-Communist Transition: A Comparative Perspective /Russell Bova -- 13. Regime Transition in Communist Systems: The Soviet Case /Thomas F. Remington -- 14. Continuity and Change in Russian Political Culture /Jeffrey W. Hahn -- 15. The Soviet Ethnic Scene: A Quarter Century later /John A. Armstrong -- 16. Approaches to the Study of Soviet Nationalities Politics: John Armstrong's Functionalism and Beyond /Mark R. Beissinger -- 17. The logic of Collective Action and the Pattern of Revolutionary Behavior /Jerry F. Hough -- Part Four -- Conclusion -- 18. Post-Communist Studies and Political Science: Peaceful Coexistence, Detente, and Entente /Frederic J. Fleron, Jr., and Erik P. Hoffmann -- About the Book and Editors.

About the Author :
Frederick J. Fleron Jr., Erik P Hoffmann