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A major qualification to past theoretical arguments that the Soviet political system could be characterized by the term "pluralist" was that what were referred to as "interest groups" lacked genuine autonomy from state and party organs. Associations and unions of cooperatives represent one of the first successful attempts to create new organizational forms that conform to the definition of interest groups as it is applied in the West. Cooperatives, one of the first visible results of Mikhail Gorbachev's economic reforms, were mostly small enterprises in such areas as services, construction, and consumer goods production. The decentralization of much policy-making to the localities resulted in local officials taking steps that at times violated the law on cooperatives and other guarantees adopted in Moscow. The political ties of cooperatives have been strongest with proponents of radical change in the existing system, in part due to the essential role of cooperatives in creating a market economy.

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SEER, 92, 4, OCTOBER 2014 788 less. These chapters are also enlivened by snippets from memoirs, letters of complaints, letters to the editor and trade journals. The analysis, overall, suffers from a few tendencies. Though Chernyshova seekstorevealthehabitsandattitudesoftheSovietconsumer,sheofteneschews a close reading of texts, leaving the reader to tease out deeper meanings. She notes, for example, that in the 1970s some workplaces and universities banned women from wearing trousers, but does not venture beyond the surface to explore such policies or their gender implications. Likewise, the intriguing characterization of the peculiarities of Soviet aesthetics as ‘an unmonitored, eclectic, often flashy and socially emulative medley of foreign things combined with Soviet-made items’ (p. 161) is not satisfactorily explored in the text. Also, most chapters first rehearse the historiography of the Stalinist era and Khrushchev years, delineating the continuities and departures in rhetoric and policies from the Brezhnev decades. This scheme, which, incidentally, ignores most of the literature on consumer culture in the tsarist and NEP eras, reminds readers that Brezhnev and his cohort finally delivered on the promises of their predecessors; however, it also sets up each chapter to confirm or debunk previous findings, rather than to take a new direction. Finally, an overlap and repetition of information and evidence occurs throughout the book. Yet Chernyshova admirably synthesizes various strands of political, economic, social and cultural trends to boldly reinterpret ‘developed socialism’ as ‘developed consumerism’. Her clear demonstration of the link between state policiesandconsumerbehavioursandofparallelswithdevelopmentsinEastern and Western Europe, and the United States provides a fresh perspective on the importance of material goods in the state’s failure to reform Communism. The book is well-researched and makes a significant contribution to the growing field of studies on Soviet consumer culture and the Brezhnev years, and is enthusiastically recommended. Department of History Marjorie L. Hilton Murray State University Ware, Robert Bruce (ed.). The Fire Below: How the Caucasus Shaped Russia. Bloomsbury, New York and London, 2013. xii + 337 pp. Notes. Tables. Bibliography. Index. Appendix. £23.99 (paperback). The Caucausus has played a major role in Russian political history over the past twenty-five years. This volume, put together by Robert Bruce Ware, a leading specialist on Dagestan and the North Caucasus, contributes new perspectives. It deals with both the North and South Caucasus, though the latter is represented almost exclusively by Georgia. REVIEWS 789 The best chapters describe in some detail the complexities of the region and Russia’s often-incoherent attempts to deal with the most pressing problems. Walter Richmond writes on preparations for the Sochi Olympics and finds that federal and local organizers rode roughshod over residents’ rights, environmental objections and the sensitivities of ethnic minorities to such an extent that it set new precedents for government policy in other regions. Richard Sakwa’s chapter on Chechnya recapitulates an argument he has made elsewhere, that Russia constitutes a ‘dual state’ of constitutional and informal mechanisms and that Chechnya under Ramzan Kadyrov challenges the model by pursuing policies that are clearly unconstitutional and authoritarian. A wellsourced chapter by military analysts Robert Schaefer and Andrei Doohovskoy assesses the impact of the Chechen wars on the Russian military. Problems with force mobility and command and control led to reforms that streamlined the structure of the Russian army. Andrew Foxall looks at Stavropol´ krai, the Russian-majority region that adjoins the North Caucasus and which hosts the headquarters for the North Caucasus Federal District in Pyatigorsk. Positioned on the frontline, Stavropol´ experienced earlier than most Russian regions the problems of kavkazofobiya (Russian antipathy toward peoples from the Caucausus who move to their regions), yet the krai benefits from serving as a regional transport and energy hub, as well as a financial centre. Most controversial, and to this reader most misleading, is Patrick Armstrong’s chapter on the impact of Georgian events on Russia. He contends that ‘memes’ — widely accepted conclusions based on unexamined premises and weak evidence — have dominated Western discourse about Russia’s relations with its neighbours. Armstrong rejects the view that Russia is seeking to re-establish control over the new states on its periphery. Georgia’s problems with breakaway territories are, in his view, self-inflicted, the result of national chauvinism. A...

