Thesis (M.A.) - Carleton University, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 169-175). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1999. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 202-214).

This thesis deals with how population dynamics in a post-socialist Russian village intertwine with the use of local resources. Specifically, it explores two interrelated issues: first, it looks at how attitudes to local resources vary, depending on people’s ways of engaging with place; second, it focuses on the contexts in which people reify and manipulate their identification with place by ascribing place-related identities to themselves and others as they deal with local resources. The research is based on fieldwork carried out in the village of Kuzomen’ on the White Sea Coast, in north-west Russia. Traditionally, research in Russia has focused on regions in which farming or herding is the main source of livelihood. This thesis explores the peculiarity of post-Soviet conditions in a part of Russia where fishing is the prevailing economic activity. The following questions were addressed: 1) what factors affect people’s relations with and attitudes towards resources in Kuzomen’? 2) how does the postsocialist condition affect resource use in the area? 3) what is the connection between people’s identification with place and their attitudes to its resources? The main findings are that the specificity of postsocialist conditions in Russia and population migration in Kuzomen’ have contributed to the differentiation of people’s attitudes to local resources. In particular, there is a difference between local people and incomers on the one hand, and between permanent dwellers and summer visitors on the other. The deterioration of established systems of state management and control, and the inefficient implementation of newly emerged legislation regarding resource use in post-Soviet Russia, have led to a situation in which access to resources is often regulated through informal arrangements. In these arrangements, identification with place becomes important as people use place-related identities such as local or incomer in their negotiations over access and rights to local resources.

²¤

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Florida State University, 2004. / Advisor: Dr. Jonathan Grant, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Dept. of History. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed June 16, 2004). Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 344-366).

Political parties have been a common feature in non-competitive political systems, but their fates following an opening of electoral competition vary widely. Some parties continue to be able successfully compete for power, while many others languish as second-class political parties for decades. This dissertation seeks to answer the questions on this variation based on the institutional and organizational characteristics of these parties during the non-competitive era. Parties that play a major role in the non-competitive regime should be more likely to survive after an opening of competition, and parties that are able to reform anti-democratic legacies will be more able to translate their resources into future electoral success. This project builds on a literature that is rich in regional and sub-regional case studies by developing a global approach based upon comparable institutional qualities of non-competitive political systems and their ruling political parties. I also move away from the transitions literature and its focus on democracy, and instead focus on continuity and change in political parties after a time of major political change and the outcomes of that process. I develop an original, global database of 105 different regimes and 136 parties and their successors and their performance in elections ranging from 1975-2013. I find that parties which are a central institutional feature of the non-competitive regime are likely to survive regardless of their electoral success, while parties that play only a minor supporting role in the prior regime are dependent on continued electoral victories in order to survive for any significant period of time.

No description available.

This thesis is concerned with the geographical impact of the post-Soviet transition on the north of Perm' oblast, Russian Federation; a forested area which is marginal in terms of agriculture and economic development, where harsh climate and marshy soils preclude profitable agriculture, and where very poor infrastructure and low levels of investment have contributed to the decline of the forestry industry, which was developed during the Soviet period outside of the market system under which such development might have been regarded as non-viable. This thesis discusses marginality and poverty against the background of the process of 'transition' in Russia, and also outlines the theory of transition itself. The historical context is also considered; the processes through which the north of Perm' oblast arrived at the position in which it found itself by 1991 are examined, and changes up to the present day are analyzed. Historically, the processes of settlement and development of forestry in the study area are central. The political situation in the Russian Federation is also brought into the argument; the struggle for power between the centre and the periphery, and the weakening of the centre in recent months all have a bearing upon the view taken of marginal areas by the Moscow administration, and the policies undertaken which affect them. The thesis describes the responses of rural inhabitants to the processes of marginalisation; through out-migration, bifurcation of households, and the ways in which they utilise their domestic and environmental resources to effect subsistence. It also describes the importance of cash sources, of social capital, and of the forestry enterprises in the villages, as survival strategies. The conditions in the study region are shown to owe much to the context of Soviet development policy, and its impact on post-Soviet Russia.

Thesis (M.A.) - Carleton University, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 180-190). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.