Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

In Russian politics reliable information is scarce, formal relations are of relatively little significance, and things are seldom what they seem. Applying an original theory of political language to narratives taken from interviews with 34 of Russia's leading political figures, Michael Urban explores the ways in which political actors construct themselves with words. By tracing individual narratives back to the discourses available to speakers, he identifies what can and cannot be intelligibly said within the bounds of the country's political culture, and then documents how elites rely on the personal elements of political discourse at the expense of those addressed to the political community. Urban shows that this discursive orientation is congruent with social relations prevailing in Russia and helps to account for the fact that, despite two revolutions proclaiming democracy in the last century, Russia remains an authoritarian state.

Political culture --- Elite (Social sciences) --- Politicians --- Discourse analysis --- Discourse grammar --- Text grammar --- Semantics --- Semiotics --- Elites (Social sciences) --- Leadership --- Power (Social sciences) --- Social classes --- Social groups --- Language. --- Political aspects --- Russia (Federation) --- Politics and government --- Language --- Social Sciences --- Political Science --- Political culture - Russia (Federation) --- Elite (Social sciences) - Russia (Federation) - Language --- Politicians - Russia (Federation) - Interviews --- Discourse analysis - Political aspects - Russia (Federation) --- Russia (Federation) - Politics and government - 1991 --- -Political culture --- -Discourse analysis

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Control of office has long been regarded as the key element in understanding power and policy in the Soviet system. What, however, accounts for the control of office and how are individuals recruited into positions of power and responsibility? In An Algebra of Soviet Power, Michael Urban adopts a fresh approach and introduces into the field of political elite studies the sociological technique of vacancy chain analysis. This treats the movements of actors as sequences of complex inter-relations that are structured by the properties and powers of the personnel system rather than by the consequences of individual intentions or characteristics. This algebraic method is applied to a large body of career data of officials from the Soviet Republic of Belorussia for the period 1966-86. The author documents how, despite the formal systems of nomenklatura - central control over personnel placement - the flow of individuals through the hierarchy of offices in Belorussia has not been influenced by any coordinating policy issuing from Moscow or Minsk. Instead regionalism has played an important, and patronage the decisive, role in the system.

Elite (Social sciences) --- Social mobility --- Social Sciences --- Political Science --- Belarus --- Officials and employees. --- Politics and government. --- Mobility, Social --- Sociology --- Elites (Social sciences) --- Leadership --- Power (Social sciences) --- Social classes --- Social groups --- Republic of Belarus --- Rėspublika Belarusʹ --- Republic of Byelarusʹ --- Respublika Byelarusʹ --- Byelarus --- République de Bélarus --- República de Belarús --- Republik Belarus --- Weissrussland --- White Russia --- Belorussia --- Belorus --- Biélorussie --- Bielorussia --- Białoruś --- Беларусь --- Рэспубліка Беларусь --- Республика Беларусь --- ベラルーシ --- Berarūshi --- Byelorussian S.S.R.

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Ideology --- Political culture --- Political culture --- Congresses --- Congresses --- Congresses --- Europe, Eastern --- Soviet Union --- Politics and government --- Congresses. --- Politics and government --- Congresses.

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Michael Urban chronicles the advent of blues music in Russia and explores the significance of the genre in the turbulent, postcommunist society. Russians, he explains, have taken a music originating in the "low" culture of the American South and transformed it into an object of "high" culture, fashioning a social identity that distinguishes blues adherents from both the discredited Soviet past and the vulgar consumerism associated with the country's Westernization. While adapting the idiom to their own conditions, Russia's bliuzmeny (bluesmen) have absorbed the blues ethos encoded in the music by their American forebears, using it to invert their social world, thus deriving dignity and satisfaction from those very things that give one the blues.Based on more than forty interviews with blues musicians and fans, nightclub managers, and others, Russia Gets the Blues reveals the fascinating history of blues in Russia, from the initial mimicry of British blues-rock to the recent emergence of a specifically "Russian blues." The gradual mastering of the idiom in Russia has been conditioned by the culture of the country's intelligentsia, a fact explaining why, on one hand, bliuzmeny feel compelled to proselytize on behalf of the music, to share with others this treasure of "world culture," while, on the other, they perform blues almost exclusively in English-which almost no one understands-and condemn any and all efforts to make the music commercially successful.

Popular music --- Blues (Music) --- Blues (Songs, etc.) --- Jive (Music) --- African Americans --- Folk music --- Rhythm and blues music --- Washboard band music --- Music, Popular --- Music, Popular (Songs, etc.) --- Pop music --- Popular songs --- Popular vocal music --- Songs, Popular --- Vocal music, Popular --- Music --- Cover versions --- History and criticism.