Donna Bahry

Ethnicity and Trust: Evidence from Russia

The willingness to trust strangers has been associated with a variety of public benefits, from greater civic-mindedness and more honest government to higher rates of economic growth, and more. But a growing body of research finds that such generalized trust is far more common in ethnically homogeneous than in more diverse societies. Ethnic difference is believed to breed more particularistic, ingroup ties, thus undermining both generalized and cross-ethnic trust. We argue that this image is too narrow, and we propose a broader model to identify the factors that give rise to cross-ethnic trust. Using data from two minority regions of Russia, we find considerable support for the model. We also find that high ingroup or particularistic trust is no barrier to faith in another ethnic group.

Soviet Citizen Participation on the Eve of Democratization

We reassess the debate over Soviet citizen politics in the USSR during the Brezhnev era. We argue the need for a more complex model of citizen participation in the USSR before Gorbachev if we are to have an accurate baseline for evaluating changes in regime-society relations. We examine the connections between individual attitudes and individual behavior and show that political participation under the “old regime” was not nearly as one-dimensional and devoid of effect as many previous researchers (and current Soviet leaders) have described it. Many forms of political participation in the Soviet Union before Gorbachev did not fit the stereotype of a psychologically disengaged citizenry driven to participate only by coercion, a desire to conform, or a quest for particularized benefits from public officials.

Tolerance, Transition, and Support for Civil Liberties in Russia

Research on the U.S.S.R. and its successor states since the late Gorbachev era has found substantial public support for the idea of free elections, multiple parties, and expanded civil rights. But it also points to a gap between support for democratic values in the abstract versus willingness to apply them in practice. People who profess democratic values (demophiles) appear to be all too willing to deny rights to groups they dislike. Interpretations of this tolerance gap have focused on the confusion wrought by democratic transition, on the complexity of the idea of tolerance, and on the legacies of authoritarian culture. This article suggests instead that demophiles are responding rationally to the fragility of new democratic institutions. The tolerance gap is less the product of confusion or ingrained authoritarian culture than a logical response to political chaos.

Intimidation and the Symbolic Uses of Terror in the USSR

Theories of regime-society relations in Communist states stress the central role of coercion in maintaining political control. Based on a survey of Soviet emigrants, we examine whether Soviet citizens are deterred from nonconformity by the punitive actions of the KGB (individual deterrence), a perception of the KGBs coercive potential (general deterrence), or mistrust of other people. We find that few respondents were directly coerced by the KGB (and those who were had engaged in the most serious kinds of nonconformity); that those who had punitive contacts with the KGB in the past were not deterred from subsequent nonconformity; that the KGBs competent image was a general deterrent; and that trust in other people facilitated both nonconformist and compliant political activism. Those who came of political age under Khrushchev and Brezhnev were more likely to be involved in both kinds of activism than those who came of age under Stalin.

Interrupted Presidencies in Third Wave Democracies

Since 1974, popularly elected presidents in a number of Third Wave democracies have resigned or been removed from office, casting doubt on classic assumptions about the inflexibility of presidential terms. Accounting for this pattern of interruptions has been difficult, however, since some cross-national studies rely on limited samples and some yield conflicting results. We reexamine the sources of presidential interruptions in new democracies from 1974 through 2003. We find several factors that increase presidential vulnerability: lack of partisan resources in congress, a low share of the first-round vote, an imbalance in presidential power, a declining economy, and public mobilization against the incumbent. We also find that presidential survival is separate from democratic survival in most regions of the world. Presidents may fall, but democratic governments usually continue. Democratically elected presidents in sub-Saharan Africa, however, tend to be removed by force, with the result that democracy itself is more likely to be suspended.

Economic adversity and public mobilization in Russia

Abstract Since the beginning of post-communist transitions, the challenge for reformers has been how to mobilize winners and demobilize losers of economic transformation. Accounts of dual transitions suggested that it would be an uphill fight: economic crisis hit just when political liberalization offered the losers multiple opportunities to voice their discontent. But a reading of the comparative literature on participation implies the reverse—hardship would cut into individual resources and thus reduce, rather than encourage, political activism. In this paper, we assess the connection between economic hardship and participation in the Russian transition. We focus on two of the activities that should be closely tied to the expression of discontent, voting and protest. Using data from 1995, we argue that economics matters, but not quite in the way predicted by accounts of dual transitions or by the resource model. Neither objective economic dislocation nor dissatisfaction with economic conditions takes people out of politics. In fact, it is the relatively well-to-do who opt out.

Ethnicity and Equality in Post-communist Economic Transition: Evidence from Russia's Republics

For ethnically diverse societies, as in Russia, the post-communist economic transition implies a restructuring of the old cultural division of labor – the distribution of occupations and rewards among ethnic groups. The Soviet commitment to affirmative action policies for non-Russian regions and their resident minorities unraveled along with the USSR. And without central controls over employment and wages, education, and investment, the federal government has far fewer levers to impose quotas or to push industrial and urban development into minority areas. The question, then, is who bears the burden of economic dislocation and who benefits from new economic opportunities? This paper uses survey data to explore the connections between ethnicity and economic transition in three republics of Russia – Tatarstan, North Ossetia and Sakha (Yakutia).

Dependent Development: A Socialist Variant

This paper conceptualizes the political economy of the Soviet bloc in terms of concepts used to describe ‘classic dependence’ and ‘dependent development’ in the capitalist periphery. In particular, the rapid economic growth that occurred in Eastern Europe between the mid-1950s and mid-1970s can be termed ‘dependent development’ because the primary stimulus for it came from an external dominator (the Soviet Union) and because the process of economic growth and structural transformation made Eastern Europe more dependent economically upon the USSR and created ‘class linkages’ of common interest between the Soviet and East European elites. Dependent development of the Soviet bloc was also analogous to the Western case in that, despite initial successes, it ultimately created major economic, political, and social ‘contradictions’—which seemingly can only be resolved by a radical structural transformation. In addition to such similarities between ‘capitalist’ and ‘socialist’ dependency, there are several important differences as well that evidently derive from the fact that dependency relationships are more ‘political’ in the Soviet bloc and more ‘economic’ in the capitalist world.

The Union Republics and Contradictions in Gorbachev's Economic Reform

An American sovietologist assesses the economic pressures on the constituent republics of the Soviet Union from the outset of the Gorbachev era through early December of 1991. Following an overview of the center-periphery relations within the command-administrative system in the early 1980s, the author evaluates the impact of perestroyka on republic economies prior to the political transformation of the governments in the 1990s. The implications for territorial integration in the wake of the coup in August 1991 and the subsequent efforts to structure a new economic union between the republics are presented and analyzed in the concluding section. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: P20, P24.

Citizen Activism in the Russian Transition

Two American specialists on Russia report the results of two nationwide surveys conducted in that country in 1992 (N = 1,393) and 1993 (N = 1,598). Focus was on rates and types of political activism and their correlation with attitudes toward economic and political reform. Conclusions are that different types of political activism attract different constituencies. People with higher income and occupational status participate in a wide range of activities but are significantly less likely than others to vote. Those with less to gain from the transition are more likely to vote—perhaps a legacy of communism—but take part less in activities which demand high levels of commitment and resources. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: P29, Jl8.