A compelling story of how ordinary Ukrainians saved their nation. With Russian shells raining on Kyiv and tanks closing in, American forces prepared to evacuate Ukraine's leader. Just three years earlier, his apparent main qualification had been playing a president on TV. But Volodymyr Zelensky reportedly retorted, 'I need ammunition, not a ride.' Ukrainian forces won the battle for Kyiv, ensuring their country's independence even as a longer war began for the southeast. You cannot understand the historic events of 2022 without understanding Zelensky. But the Zelensky effect is less about the man himself than about the civic nation he embodies: what makes Zelensky most extraordinary in war is his very ordinariness as a Ukrainian. The Zelensky Effect explains this paradox, exploring Ukraine's national history to show how its now-iconic president reflects the hopes and frustrations of the country's first 'independence generation'. Interweaving social and political background with compelling episodes from Zelensky's life and career, this is the story of Ukraine told through the journey of one man who has come to symbolise his country.

A compelling story of how ordinary Ukrainians saved their nation. With Russian shells raining on Kyiv and tanks closing in, American forces prepared to evacuate Ukraine’s leader. Just three years earlier, his apparent main qualification had been playing a president on TV. But Volodymyr Zelensky reportedly retorted, ‘I need ammunition, not a ride.’ Ukrainian forces won the battle for Kyiv, ensuring their country’s independence even as a longer war began for the southeast. You cannot understand the historic events of 2022 without understanding Zelensky. But the Zelensky effect is less about the man himself than about the civic nation he embodies: what makes Zelensky most extraordinary in war is his very ordinariness as a Ukrainian. The Zelensky Effect explains this paradox, exploring Ukraine’s national history to show how its now-iconic president reflects the hopes and frustrations of the country’s first ‘independence generation’. Interweaving social and political background with compelling episodes from Zelensky’s life and career, this is the story of Ukraine told through the journey of one man who has come to symbolise his country.

Russia poses a major puzzle for theorists of party development. Virtually every classic work takes parties to be inevitable and essential to electoral competition, but Russia remains highly nonpartisan more than fifteen years after Gorbachev first launched his democratizing reforms. The problem is that theories of party development lack a "control case," almost always focusing on cases where parties have already developed and almost never examining countries where independent politicians are the norm. This book focuses on Russia as just such a control case. It mobilizes fresh public opinion surveys, interviews with leading Russian politicians, careful tracking of multiple campaigns, and analysis of national and regional voting patterns to show why Russia stands out. Russia's historically influenced combination of federalism and "superpresidentialism," coupled with a postcommunist redistribution of resources to regional political machines and "oligarchic" financial-industrial groups, produced and sustained powerful "party substitutes" that have largely squeezed Russia's real parties out of the "electoral market," damaging Russia's democratic development.

Beyond the Euromaidan examines the prospects for advancing reform in Ukraine in the wake of the February 2014 Euromaidan revolution and Russian invasion. It examines six crucial areas where reform is needed: deep internal identity divisions, corruption, the constitution, the judiciary, plutocratic "oligarchs," and the economy. On each of these topics, the book provides one chapter that focuses on Ukraine's own experience and one chapter that examines the issue in the broader context of international practice. Placing Ukraine in comparative perspective shows that many of the country's problems are not unique and that other countries have been able to address many of the issues currently confronting Ukraine. As with the constitution, there are no easy answers, but careful analysis shows that some solutions are better than others. Ultimately, the authors propose a series of reforms that can help Ukraine make the best of a bad situation. The book stresses the need to focus on reforms that might not have immediate effect, but that comparative experience shows can solve fundamental contextual challenges. Finally, the book shows that pressures from outside Ukraine can have a strong positive influence on reform efforts inside the country.

This book proposes a new way of understanding events throughout the world that are usually interpreted as democratization, rising authoritarianism, or revolution. Where the rule of law is weak and corruption pervasive, what may appear to be democratic or authoritarian breakthroughs are often just regular, predictable phases in longer-term cyclic dynamics - patronal politics. This is shown through in-depth narratives of the post-1991 political history of all post-Soviet polities that are not in the European Union. This book also includes chapters on czarist and Soviet history and on global patterns.

This book proposes a new way of understanding events throughout the world that are usually interpreted as democratization, rising authoritarianism, or revolution. Where the rule of law is weak and corruption pervasive, what may appear to be democratic or authoritarian breakthroughs are often just regular, predictable phases in longer-term cyclic dynamics - patronal politics. This is shown through in-depth narratives of the post-1991 political history of all post-Soviet polities that are not in the European Union. This book also includes chapters on czarist and Soviet history and on global patterns.

Despite implicating ethnicity in everything from civil war to economic failure, researchers seldom consult psychological research when addressing the most basic question: What is ethnicity? The result is a radical scholarly divide generating contradictory recommendations for solving ethnic conflict. Research into how the human brain actually works demands a revision of existing schools of thought. At its foundation, ethnic identity is a cognitive uncertainty-reduction device with special capacity to exacerbate, but not cause, collective action problems. This produces a new general theory of ethnic conflict that can improve both understanding and practice. A deep study of separatism in the USSR and CIS demonstrates the theory's potential, mobilizing evidence from elite interviews, three local languages, and mass surveys. The outcome is a significant reinterpretation of nationalism's role in the USSR's breakup, which turns out to have been a far more contingent event than commonly recognized. International relations in the CIS are similarly cast in new light.

