The thesis examines the influence of external advice on domestic reform in a post-communist state following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. As an example of this, the research analyses the role of international assistance in the reform of public administration in Ukraine in the period 2000 to 2012, with particular reference to the relationship between the national and sub-national tiers of government. Two empirical case studies, on fiscal decentralisation and regional policy, are employed to provide an in-depth analysis of reform programmes introduced by the Government of Ukraine and an examination of the contribution of external advice to each. The thesis draws on concepts from Institutional Theory, Comparative Politics and Development Studies to explain the interaction between external donors and the domestic recipients of their advice. It is argued that international assistance to public administrative reform in Ukraine is a form of normative institutional isomorphism involving the deliberate transfer of models of state institutions from donor countries where they are regarded as good practice. The findings of the case studies indicate the narrow circumstances in which this transaction may lead to short-term progress with reform, through the establishment of a policy transfer network linking domestic and external actors. However the case studies also demonstrate that in the longer term both these attempts at reform, and the international advice which contributed to them, failed to achieve a sustained outcome. Employing the political economy analysis of development aid the thesis argues that the international community bears a large share of the responsibility for this owing to the technocratic nature of assistance programmes and their limited engagement with the political realities of reform processes.

The purpose of this thesis is to establish the contribution of the Soviet weekly, Literaturnaya gazeta, to the debunking of official dogmas during the Brezhnev years. Launched in 1967, the second section of Literaturnaya gazeta has frequently been dismissed as a mere safety valve, highly controlled by the authorities, to placate the educated middle classes demoralized by the conservative backlash. It is argued in this study that, although the paper accepted the political parameters of the post-Thaw conservative leadership, as evinced, in particular, by the extreme limitations of the economic debates and the absence of any material investigating the country’s Stalinist past, it nevertheless succeeded in promoting values which ran counter to the official ideology. The paper reflected the demoralization of Soviet society and its inability to change within the existing structures. Soviet society emerged as being morally corrupt, riddled with individualism, suspicion and petty authoritarianism. Individuals were shown at the mercy of faceless bureaucracies and overpowered by a judiciary system dominated by the state procuracy. The paper actively promoted a more individual-centred type of society by overtly challenging the collectivist ethos, campaigning for the recognition of consumer rights and arguing the case for a fairer judiciary system.

This thesis is concerned with analysing the available data on grain production and its utilisation from the time when the earliest grain statistics became available in pre-revolutionary Russia until the eve of mass transformation of Soviet agriculture that was associated with mass collectivisation in 1929. The pre-revolutionary period and post revolutionary period are treated separately in two separate parts of the thesis. In each part I describe the methods of collecting and organising statistics related to the production and utilisation of grain. I discuss the circumstances in which these statistics were gathered and I attempt to assess the reliability of these data and place them in a more meaningful and more comparative form. I then present an account of the available works that have attempted to analyse the balance of grain production and its utilisation. I conclude by making my own assessment of the balance and compare it with the general conceptions held on the nature of the grain problem. I conclude that the balance of grain production and utilisation was a highly complex phenomenon dependent upon the inter-relationship of demographic, economic and agronomic factors that differed from region to region and from time to time. The full complexity of these inter-relationships was little understood by the political leadership of the time.

This thesis explores dissident theatre in East Central Europe during the second half of the Cold War (1964-1989). Contextualised within the discussion of individual theatrical and performance cultures and practices in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and The German Democratic Republic, it examines how theatre was used to subvert the dominant ideologies and dissent from the status quos in these countries. It establishes a framework that addresses the divergences between Anglo-American political theatre and Eastern Bloc dissident theatre, and discusses the necessity of considering the work of subcultural and subversive artists when analysing work of this kind. The core chapters discuss the theatrical and dramatic techniques, and the intention of the artists with regards to the work itself and to audience interpretation and response in the plays and performances of Václav Havel (Czechoslovakia), Theatre of the Eighth Day (Poland) and Autoperforationsartisten (East Germany). Further, these chapters demonstrate the significant differences in the ways dissident theatre and performance was conceptualised and staged. This thesis also analyses similarities in the theoretical and philosophical motivations for the work of the artists, and the development of ‘second’ or ‘parallel’ societies as a result of the performances.

This thesis explores the nexus between identity construction and the outbreak of violence. It focuses on the cases of violence in Georgia in the early 1990s, in particular – Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The author takes an historical, process-based approach to the question of how violence “came about” in Georgia. Using previously unpublished archival material and extensive, in-depth interviews, the author traces the process of the development of inter-ethnic relations in Georgia over the course of several decades and provides a detailed examination of how these relations evolved from tensions to violence. As the thesis demonstrates, ethnic fears and hostility between Georgians on the one hand and Abkhaz and Ossetians on the other – one of the important contributing factors to the outbreak of violence – were neither deep-rooted nor long-standing; rather, they were socially constructed. Still, despite its socially constructed nature, the author argues for bringing ethnicity back in the debate and proposes a more flexible, multi-layered analytical framework in order to integrate constructivist and primordialist views on ethnicity and ethnic group formation in the study of ethnic conflicts and violence. The result is a shift of analysis from self-centered manipulative elites to more “boundedly rational” actors who operate within a socially constructed reality shaped by Soviet nationality policies and historical and cultural narratives (embedded in myths and metaphors of ethnic groups concerned).

