Putin’s neo-nomenklatura system and its evolution

The current Russian state can be seen as a hybrid regime. This hybrid is not, however one of authoritarian and democratic models, but rather of Soviet nomenklatura system and of the mafia-state as described by Balint Magyar, referring to the case of Viktor Orban's Hungary.

Added: Dec 20, 2018

Репрессии против верующих накануне и во время Великой Отечественной войны 1939—1945 гг.

Будницкий О. В. Российская история. 2019. № 3. С. 100-124.

Immediately after the start of the Great Patriotic War, the Stalinist state undertook a purge of the country from suspicious elements, reminiscent in a number of parameters of the Great Terror: arrests took place throughout the country, certain categories of the population were repressed. Among them were believers, the repressions against whom were extremely cruel. One of the instruments of repression has become the courts of general jurisdiction, on the materials of which the article is based. The war became an incentive for a terrorist campaign, it also became its limiter: it was impossible to simultaneously fight an external enemy and wage a large-scale campaign against "internal enemies". The scale of repression against believers, as well as the degree of their cruelty, significantly decreased during the war, but never stopped.

Added: Jun 14, 2019

New sources on Soviet perpetrators of mass repression: a research note

Viola L. A. Canadian Slavonic Papers. 2018. Vol. 60. No. 3-4. P. 592-604.

At the end of the Great Terror, Stalin reversed course and reined in the NKVD. Hundreds of NKVD interrogators and other officials were arrested and charged with “violations of socialist legality.” Punishments ranged from imprisonment in the Gulag to execution. This repression of the NKVD was the result of a combination of scapegoating and “clan” politics. The arrests and accompanying trials of these NKVD officers created an enormous paper trail of sources, strictly classified in the FSB archives in Moscow. Recently, however, the security police archives in Ukraine opened its doors to researchers. The result is access to a range of sources which allow researchers, for the first time, to explore in detail the topic of Soviet perpetrators, in this case, the Soviet security police during and in the aftermath of the Great Terror.

Added: Nov 2, 2018

Dictators’ Behavior Under Conditions of Economic Sanctions Cumulative Effect

Чмель К. Ш., Демин А. В., Казанцев К. И. Political Science. PS. Высшая школа экономики, 2017. No. WP BRP 50/PS/2017.

Economic sanctions, like the most of political events involving numerous states, are almost always explicitly aimed to alter internal policies and affect domestic issues. Sanctions are not a discrete event, rather they are a long lasting insidious process. It is significant to consider not only the state of the country under sanctions or without them, but also the effect of the time under sanctions. Hence, the research question is as follows: How does cumulative effect of sanctions influence the dictators behavior in terms of repressions and co-optation? In order to find a feasible answer to that question, first, we build a theoretical model and draw empirical implications from it. The main argument that we develop in the paper is as follows. The overall effect of sanction is robustly important for the dictator, fostering repressions and co-optation (separately treated) as the ways of buttressing the regime legitimacy. Moreover, cumulative effect of sanctions (i.e. the influence of all the previous periods under sanctions) increases the levels of repressions with decreasing marginal effects.

Added: Oct 25, 2017

Russland im Vorfeld der Presidentschaftswahlen

Petrov N. Russland Analysen. 2017. No. 339. P. 2-8.

Tha analysis is given of the politica situaion and its major trends of development on the eve of 2018 presidential elections

Added: Mar 13, 2018