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The thesis explores the dynamics of intra-regional diffusion and learning in the post-communist world. 1t is often assumed that ideas and lessons extrapolated from successful post-communist transitions are of particular relevance and utility to policymakers and other actors in post-Soviet countries struggling to consolidate democratic institutions and integrate into the Western orbit. Attempts at exporting transition experience have attracted considerable attention in policy circles, but remain underexplored in the academic literature. Drawing on theories of diffusion of innovations, learning, and the role of ideas in politics, the thesis investigates the spread of ideas and practices from countries of Central and Eastern Europe to Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova in 2003-2011. To set the stage, it first inquires into the causal factors that account for the emergence of the phenomenon in the early 2000s. However, the main goal of the thesis is to elucidate conditions under which ideas and practices are most likely to diffuse and gain traction in the post-Soviet context. To do so, it compares the diffusion and learning processes in three different domains of public life: civil society mobilization, decentralization and regional policy, and NATO integration and defence reform. It finds that domestic structures in recipient states - opportunities for civil society mobilization and windows of institutional and policy change - critically impinge on patterns of intra-regional diffusion and learning. 10 particular, structural configurations that approximated the prior circumstances of Central and Eastern European countries - or helped actors subjectively construct such analogies - encouraged robust diffusion of ideas as well as learning. The explication of linkages between domestic structures and the diffusion process, as mediated by actors' perceptions of similarities, is the thesis' main contribution to the general literature. Its findings also suggest that, in certain instances, biased learning from Central and Eastern European transitions may have contributed to suboptimal policy outcomes in the post-Soviet countries.

This thesis explores the process of political change, economic transformation and institutional development in Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union. It assesses the outcomes of the transition as the results of a multifaceted process. At theoretical level, the work analyses Russian transformation as an integral part of Russian history. Institutional theory. in its various ramifications, has been the analytical tool on which my study is based on. In particular, this work seeks to connect the determinants of power struggle and distribution with institutional change and development. It does so by explaining not only why and how certain institutions were designed - a field in which rational choice can be of great help - but also why and how these institutions failed to create a modern market democracy - and here historical and sociological institutionalism are necessary tools of the research. At empirical level, this thesis investigates the socio-economic structures that Russia inherited from the former Soviet Union and in particular, the relative strength of the old nomenklatura and the weakness of alternative social forces. The nomenklatura exploited the dramatic weakening of the central authority to expropriate vast economic resources, to hijack the course of the reforms and to consolidate its powerful position by impeding the development of a modem market economy. Nevertheless, the equilibrium reached between political and economic actors was not a stable one because it was based only on the exploitation of public resources without creating the conditions for the reproduction of economic relations. In this sense, Putin's ascent to power is explained as an attempt to stabilise this situation by reaffirming the role of the state and re-defining the relations between both the centre and the regions and the state and the "oligarchs". This research concludes that despite the efforts of the reformers, the ultimate goal of transforming Russia in a liberal country was not achieved. Traditional patrimonialism, albeit in a modernised version, and political soft authoritarianism have emerged as the economic and political framework of the new Russia.

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Abstract At the end of the 20th century, the Soviet Union dissolved its Communist Empire and East and West Germany reunited. These dramatic events were preceded by Soviet consolidation of the world socialist and peace movements with assistance from the European Left, especially in West Germany. On the other side of the Iron Curtain, newly emerged independent peace groups, such as Charter 77, also played a significant role. In the process, West Germany realigned itself with the Soviet Union, diminishing the role of the United States and Great Britain in Europe. This shift was a direct result of the Soviet long-term peace offensive policy, which was originally devised by V. I. Lenin to defeat capitalism worldwide. The Soviet peace offensive sought the creation of a common security system, disarmament, and the withdrawal of U.S. troops and weapons from Europe. As soon as the communist facade disappeared and the image of the enemy faded, many Western policymakers and analysts stopped paying attention to the fact that Russia continued to pursue the same strategic objectives in Europe after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Russia's long-term strategic and geopolitical interests remained the same. Could Russia, some twenty years later, be closer to fulfilling these goals?

