Bergen Open Research Archive >
Faculty of Social Sciences >
Department of Comparative Politics >
Department of Comparative Politics >
Denne identifikatoren kan du bruke til å sitere eller lenke til denne innførselen:
http://hdl.handle.net/1956/2663
|
| Tittel: | No compromise - no democracy : pacts, threats and nested games as approaches to the Belarusian and Russian transitions |
| Forfattere: | Kristiansen, Kenneth |
| Dato: | 2007 |
| Forlag: | The University of Bergen |
| Sammendrag: | Belarus and Russia entered simultaneous transitions as the Soviet Union broke down at the
end of 1991. As most other former Soviet republics Belarus and Russia did not end up with
democratic regimes as a result of transition. However, the Russian regime can be regarded far
more liberal in character than the Belarusian. The main question to be answered is why one
can observe this difference in regime type in two otherwise similar countries. This question is
addressed by applying actor-oriented transition theory and game theory to analyse the
interaction about regime type during transition.
I conclude, by focusing on actors, that the main explanatory factors for this observed
difference can be found in the variation in the games of social interaction about the issue of
constitution occurring during transition. Belarus experienced a lower pressure for change
amongst elites and the population than Russia. Furthermore, Belarusian elites hindered the
impact of the phase of liberalisation, leaving the country worse prepared for transition than
Russia. Due to various reasons no compromise which could have secured democracy or a
liberal regime was reached in either of the countries. This left them with sub-optimal conflicts
outcomes as a result of transition.
None of the countries managed to escape the sub-optimality of the transition through
cooperation or pacts. In Belarus an inconclusive compromise about national independence
hindered cooperation about regime type resulting in a situation of nested games. In Russia a
compromise was hindered by disagreement about the threatening power of the ruling fraction
during transition leaving the actors in a situation of sub-optimality. |
| URI: | http://hdl.handle.net/1956/2663 |
| Vises i samlingene: | Department of Comparative Politics
|
Alle innførsler i BORA er beskyttet av opphavsrett
