Interdisciplinary journal focusing primarily on sociological, political science and historical perspectives on the issue of long-term social processes and trends, modernization, globalization tendency and impacts.
The journal creates a broader platform for researches in the historical social sciences. Epistemological field is not strictly bounded, it is also meant to overlap with civilizationalism, cultural sociology and other related fields.
Historical Sociology is Open Access Journal and all published papers are available in the archive section. Open access journal means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author.
Published by Charles University in Prague, Karolinum Press, cooperated with Faculty of Humanities, Charles University in Prague.
Reviewed scientific journal issued twice a year (in June and December).
The journal is abstracted and indexed in CEEOL, CEJSH, DOAJ, EBSCO, Emerging Sources Citation Index, ERIH PLUS, OAJI, recensio.net, Scopus, SSOAR, Ulrichsweb.
The journal is archived in Portico.
HISTORICKÁ SOCIOLOGIE, Vol 7 No 2 (2015), 45–60
The Soviet Model of Modernity and Russia’s Post-communist Political Transformations
Mikhail Maslovskii
DOI: https://doi.org/10.14712/23363525.2015.11
published online: 17. 12. 2015
abstract
The article discusses political processes in post-Soviet Russia from the perspective of the multiple modernities theory. A study of Russia’s political transformation on the basis of this approach allows us to reconsider the obstacles to democratization that existed in the 1990s and the socio-cultural preconditions for de-democratization in the 2000s. The author draws on Johann Arnason’s analysis of the Soviet model of modernity. From this perspective the Soviet model possessed only some civilizational traits and did not lead to a sustainable civilizational pattern. Nevertheless, remnants of that model and the imperial legacy of the Soviet period influenced Russian politics of the last two decades. The dynamics of democratization and de-democratization in Russia represent a case of path dependency which is both post-communist and post-imperial.
keywords: civilizational analysis; modernity; Soviet model; Russia; political transformation
references (42)
1. Arnason, Johann P. [1993]. The Future that Failed: Origins and Destinies of the Soviet Model. London: Routledge.
2. Arnason, Johann P. [1995]. The Soviet Model as a Mode of Globalization. Thesis Eleven 41: 36–53.
3. Arnason, Johann P. [2002]. Communism and Modernity. In. Eisenstadt, Shmuel (ed.). Multiple Modernities. London: Transaction Publications, pp. 61–90.
4. Arnason, Johann P. [2003]. Entangled Communisms: Imperial Revolutions in Russia and China. European Journal of Social Theory 6 (3): 307–325.
5. Arnason, Johann P. [2005]. Alternating Modernities: The Case of Czechoslovakia. European Journal of Social Theory 8 (4): 435–452.
6. Arnason, Johann P. [2006]. Understanding Intercivilizational Encounters. Thesis Eleven 86: 39–53.
7. Blokker, Paul [2005]. Post-Communist Modernization, Transition Studies and Diversity in Europe. European Journal of Social Theory 8 (4): 503–525.
8. Breuer, Stefan [1992]. Soviet Communism and Weberian Sociology. Journal of Historical Sociology 5 (3): 267–290.
9. Carothers, Thomas [2002]. The End of the Transition Paradigm. Journal of Democracy 13 (1): 5–21.
10. Casanova, Jose [2011]. Cosmopolitanism, the Clash of Civilizations and Multiple Modernities. Current Sociology 59 (2): 252–267.
11. Collins, Randall [1986]. Weberian Sociological Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
12. David-Fox, Michael [2006]. Multiple Modernities versus Neo-Traditionalism . Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 55 (4): 535–555.
13. Dubin, Boris [2011]. Rossiya nulevykh: politicheskaya kul'tura, istoricheskaya pamyat' , povsednevnaya zhizn' . Moscow: ROSSPEN.
14. Eisenstadt, Shmuel N. [1998]. The Paradox of Democratic Regimes: Fragility and Transformability. Sociological Theory 16 (3): 211–238.
15. Eisenstadt, Shmuel N. [2001]. The Civilizational Dimension of Modernity: Modernity as a Distinc Civilization. International Sociology 16 (3): 320–340.
16. Fitzpatrick, Sheila. [2000]. Introduction. In. Fitzpatrick, Sheila (ed.). Stalinism: New Directions. London: Routledge, pp. 1–14.
