Putin's Russia: slowing the pendulum without stopping the clock

Vladimir Putin has been president of Russia for eighteen months, sufficienttime for some judgement about his style of leadership and achievements to have been made. He set out to restore order to a Russia that was fragmenting in Yeltsin's latter years and to revive Russians' pride in their country. Nonetheless, he remains committed to a liberal market economy integrated with the world economy. He encouraged force to bring order to Chechnya, but has not really tackled the problem of reconstruction. He has brought the regions under greater control by the centre, but has been prepared to compromise to avoid confrontation. His most tangible achievement to date has been in championing legislation, most of it long overdue, to establish the legal basis of a market economy. He has been able to exploit a working majority in the parliament, which Yeltsin never enjoyed. The success of this enterprise will depend to some degree on its political context. Persistent efforts by Putin and his team to exert control over the political process and the media will be counterproductive if they concentrate power with the president but leave him without broadly based, independent political support. Putin is likely to remain in power until 2008, however, so he has time on his side.     

Cronies,economic crime and capitalism in Putin's sistema

The books included in this review article are essential for the understanding of what I call Putin's sistema—the governance model that originated in the Soviet system but has transformed and adapted to global change. Each book tackles, from a different angle, the issues of Russia's transition and suggests ways to describe its political consequences. The books all attempt to identify some underlying logic or organizing force in a Russian society that has emerged through weak institutions. Although I join the authors in their criticisms of the ‘transition paradigm’ and its ‘opening‐breakthrough‐consolidation of democracy’ formula, transformations of the Soviet sistema seem to resonate with the ‘opening‐breakthrough‐consolidation of capitalism’. Perestroika can be seen as an ‘opening’ in shaking the foundations of sistema; Yeltsin's era as a ‘breakthrough’; and Putin's regime as the ‘consolidation’ of capitalism but with its distinct characteristics.     

俄罗斯纪行 莫斯科城市印象

<正>在我们这个蓝色的星球上,有一片横跨欧亚两洲,面向三大洋的疆域。有人说,宫殿是它的名片;有人说,城堡是它的象征;有人说,教堂是它的地标;也有人说,冰天雪地是它的代名词。这里,还有世界顶尖级艺术,如芭蕾、雕塑和壁画等等。导游说,这里的旅行特色,可以用一道菜名概括,     

初中历史教学创新面面观

教学创新是现代教学发展的必然趋势,运用新的教学手段和理念,培养学生的创新能力,是初中历史教学创新的客观要求。为了适应历史教学新形势的需要,必须遵照新课标下的历史教学要求,创新历史教学原则、教学理念、教学手段等等。     

Filming eugenics: teaching the history of eugenics through film

In teaching eugenics to undergraduate students and general public audiences, film should he considered as a provocative and fruitful medium that can generate important discussions about the intersections among eugenics, gender, class, race, and sexuality. This paper considers the use of two films, A Bill of Divorcement and The Lynchburg Story, as pedagogical tools for the history of eugenics. The authors provide background information on the films and suggestions for using the films to foster an active engagement with the historical eugenics movement.     

The Emergence of Ethno-Geopolitics in Post-Soviet Russia

A prominent UK-based political and historical geographer analyzes ethnogeopolitics, a new trend in Russian political discourse that is distinguished by the primary role it assigns to ethnicity (rather than the nation-state) as a geopolitical factor—i.e., recognizing formal (often poly-ethnic) ethno-national groupings on their respective ethnic spaces as important "geopolitical subjects" in their own right with a certain autonomy in world politics. After defining and otherwise setting out the differences between ethno-geopolitics and the more mainstream school of Russian geopolitics emerging after the disintegration of the USSR, the author proceeds to assess the extent to which ethno-geopolitics is shaping current Russian geopolitical thought in two critically important arenas: (1) Russia's relations with other great powers at the global level and (2) the dynamics of ethnicity (and inter-ethnic relations) within its own boundaries as well as in neighboring states. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: Y900, Z190. 71 references.     

The Mussulman subjects of Russia

The important links between vegetation and rates of accelerated erosion have tended to be obscured in the wider framework of the many factors in erosion. This review draws together the geographical and agricultural implications of vegetation cover, emphasising the many and varied reasons, both on a field and a wider scale, for maintaining good cover.     

俄罗斯的欧亚选择与中俄边疆区域合作

历史上俄罗斯多次出现"回归欧洲"还是"融入亚洲"的讨论和选择,但独特的地缘政治和经济环境决定了俄罗斯必须在欧亚之间起到有效的链接作用,欧亚经济一体化的进程也离不开俄罗斯的积极作为。俄罗斯在积极与欧洲发展合作的同时也要在亚洲扮演重要的角色。中俄边疆区域合作是中俄关系发展的主要组成部分,为使中俄关系保持持续和稳定的发展,就必须排除"中国威胁论"论调的干扰。