http://www.rferl.org/content/brezhnevs-children/24765431.html
Russia is not the Soviet union. The regime in Russia has little in common with the Soviet regime. To imply that the process of reforming Russia represents a continuation of attempts to reform the Soviet regime, as Whitmore does, distorts reality beyond recognition.
Failures of reform under the Soviet regime were mostly due to features of that regime which have disappeared: (1) the commando-administrative economic system, (2) the ideological...
- Опубликовано:
- 30.04.2016 20:15:00
It would be irresponsible if those who make public policy did not pay serious attention to expert knowledge. If experts advise that a proposed policy will fail, it would be irresponsible for policy makers to ignore their advice. Advocating the impossible would appear to be absurd. Does this mean policy makers must resign themselves to accepting whatever advice experts give them? Must it be irrational for policy makers to maintain hope that a proposed policy will work, although experts tell them it...
- Опубликовано:
- 13.04.2016 17:43:00
Rereading my 1984 article “Misperception, Ambivalence, and Indecision in Soviet Policy-making,” for the first time in many years, most of the analysis strikes me as just as valid today as it was in 1984 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1903573.
There is, however, an important blind spot in the article. I did not fully appreciate the panic of hardliners among the leaders of the Soviet Bloc concerning the Prague Spring. It was clear that the Czechoslovak reform movement...
- Опубликовано:
- 10.03.2016 22:28:00
Of course, I understand what you write about the sorry state of affairs in Russia. I am far more optimistic than you about Russia, but can't disagree with most of what you say. Most discouraging is that I wonder what can feed the hopes of your generation, on which the future of the country depends. Of course, there is much about Russia that is good, and which gives grounds for hope. Yet, this does not negate your arguments.
To be sure, there has been enormous progress in the last twenty...
- Опубликовано:
- 16.03.2015 15:56:00
Comment on Interview with Alena Ledeneva http://www.rferl.org/content/interview-russia-alena-ledeneva-sistema/24944910.html
Ledeneva is one of the few to have confronted the reality that in order to reform Russia and the other post-Soviet republics, one has to understand the mechanisms underlying the system.
Interestingly, it was Putin’s answer ...
- Опубликовано:
- 03.10.2014 11:56:00