How political systems divide functions between levels of government is universally a subject of political struggle, with important implications for democracy, inequality, economic efficiency, and conflict resolution. Russia under Vladimir Putin has shifted from an anarchic proto-federalism in the 1990s to a highly centralized state. Over time, the negative consequences of over-centralization have generated pressures from regional leaders and other political actors to “re-decentralize.” This article, using Russian government documents, transcripts of meetings between officials, and press materials, examines this process in the period from 2008 (when Putin temporarily gave up the presidency to Dmitrii Medvedev) through December 2013 (a year and a half after Putin returned for his third term as president). It finds that decentralization has been successfully resisted by the entrenched interests that grew stronger as a result of Putin’s early centralizing efforts. Putin’s political system has ceded to ministries de facto veto power, and this has determined political outcomes. As an alternative to genuine decentralization to regions or cities, the Kremlin has sought a solution in what could be called “decentralization substitutes.” First, the new North Caucasus Federal District attempts to avoid decentralization to republic leaders by empowering Aleksandr Khloponin to coordinate development policies as both deputy prime minister and presidential representative. Second, the newly created Far East Development Ministry, based in Khabarovsk and initially headed by Viktor Ishaev, placed some responsibility for planning on Ishaev, who served simultaneously as government minister and presidential representative in the Far East Federal District. Third, state-run companies and corporations were increasingly viewed as the most effective mechanism for distributing budgetary resources and overseeing investment programs in the regions. Special corporations have ’been created ’both for the North Caucasus and the Far East regions. There is little evidence that these decentralization substitutes will produce the desired results, but they are more consistent with the precepts of the Putin era than would be a real shift of power to governors and regions.

Reviewed by: The Decline of Regionalism in Putin’s Russia: Boundary Issues by J. Paul Goode Darrell Slider J. Paul Goode, The Decline of Regionalism in Putin’s Russia: Boundary Issues. 224 pp. London: Routledge, 2011. ISBN 9780415608077. This is a valuable contribution to the study of regional politics. What distinguishes Paul Goode’s book from other work on Russian regions is the emphasis on boundary issues, drawing on theories and concepts above all from anthropology. The gist of this approach is that it reorients one’s attention to the regions themselves as active participants in the political process of determining who controls what. It focuses on a number of aspects including not just geographic borders, but regional identities and institutional jurisdictions. The author includes an extensive review of the concept of regionalism and its various meanings (chapter two). “Regionalism” is a term that is used with different meanings in different contexts. Goode defines it as “the politics of maintaining, defending, moving, or contesting regional boundaries” (25). One important question runs through the volume: What allowed Putin to make a radical redistribution of power between regions and the center? In other words, why did “regionalism” decline so quickly after having achieved such a strong position during the 1990s? Why were regions unable or unwilling to resist the encroachment on their powers by the center? Other studies tend to ignore this as a research question, instead just accepting that it happened or else relying on explanations that are limited to political institutions in the center. Much of this study is based on fieldwork in four Russian regions. Two are republics—Buriatia and Karelia—and two are oblasts—Tiumen’ and Perm’. Interviews with scholars and officials in each region at the time of implementation of Putin’s policies (interviews were conducted between 2001–04) provide insights on how they were perceived and carried out in these regions. The author also seeks to define patterns from these cases, contrasting regions and republics. Given the total number of Russian regions (83 at present) and wide variations in regional governance, two examples of each can be useful to formulate hypotheses about the relative impact of centralization on oblasts and republics. More definitive conclusions about broader patterns would, of course, require coverage of a significantly greater number of regions. In his concluding chapter Goode extends his analysis to Ukraine, demonstrating how regional politics there can also be profitably examined through a boundaries approach. To set the stage, Goode examines previous patterns of regional boundary-making, from Czarist times through Brezhnev (chapter three). He makes clear that today’s internal Russian boundaries are a relatively recent phenomenon, [End Page 137] and that previous regimes “created and manipulated the provincial grid in order to facilitate resource extraction, development, and political control” (56). By the Brezhnev era, attempts to redraw internal borders were mostly abandoned in favor of establishing loyal native elites in the provinces. By so doing, Brezhnev legitimized decentralization pressures as regional party secretaries pushed for regional interests in their dealings with the center. These regionalist tendencies grew as the state weakened, reaching their apogee in the Yeltsin era. Three of the book’s chapters present applications of the boundary approach to specific elements of the Putin recentralization project. One key chapter looks at the response of regions to the creation of the seven federal districts in 2000, a centerpiece of Putin’s effort to form the “vertical of power.” The author finds, as have others, that the new presidential representatives lacked the power and resources to make much of a difference in regional governance. Nevertheless, the new federal districts did disrupt traditional regional identities of many regions, thus increasing their susceptibility to influence from the center. Other aspects of the change appealed to personal interests of regional leaders: new opportunities for promotion and upward mobility emerged, and the reform provided a useful template for governors to control subregional actors. One question that arises here is that, if the changes produced by the creation of federal regions were less important than initial predictions suggested, was there any basis for governors to think that similar changes within their regions would be more effective? In other words, did the...

The United Russia party has been given the role of the dominant party in the Russian political system, both at the national level and in all regions. Nevertheless, the party lacks many of the institutional characteristics that would allow it to play an autonomous role, particularly in regional politics. United Russia lacks an effective patronage system; personnel decisions are in the hands of other actors. The party is highly centralized, yet subject to pressure from governors who are only formally subordinate to the party. Intraparty democracy is minimal. and the regional party organs lack financial independence. Conflicts among regional elites take the form of a struggle for control over the party, and this hinders United Russia's ability to establish strong regional organizations. This appears to be the desired outcome; the Kremlin uses the party as a screen to conceal its efforts to micro-manage regional political developments.

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Putin recentralized policy-making and political power through administrative reforms that reduced the power of the regions and shifted that power to the center. Sent to try to manage Russia's Southern Federal District, which includes the particularly troubled republics of the North Caucasus, and then as the Minister for Regional Development, Dmitriy Kozak developed a series of recommendations that, in effect, rejected Putin's recentralization. This article draws on newspaper coverage, World Bank and human rights organizations' documents, and the political science literature to explore the impact that "going South" had on Kozak's policy prescriptions. Chechnya is considered as an approach quite different from the one Kozak sought to put in place.