This thesis addresses the subject of political dissent during the Khrushchev era. It examines the kinds of protest behaviours that individuals and groups engaged in and the way that the Soviet authorities responded to them. The findings show that dissenting activity was more frequent and more diverse during the Khrushchev period than has previously been supposed and that there were a number of significant continuities in the forms of dissent, and the authorities’ responses to these acts, across the eras of Stalin, Khrushchev and Brezhnev. In the early Khrushchev years a large proportion of the political protest and criticism that took place remained essentially loyal to the regime and Marxist-Leninist in outlook, though this declined in later years as communist utopianism and respect for the ruling authorities seem to have significantly diminished. In place of mass terror, the authorities increasingly moved toward more rationalised and targeted practices of social control, seeking to ‘manage’ dissent rather than to eradicate it either by persuasion or by force. All of this was reflective of the fact that the relationship between state and society was undergoing a vital transitional stage during the Khrushchev years, as both parties began to establish for themselves what had and had not changed since Stalin’s death.

The thesis examines society-military relations with a focus on the contemporary Russian case. In doing this, it develops the Society-Military Interface (SMI), created by Stephen Webber and Jennifer Mathers (2006), and produces a typology of society-military relations. The SMI allows the inclusion of public and daily interactions which adds an additional layer of insight into the analysis of society-military relations. Although contemporary Russia is frequently characterised as a sub-optimal version of a democratic ideal or represents a return to the Soviet past, the thesis argues that post-Soviet Russia is militarised and that the sub-elite level of analysis can provide a meaningful insight into a Russian society-military relations. The original empirical material of the thesis is organised into four chapters examining twelve individual indicators of militarisation such as: military spending, civilian control, and everyday militarisation. The thesis seeks to offer an original contribution to the literature on civil-military relations and Russian politics, in three ways. Firstly, it explores society-military relations in terms of militarisation. Secondly, it analyses interactions beyond the experience of the West, such as mechanisms of civilian control rooted in executive power rather than legislative oversight. Thirdly, it removes the dichotomy of external armed forces and internal security services which has thus far dominated the literature. This allows the ‘military organisation’, comprised of the full range of ‘power ministries’, to be included in the analysis. As the thesis seeks to demonstrate, analysis of these institutions is crucial to understanding contemporary Russian society-military relations. These three elements challenge the approaches of the existing literature which predominantly focus on: elite level interactions (military and political); institutions controlled by the MOD (Armed Forces); and society-military relations defined in liberal-democratic terms.

À l’été 2010, la Russie, gouvernée par le tandem formé par Dmitri Medvedev, son Président, et Vladimir Poutine, son Premier ministre, se trouve frappée par des feux de forêt massifs. Alors que ces incendies touchent les régions les plus occidentales du pays, y compris Moscou, sa capitale, ses gouvernants se retrouvent face à l’injonction de communiquer, c’est-à-dire de partager avec les gouvernés une certaine lecture de l’état des choses. Venant rompre le fonctionnement ordinaire d’une société, la catastrophe ouvre, en effet, un terrain de communication, c’est-à-dire un espace d’échanges entre producteurs de sens, et engendre en cela un exercice du pouvoir d’ordre symbolique. Reposant la question initialement formulée par Claude Gilbert, à savoir : « Quel est le pouvoir du pouvoir lors des crises post-accidentelles ? » (Gilbert, 1992, p.18), cette thèse se propose de débuter l’analyse là où Gilbert la concluait, c’est-à-dire par une prise en compte du symbolique dans l’exercice du pouvoir politique en temps de catastrophe. Appréhendant la catastrophe comme un moment de communication, saturé par les discours et les images produits par les organisations gouvernementales, mais aussi comme un moment de lutte entre représentations concurrentes de l’événement, l’enjeu est de se pencher sur la dimension représentative du pouvoir politique ou, plus précisément, sur la représentation-figuration comme vecteur d’exercice de la domination en temps de catastrophe naturelle dans le contexte de la Russie des années 2000. / While governed in tandem by President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Russia suffered from widespread forest fires in summer 2010. As the fires particularly plagued Russia’s western regions, including the capital city of Moscow, Russia’s national leaders faced the task of communicating to all of the governed a certain reading of the disaster. By disturbing ordinary societal functioning, disasters create a communication field—that is, a space for exchange among meaning producers—that invites exercises of symbolic power. To readdress a question first formulated by Claude Gilbert—namely, “What is the power of power in post-accident crises?”(Gilbert, 1992, p. 18)—this doctoral dissertation proposes to extend Gilbert’s analysis by considering the importance of symbolic power and representation in exercises of political power during disasters. By understanding disaster as a moment of communication, saturated with speeches and images produced by governmental organizations, yet also as a time of struggle among competing representations of the event, this project aims to examine the representative dimension of political power—or more precisely, representation as a means of exercising power—during natural disasters in early 21st-century Russia.

