Institutions of isolation : border controls in the Soviet Union and its successor states, 1917-1993 / / Andrea Chandler

• Record Nr.: UNINA9910782732103321
• Autore: Chandler Andrea M. <1963->
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: Montreal ; ; Buffalo : , : McGill-Queen's University Press, , 1998; ©1998
• ISBN: 1-282-85500-X; 9786612855009; 0-7735-6712-7
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (xv, 205 pages)
• Disciplina: 327.47
• Soggetti: Soviet Union History; Soviet Union Boundaries; Former Soviet republics Boundaries; Soviet Union Foreign relations; Soviet Union Politics and government
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Note generali: Based on author's thesis (Ph.D.)--Columbia University.
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references (p. [175]-200) and index.
• Nota di contenuto: Front Matter -- Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- The Paradox of Socialist Isolation: Ideology and Territory in the Construction of Soviet Border Controls -- States, Regimes and Border Controls: The Link between Communism and Isolation -- Borderland Sovereignty Struggles and the Creation of the Soviet State, 1917-1922 -- The Politics of Autarky: Soviet Customs Institutions and the Post-revolutionary Economy in the 1920s -- Border Control and Centre-Periphery Relations in the Soviet Union, 1921-1941 -- State-Sponsored Isolation and Institutional Politics -- The Reconstruction and Maintenance of Border Controls, 1941-1985 -- Perestroika and the Iron Curtain: The Dilemmas of Changing Institutions, 1986-1991 -- Ending Isolation: Border Control in the Soviet Successor States -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index
• Sommario/riassunto: Chandler provides a comprehensive examination of border controls from the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 to the collapse of the U.S.S.R. in 1991 and shows the continued importance of border controls for the ; newly independent Soviet successor states. She reveals the changing nature of Soviet border control policy, from the extreme Stalinist isolation of the 1930s to liberalization - and eventual instability - during perestroika in the late 1980s. Chandler argues that Communist ideology was not the only reason for the self-imposed isolation of the state and explores a complex, ever-changing set of political, inter-bureaucratic, and economic factors that combined to influence the Soviet Union's closed-border policies. She draws on social science theories of comparative institutional change and state formation to illuminate policies within the Soviet state, which has often been regarded as a unique case. By exploring why a political system that originally prided itself on its internationalism devoted such intense efforts to seal its society from the outside world, Institutions of Isolation provides a revealing case study of the strengths and weaknesses of the Soviet state.