Resisting the State: Reform and Retrenchment in Post-Soviet Russia by Kathryn Stoner-Weiss (review)

393 Ab Imperio, 4/2007 Marina PEUNOVA Kathryn Stoner-Weiss, Resisting the State: Reform and Retrenchment in Post-Soviet Russia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). 182 pp. Bibliography, Index. ISBN: 0-521-82463-7 (hardcover edition). The scholarly analysis of postcommunist Russia during the 1990s особенно важно, так как прак- тически все статьи Виноградова по “русской проблеме” носили публицистический характер, были написаны, что называется, “на злобу дня” и не могут рассматри- ваться отвлеченно, а тем более из них не создашь коллаж с помощью “ножниц и клея”. has been characterized by intellectual battles between “particularists” and “universalists” that produced clashing avalanches of literature ranging from multidisciplinary area studies-style accounts of post-Soviet transformation to theory-based “transitological” works that viewed Russia from a comparative perspective as a case study of the transition to democracy and capitalism.1 A decade later, these deliberations largely resulted in the triumph of the comparative approach. In bitter criticism of area studies and the miscalculations of Sovietology, the majority of prominent scholars, most notably, political scientists, moved away from historical, cultural, and social explanations and into the world of abstract theories.2 Kathryn Stoner-Weiss is a wellrecognized figure of the “transition to democracy” – comparative and universalistic – paradigmatic landscape . Currently at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University, 1 For a debate on transitology, see: Philippe Schmitter, Terry Karl. The Conceptual Travels of Transitologists and Consolidologists: How Far to the East Should They Attempt to Go? // Slavic Review. 1994. Vol. 53. Pp. 173-185; Valery Bunce. Should Transitologists be Grounded? // Slavic Review. 1995. Vol. 54. Pp. 109-127; Philippe Schmitter, Terry Karl. From an Iron Curtain to a Paper Curtain: Grounding Transitologists or Students of Postcommunism? // Ibid. Pp. 965-978; Valery Bunce. Paper Curtains and Paper Tigers // Ibid. Pp. 979-987. 2 This is not to say that “transitology” does not inspire a bitter criticism of its own, especially among Russian scholars. See Boris Kapustin. Modernity’s Failure/Postmodernity ’s Predicament: The Case of Russia // Critical Horizons. 2003. Vol. 4. Pp. 99-145; Andrei Mellville. Russia in the 1990s: Democratization, Postcommunism, or Something Else? // Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization. 1999. Vol. 7. Pp. 165-187. 394 Рецензии/Reviews points out the necessity to evaluate “not just the kind of government in any particular state (democratic or authoritarian)… but the degree of government and the state’s actual capacity to govern” (P. 12).5 The Soviet state was hyper-centralized and governed effectively, contends the author. In contrast, the author notes that post-1991 Russia has endured “rapid decentralization” (Pp. 45, 96), and suffers from a “weak state syndrome” that exemplifies a broader pattern of ineffective governance in young and still-imperfect democracies (P. 12). With skepticism consistent with the discipline of political science, Stoner-Weiss disregards ethnicity, culture, and nationalism as plausible causes of the center-periphery conflict that plagues post-Soviet Russia.6 She focuses instead on politico-economic factors, more specifically, on the “business-government nexus” (Pp. 98, 155), and argues that regional Stoner-Weiss previously taught at Princeton, Columbia and McGill Universities, and held fellowships at Harvard University (where she received her Ph.D. in Government) and the Kennan Institute. Among her numerous publications is an important volume After the Collapse of Communism (2004),3 which Stoner-Weiss co-edited with the maharishi of democratization discourse, Michael McFaul. Resisting the State: Reform and Retrenchment in Post-Soviet Russia, Stoner-Weiss’ second single -authored volume, is a “transitological ” work that addresses Russian regionalism.4 The Russian case, argues the author, provides a wealth of lessons learned that reiterate how imperative politicoeconomic institution-building is for good governance (P. 155). Since state power is contingent upon the state’s ability to govern successfully across its territory, Stoner-Weiss 3 Michael McFaul, Kathryn Stoner-Weiss. After the Collapse of Communism: Comparative Lessons of Transition. Cambridge, 2004. 4 For a bibliography of works dealing with Russian regionalism in the 1990s, see: John Löwenhardt, Stephen White. Beyond the Garden Ring: A Bibliography. Glasgow, 1999. For Russian sources, see: Vladimir Gel’man, Sergei Ryzhenkov. Politicheskaia regionalistika Rossii: istoriia i sovremennnoe razvitie // Iu. Pivovarov (Ed.). Politicheskaia nauka sovremennoi Rossii: tendentsii razvitiia. Moscow, 1999. Pp. 173-255; A. Makarychev. Vliianie zarubezhnykh kontseptsii na razvitie rossiiskogo regionalizma: vozmozhnosti i predely zaimstvovaniia // A. Makarychev (Ed.). Sravnitel’nyi regionalism: Rossiia – SNG – Zapad. Nizhnii Novgorod, 1997. Pp. 9-129. 5 See Michael Mann. The Autonomous Power of...