Despite implicating ethnicity in everything from civil war to economic failure, researchers seldom consult psychological research when addressing the most basic question: What is ethnicity? The result is a radical scholarly divide generating contradictory recommendations for solving ethnic conflict. Research into how the human brain actually works demands a revision of existing schools of thought. At its foundation, ethnic identity is a cognitive uncertainty-reduction device with special capacity to exacerbate, but not cause, collective action problems. This produces a new general theory of ethnic conflict that can improve both understanding and practice. A deep study of separatism in the USSR and CIS demonstrates the theory's potential, mobilizing evidence from elite interviews, three local languages, and mass surveys. The outcome is a significant reinterpretation of nationalism's role in the USSR's breakup, which turns out to have been a far more contingent event than commonly recognized. International relations in the CIS are similarly cast in new light.

Russia poses a major puzzle for theorists of party development. Virtually every classic work takes parties to be inevitable and essential to electoral competition, but Russia remains highly nonpartisan more than fifteen years after Gorbachev first launched his democratizing reforms. The problem is that theories of party development lack a "control case," almost always focusing on cases where parties have already developed and almost never examining countries where independent politicians are the norm. This book focuses on Russia as just such a control case. It mobilizes fresh public opinion surveys, interviews with leading Russian politicians, careful tracking of multiple campaigns, and analysis of national and regional voting patterns to show why Russia stands out. Russia's historically influenced combination of federalism and "superpresidentialism," coupled with a postcommunist redistribution of resources to regional political machines and "oligarchic" financial-industrial groups, produced and sustained powerful "party substitutes" that have largely squeezed Russia's real parties out of the "electoral market," damaging Russia's democratic development.

The 10th edition of this go-to-text offers critical discussion of contemporary Russian politics and its fundamental principles. It covers established topics such as executive leadership, parties and elections, and also newer issues of national identity, protest, and Russia and Greater Eurasia. Taking a bottom-up approach, Developments in Russian Politics analyses the political system in which Putin’s influence can be understood and covers frequently overlooked topics like informal economy, climate change, and gender. The book is organised around the informal politics of hybrid regimes and authoritarianism and accounts for how Russian history impacts contemporary politics in counterintuitive ways, addressing notions of hybrid warfare, disinformation, and election meddling. The chapters have a modular quality, and are designed to correspond to course teaching. Compiled by an international team of specialists and offering key questions, further reading suggestions and a list of up-to-date repositories of video material, the edition will appeal to undergraduate and postgraduate students a from across the world. Key features - Offers critical discussion of contemporary issues in Russian politics - Written by an international team of leading experts - All chapters thoroughly revised for coverage of newer developments in national identity, protest, and Russia and Greater Eurasia

In Developments in Russian Politics 9 an international team of experts provide a comprehensive and critical discussion of the country's most recent developments, offering substantive coverage of the key areas in domestic and foreign Russian politics. All essays are either new or comprehensively rewritten for this volume and examine topics ranging from executive leadership, political parties, and elections to newer issues of national identity, protest, and Russia and greater Eurasia. They also address the military, parliamentary politics, the economy, social inequality, and media and political communication in the digital age. Reflecting the changing nature of Russian politics in a globalizing world defined by ever-shifting balances of power, Developments in Russian Politics remains the best introduction to the politics of the world's largest nation. Contributors. Samuel Charap, Valentina Feklyunina, Henry E. Hale, Philip Hanson, Kathryn Hendley, Marlene Laruelle, Ellen Mickiewicz, Ben Noble, Thomas F. Remington, Bettina Renz, Ora John Reuter, Graeme Robertson, Richard Sakwa, Darrell Slider, Stephen White, John P. Willerton

Who rules Russia? This question is generated by President Vladimir Putin's most ambitious reform program to date-his attempt since 2000 to reshape the Russian federation, centralize much of the power lost by the Kremlin to the eighty-nine regional governors during the 1990s, and strengthen his weak grip on Russia's institutions and political elite. In The Dynamics of Russian Politics Russian and Western authors from the fields of political science, economics, ethnology, law, and journalism examine the reform's impact on key areas of Russian life, including big business, law enforcement, corruption, political party development, health care, local government, small business, and ethnic relations. Volume I presents the historical context and an overview of the reforms, then tracks how Putin's plans were implemented and resisted across each of the seven new federal okrugs, or megaregions, into which he divided Russia. In particular, the authors analyze the goals and contrasting political styles of his seven commissars and how their often-concealed struggles with the more independent and determined governors played out. Volume II examines the impact of these reforms on Russia's main political institutions; the increasingly assertive business community; and the defense, police, and security ministries. It also analyzes how the reforms have affected such key policy areas as local government, health care, political party development, the battle against corruption, small business, ethnic relations, and the ongoing Chechen war. Together, the two volumes simultaneously reveal that Putin's successes have been much more limited and ambiguous than is widely believed in the West while offering detailed and nuanced answers to the difficult but crucial question: Who rules Russia?

"Developments in Russian Politics 7 "brings together specially commissioned essays by leading experts to present a wide-ranging assessment of politics in contemporary Russia, including the election and inauguration of Dmitri Medvedev as president and Vladimir Putin's appointment as prime minister in the spring of 2008. The contributors provide succinct overviews of Russia's executive leadership, parliamentary politics, elections, political parties, media and political communication, regional politics, economy, social policy, foreign policy, and defense and security. Clearly and accessibly written, "Developments in Russian Politics" remains the first-choice introduction to politics in the world's largest nation.

"Contributors." Alfred B. Evans, Henry E. Hale, P. Hanson, Margot Light, N. Manning, J. Mathers, Michael McFaul, Sarah Oates, Thomas F. Remington, C. Ross, Richard Sakwa, Darrell Slider, G. Smith, Stephen White, John P. Willerton