Rasma Karklins

Typology of Post-Communist Corruption

Corruption takes many forms, and all of them distort the workings of the political system.

Soviet Elections Revisited: Voter Abstention in Noncompetitive Voting

This analysis of voters and nonvoters in a large sample of recent emigrants from the Soviet Union shows that nonvoting is correlated with high interest in politics, a critical political outlook, and dissident modes of behavior. Thus, voter abstention in noncompetitive balloting can be hypothesized to constitute a significant political act rather than passivity. Single-party states use single-candidate elections for a variety of purposes, one of these being the psychological reinforcement of unity between regime and subjects. In this context, the only choice left to the dissenting citizen is not to vote at all. In the contemporary Soviet Union, nonvoting is regionally focused on Moscow and Leningrad, and is associated with post-Stalinist generational change. The covert nature of vote evasion and its informal tolerance provide a new perspective on the character of the Soviet system and its political culture.

Explaining regime change in the Soviet Union

(1994). Explaining regime change in the Soviet Union. Europe-Asia Studies: Vol. 46, No. 1, pp. 29-45.

Political participation in Latvia 1987–2001

Abstract Political participation is crucial to democracy; we discuss its main features during three stages. The years 1988–91 are marked by anti-regime mobilization and extensive mass activism in support for restoring independence. After a “normalizing” phase between 1992–98 we note contradictory trends in more recent years. Next to conventional political participation one notes increasing protests, referendum initiatives, and corrupt ways of gaining influence.

The Misunderstanding of Ethnicity

Ethnicity is often demonized as a dangerous and destructive force. If constructive ethnopolitical alternatives are ignored, the misunderstanding of ethnic interests can be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Syndromes of Corruption: Wealth, Power, and Democracy

policy-making. The hope for Africa, Hyden explains, would be greater modernization of this sort. Indeed, if much of African underdevelopment can be adduced from behavior associated with the economy of affection, it may make sense to pay more rather than less attention to these emerging formal structures as a potentially hopeful development in African political life. It is worth noting that one of the author’s central policy prescriptions for the future of Africa—the creation of tripartite governance structures that bring together governments, civil society, and the donor community with focused sectoral responsibilities—is already underway in the form of Country Coordinating Mechanisms mandated by the Global Fund for HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, and in other donor-supported projects. If there is any value to the accumulated knowledge of 50 years of political science research on Africa, it desperately needs to be applied to this devastating pandemic, discussed in places throughout the book. Whether or not a truly policyoriented governance will be possible in much of Africa remains to be seen.

Syndromes of Corruption: Wealth, Power, and Democracy – By Michael Johnston

policy-making. The hope for Africa, Hyden explains, would be greater modernization of this sort. Indeed, if much of African underdevelopment can be adduced from behavior associated with the economy of affection, it may make sense to pay more rather than less attention to these emerging formal structures as a potentially hopeful development in African political life. It is worth noting that one of the author’s central policy prescriptions for the future of Africa—the creation of tripartite governance structures that bring together governments, civil society, and the donor community with focused sectoral responsibilities—is already underway in the form of Country Coordinating Mechanisms mandated by the Global Fund for HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, and in other donor-supported projects. If there is any value to the accumulated knowledge of 50 years of political science research on Africa, it desperately needs to be applied to this devastating pandemic, discussed in places throughout the book. Whether or not a truly policyoriented governance will be possible in much of Africa remains to be seen.

The analysis of national cadre politics

Almost every discussion of nationality policy in the USSR touches on cadre development by comparing the role of non-Russians to that of Russians in various political, economic, scientific, or other positions, yet such analysis involves numerous unresolved conceptual and methodological problems. Different authors emphasize different aspects and approaches, consequently they often reach different conclusions. What are these problems and what are possible solutions? This paper outlines some preliminary points as a basis for discussion. It focuses on party cadres, since the influence of non-Russians within the CPSU is the core question of ethnopolitics in the USSR. When citing specific data, emphasis is placed on comparing the Baltic and Central Asian regions, since this allows distinguishing problems that are union-wide from those that are regional. It is known that we lack much crucial information about party membership by nationality within republics, for example but I would like to leave pure data problems aside for the time being. The difficulties analysts of ethnic cadre politics face are not just those of adequate data. More important are conceptual problems and the need to clarify underlying assumptions. This is not to criticize the impressive existing body of writing on nationality issues; on the contrary, the existing literature forms the basis for a systematic discussion of the principal questions. Analysts have to deal with the following nine points: 1. Is the focus on the party elite or the entire membership? The traditional approach has been to focus on the higher party organs such as the Politburo, Secretariat, and Central Committee, the assumption being that they are the centers of power. Other studies have focused on aggregate membership data, implicitly assuming that all party members play a political role. It is striking that there are no attempts to discuss nationality as it relates to the professional party apparat 2. Is the focus on individual republics or the entire Soviet Union? Politically, this makes a great difference. Clearly, the central party organization is at the core of political decision-making and power, but for many purposes events at the republic level are more important to individual citizens and