Cette thèse porte sur le déclin de la participation électorale dans les dix démocraties post­communistes qui ont intégré l’Union européenne en 2004 et 2007. Ces pays ont connu la plus forte baisse de participation électorale observée en régimes démocratiques depuis la Deuxième Guerre mondiale. Afin de comprendre ce phénomène, la thèse adopte une approche qui est à la fois systématique, théorisée, quantitative et comparative. Elle est structurée autour d’un nouveau schéma directeur conceptuel pour l’étude de la participation électorale au niveau agrégé. Ce cadre théorique distingue quatre types de facteurs qui affectent la participation en fonction de la nature et la temporalité de leurs effets. Le rôle de chaque type dans le déclin post­communiste est théorisé et considéré l’un après l’autre. Les sections empiriques emploient des méthodes quantitatives et une comparaison à l’intérieur des dix pays mais également avec d’autres démocraties établies ou nouvelles. Elles analysent plusieurs bases de données originales, dont la principale contient pratiquement toutes les élections législatives intervenues dans le monde démocratique entre 1939 et 2010. Les résultats remettent en cause l’idée selon laquelle le déclin participatif est principalement dû à un désenchantement démocratique. Ils montrent qu’au moins six autres facteurs causaux y contribuent. Ils tiennent aux contextes de démocratisation, aux changements institutionnels et aux évolutions dans la composition des électorats. La magnitude exceptionnelle du phénomène étudié est, ainsi, le produit d’une multiplicité des causes. / This dissertation studies the puzzling decline of voter turnout in ten post­communist democracies that joined the European Union in 2004 and 2007. These countries experienced the most spectacular erosion of electoral participation in democratic regimes since World War Two. To solve this puzzle, my dissertation follows a systematic, theory­based, quantitative and comparative approach. It is structured by a newly­conceived master conceptual scheme for the study of aggregated voter turnout. This theoretical framework distinguishes between four types of turnout drivers based on the nature and temporality of their effects. The role of each type in the post­communist decline is theorised and considered in turn. The empirical sections employ several types of quantitative methods and intra­ but also inter­regional comparisons with established and other new democracies. They draw on several original datasets, the most important of which comprises the quasi­totality of democratic legislative elections held around the globe between 1939 and 2010. The results question the conventional wisdom that the post­communist turnout decline is mostly due to citizens’ dissatisfaction. Instead, they show that it is driven by no less than six other causes that relate to democratisation, institutional change and shifts in the composition of the electorate. It is the multiplicity of causal factors that explains the unparalleled startling magnitude by which voting rates decreased in the ten countries at hand. Besides solving the central puzzle, this dissertation yields a number of new middle­range theories and insights that pertain to electoral participation in both new and established democracies.