Central Asian, Russian & East European Studies

Featured Series: Russian and East European Studies

Edited by Richard Sakwa, Professor of Russian and European Politics at the University of Kent, and published on behalf of BASEES (the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies), the primary aim of this series is to publish original, high-quality, research-level work by both new and established scholars, on all aspects of Russian, Soviet, post-Soviet and East European Studies.

Browse all titles in the series here.

Professor Sakwa is an Associate Fellow of the Russia and Eurasia Programme at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, a member of the Advisory Boards of the Institute of Law and Public Policy in Moscow, chair of the Advisory Board of the Eurasian Political Studies Network and, since September 2002, a member of Academy of Learned Societies for the Social Sciences.

Reviews for the series:

"Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduate, graduate, and research collections." - A. Siaroff, CHOICE, 2010 (Democratic Elections in Poland, 1991-2007).

"This excellent collection is a coherent and well-informed introduction to the economic and social transformations in a major Soviet ‘rustbelt’region, as well as to the economic conundrums of post-Communist Ukraine." - Serhy Yekelchyk, Slavonic and East European Review, vol. 89, no. 2, April 2011 (Re-Constructing the Post-Soviet Industrial Region).

"A valuable addition to Russian foreign-policy analysis, especially for its use of comparison between policies towards China and Japan in order to explain different trends in Russian thinking about its own identity in the turbulent period of the last two decades." -Stephen Aris, University of Birmingham, Europe-Asia Studies (Russian Policy towards China and Japan).

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Unlike other books on civil society in Russia which argue that Russia’s civil society is relatively weak, and that democratisation in Russia went into reverse following Vladimir Putin’s coming to power, this book contends that civil society in Russia is developing in a distinctive way. It shows...

Published February 25th 2013 by Routledge
East European Diasporas, Migration and Cosmopolitanism

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Following the demise of the USSR in 1991, and the ensuing collapse of communist regimes in Eastern Europe, widespread population movements took place across Central and Eastern Europe. Whole nations disappeared and (re)-emerged and diasporic transnational ties and belonging have experienced a...

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Putin as Celebrity and Cultural Icon

Edited by Helena Goscilo

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Though in recent months Putin’s popularity has frayed at the edges, the dearth of comparably powerful and experienced political leaders leaves no doubt that he will continue to be a key political figure. During his tenure as Russia’s President and subsequently as Prime Minister, Putin transcended...

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The European Union and its Eastern Neighbours

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The Communist Youth League and the Transformation of the Soviet Union, 1917-1932

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Russia's Identity in International Relations

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Shocking Chic

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This is the first book to explore the phenomenon of glamour and celebrity in contemporary Russian culture, ranging across media forms, disciplinary boundaries and modes of inquiry, with particular emphasis on the media personality. The book demonstrates how the process of ‘celebrification’ in...

Published April 15th 2012 by Routledge
Television and Presidential Power in Putin’s Russia

By Tina Burrett

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As a new president takes power in Russia, this book provides an analysis of the changing relationship between control of Russian television media and presidential power during the tenure of President Vladimir Putin. It argues that the conflicts within Russia’s political and economic elites, and...

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Russia and Islam

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Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, both the Russian state and Russia's Muslim communities have struggled to find a new modus vivendi in a rapidly changing domestic and international socio-political context. At the same time as Islamic religious belief and practice have flourished, the state...

Published August 17th 2011 by Routledge
The Decline of Regionalism in Putin's Russia

Boundary Issues

By J. Paul Goode

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This book reassesses Putin's attempt to reverse the decentralization of power that characterised centre-regional relations in the 1990s, focusing on regional responses to Putin's federal reforms. It explains the decline of regionalism after 2000 in terms of the dynamics of regional boundaries,...

Published May 11th 2011 by Routledge
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Policy and Government in the Soviet Union, 1953–64

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This book presents a new picture of the politics, economics and process of government in the Soviet Union under the leadership of Nikita Khrushchev. Based in large part on original research in recently declassified archive collections, the book examines the full complexity of government, including...

Published January 17th 2011 by Routledge
Citizens in the Making in Post-Soviet States

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The political outlook of young people in the countries of the former Soviet Union is crucial to their countries’ future political development. This is particularly relevant now as the first generation without firsthand experience of communism at first hand is approaching adulthood. Based on...

Published February 24th 2011 by Routledge