17. Gudkov, Lev [2009]. Priroda putinizma. Vestnik obshchestvennogo mneniya: dannye, analiz, diskussii 3: 6–21.
18. Gudkov, Lev [2011]. Abortivnaya modernizatsiya. Moscow: ROSSPEN.
19. Hanson, Stephen [2003]. Sovietology, Post-Sovietology and the Study of Post-Communist Democratization. Demokratizatsiya 14 (1): 142–149.
20. Hanson, Stephen [2006]. Postimperial Democracies: Ideology and Party Formation in Third Republic France, Weimar Germany and Post-Soviet Russia. East European Politics and Societies 20 (2): 343–372.
21. Hanson, Stephen [2010]. Post-Imperial Democracies: Ideology and Party Formation in Third Republic France, Weimar Germany and Post-Soviet Russia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
22. Hassner, Pierre [2008]. Russia's Transition to Autocracy. Journal of Democracy 19 (2): 5–15.
23. Hedin, Astrid [2004]. Stalinism as a Civilization: New Perspectives on Communist Regimes. Political Studies Review 2 (2): 166–184.
24. Huntington, Samuel [1993]. The Clash of Civilizations? Foreign Affairs 72 (4): 22–49.
25. Knöbl, Wolfgang [2010]. Path Dependency and Civilizational Analysis: Methodological Challenges and Theoretical Tasks. European Journal of Social Theory 13 (1): 83–97.
26. Knöbl, Wolfgang [2011]. Contingency and Modernity in the Thought of J. P. Arnason. European Journal of Social Theory 14 (1): 9–22.
27. Kumar, Krishan [2010]. Nation-States as Empires, Empires as Nation-States: Two Principles, One Practice? Theory and Society 39 (1): 119–143.
28. Malinova, Olga [2008]. Tema imperii v sovremennykh rossiiskikh politicheskikh diskursakh. In. Miller, A. (ed.). Nasledie imperii i budushchee Rossii. Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, pp. 59–102.
29. Maslovskiy, Mikhail [2010]. The Weberian Tradition in Historical Sociology and the Field of Soviet Studies. In. Oittinen, V. (ed.). Max Weber and Russia. Helsinki: Aleksanteri Series, pp. 7–20.
30. Maslovskiy, Mikhail [2013]. Social and Cultural Obstacles to Russian Modernisation. Europe-Asia Studies 65 (10): 2014–2022.
31. Motyl, Alexander [2010]. Russia's Systemic Transformation since Perestroika: From Totalitarianism to Authoritarianism to Democracy to Fascism? The Harriman Review 17 (2): 1–14.
32. Pipes, Richard [1994]. Russia under the Bolshevik Regime, 1919–1924. London: Harvill.
33. Riegel, Klaus-Georg [2005]. Marxism-Leninism as a Political Religion. Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions 6 (1): 97–126.
34. Sakwa, Richard [2012]. Modernisation, Neo-Modernisation and Comparative Democratisation in Russia. East European Politics 28 (1): 43–57.
35. Shevtsova, Lilia [2007]. Post-Communist Russia: A Historic Opportunity Missed. International Affairs 83 (5): 891–912.
36. Spohn, Willfried [2010]. Political Sociology: Between Civilizations and Modernities. A Multiple Modernites Perspective. European Journal of Social Theory 13 (1): 49–66.
37. Spohn, Willfried [2011]. World History, Civilizational Analysis and Historical Sociology: Interpretations of Non-Western Civilizations in the Work of Johann Arnason. European Journal of Social Theory 14 (1): 23–39.
38. Tilly, Charles [2007]. Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
39. Trenin, Dmitri [2011]. Post-Imperium: A Eurasia Story. Washington: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
40. Tsygankov, Andrei [2003]. The Irony of Western Ideas in a Multicultural World: Russians' Intellectual Engagement with the 'End of History' and 'Clash of Civilizations'. International Studies Review 5 (1): 53–67.
41. Van Herpen, Marcel [2014]. Putin's Wars: The Rise of Russia's New Imperialism. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.
42. Wagner, Peter [2010]. Multiple Trajectories of Modernity: Why Social Theory Needs Historical Sociology. Thesis Eleven 100: 53–60.
The Soviet Model of Modernity and Russia’s Post-communist Political Transformations is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
230 x 157 mm
periodicity: 2 x per year
print price: 120 czk
ISSN: 1804-0616
E-ISSN: 2336-3525