In post-Soviet Russia, the destiny of the Southern Kuril Islands has been used by the political and intellectual elite to define and contest ideas of national identity. From the early 1990s these islands became a symbolic territory for elite groups attempting to define what kind of state the Russian Federation should become. The various geographical visions projected onto these islands are part of a struggle between elite groups to define national values and to claim the state for their own political ends. However, such visions are not smoothly inscribed onto these islands. Instead, any idea of state, nation and homeland is negotiated, contested and inflected at every geographical scale. The debates over these islands expose a deep tension over the political control of space in the Russian Far East and beyond. It is suggested that these islands are a kind of ‘hyper-border’: a site which is distant, and at times even beyond the state’s control, yet at the same time can be instantaneously linked to the destiny of the entire country. It is a term intended to capture the struggles, contestations and unequal power relations inherent in the ideological process of constructing national space and identity.

This case study examines the role of the political party United Russia in the rise of ‘dominant-power politics’, also termed ‘electoral authoritarianism’, that characterises the Putin period (2000-2008). Comparative literature identifies parties as important independent or explanatory variables in a range of regime outcomes, including the successful consolidation of democracy, but also in the establishment and consolidation of authoritarian rule. The impressive rise of United Russia in the Russian political system from late 2001 onwards, together with its co-occurrence with the growing strength of the Putin regime, suggests that the party was a factor in the outcome of the latter. This research first develops a theoretical framework to understand the role of parties in modern political systems and then applies this framework to explore the Russian case. Although a component of power in the Putin period, this research argues that the origins of United Russia in the ‘party of power’ phenomenon limit its value as an explanatory variable. Rather than a principal power in the emerging post-Yeltsin political order, United Russia is an agent of a powerful civilian executive, which remains beyond the control of any party. In this sense, the rise of United Russia in the Putin period is misleading. United Russia is an example of ‘virtual’ party hegemony; a reflection of the intentions and ability of non-party power-holders to project their power onto party-agents. This research contributes to existing literature on party politics in the post-Soviet space and Russian politics in the Putin period. In comparative terms, this study contributes to existing notions of party dominance and emerging literature on divergent regime trajectories in the post-Cold War period.

This dissertation challenges the view that Lev Kamenev lacked a clear socialist vision and had no discernible objectives. It contends that Kamenev had an ideological line and political goals shaped by Ferdinand Lassalle. Kamenev adopted Lassalle’s desire for a democratic socialist republic and his method to achieve end aims. Through dialogical discourse Kamenev aimed to gain allies by overcoming differences by focusing on points of agreement. This was his ‘Bolshevik Centrism’. Ideologically, Kamenev absorbed Lassalle’s concept of the ‘Fourth Estate’, which mandated proletarian culture first predominate in society before revolution could occur. This helps explain his opposition to revolution in 1905 and 1917, and sheds light on his assessment in the early 1920s that the Bolsheviks had not founded the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’, but the ‘dictatorship of the party’. In trying to overcome this reality he adapted Lassalle’s vision for an all-encompassing selfless state and endeavoured to merge the party, the state, and the masses into one. His aspiration to win over peasants and workers placed him in a centrist position, whereby he used his authority to challenge Trotsky and Bukharin’s leftist and rightist policies. However, under the one-party dictatorship his actions directly contributed to the rise of Stalin.

This thesis contributes to an in-depth understanding of the concept of soft power, which according to Joseph Nye indicates the ability to achieve foreign policy goals through cultural attraction. For the purposes of this study of Russian cultural influence in Ukraine, soft power is rearticulated to highlight the ability to engage in mean-making and cultural-ideational leadership on the international stage. A critique of Nye justifies a reframing of soft power, which is supplied by drawing on the analytical power of post-Marxist hegemony and discourse theory. The methodology through which this concept is operationalised empirically emphasises outcomes over inputs, thus appraisals of soft power must account for whether the discourses promoted by mean-making initiatives resonate favourably with target audiences. Desk-based and field research supports an argument that Moscow acknowledges the need for soft power, understood here in terms of ‘sovereignty of spirit’. This civilisational approach is explored further, and the target narratives advanced by significant proponents of the discourse, namely the Russkiy Mir Foundation, the Russian Orthodox Church and foreign policy officials, are identified. Insights into the activities of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate to promote spiritually-infused discourses are provided, and new developments observed. Finally, the extent of Russian ‘civilisational’ soft power is estimated through surveys and focus groups gauging audience reception to the ideational narratives promoted.

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