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Anastassia Obydenkova

Bio: Anastassia Obydenkova is an academic researcher from National Research University – Higher School of Economics. The author has contributed to research in topics: Democratization & Regionalism (international relations). The author has an hindex of 22, co-authored 53 publications receiving 1180 citations. Previous affiliations of Anastassia Obydenkova include Institut Barcelona d'Estudis Internacionals & European University Institute.


Papers
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper found that EU aid has the effect of countering external authoritarian influences that work to reinforce authoritarian practices and institutions in the recipient states in a post-Soviet region and post-soviet state.
Abstract: There is a rich body of theorizing on the diffusion of democracy across space and time. There is also an emerging scholarship on authoritarian diffusion. The dynamics of the interaction between external democratic and autocratic diffusion processes and their effects on national and sub-national political regime outcomes have received scant attention in the literature. Do democratic diffusion processes help counter external authoritarian influences? And, in contexts where external diffusion of democratic influences is weak, do we observe greater susceptibility to diffusion from regional autocracies that might in turn reinforce authoritarian practices and institutions in “recipient” states? To address these questions, we perform analysis of data from two original under-utilized data sets—a data set on the European Union (EU) aid to Russia’s regions and a data set with statistics on trade among post-Soviet states. We find that EU aid has the effect of countering external authoritarian influences that work th...

87 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper analyzed the effects of pre-communist literacy on patterns of Communist Party recruitment in Russia's regions and found that the effect is mediated by Communist Party saturation in these regions, in which party functionaries were likely to be drawn from areas that had been comparatively more literate in tsarist times.
Abstract: Twenty-five years after the collapse of communism in Europe, few scholars disagree that the past continues to shape the democratic trajectories of postcommunist states. Precommunist education has featured prominently in this literature’s bundle of “good” legacies because it ostensibly helped foster resistance to communism. The authors propose a different causal mechanism—appropriation and subversion—that challenges the linearity of the above assumptions by analyzing the effects of precommunist literacy on patterns of Communist Party recruitment in Russia’s regions. Rather than regarding precommunist education as a source of latent resistance to communism, the authors highlight the Leninist regime’s successful appropriation of the more literate strata of the precommunist orders, in the process subverting the past democratic edge of the hitherto comparatively more developed areas. The linear regression analysis of author-assembled statistics from the first Russian imperial census of 1897 supports prior research: precommunist literacy has a strong positive association with postcommunist democratic outcomes. Nevertheless, in pursuing causal mediation analysis, the authors find, in addition, that the above effect is mediated by Communist Party saturation in Russia’s regions. Party functionaries were likely to be drawn from areas that had been comparatively more literate in tsarist times, and party saturation in turn had a dampening effect on the otherwise positive effects of precommunist education on postcommunist democracy.

73 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyzed the role of foreign, transnational, factors in the development of the freedom mass media in the regions through different forms of transnational regional cooperation.
Abstract: The mass media have the main function of serving as a mediator between society and the authorities and is, therefore, positioned to be a catalyst for change in society From the end of the 1980s into the 2000s, under Gorbachev and Yeltsin, the development of the independent mass media played a key role in Russia's regime transition It is also a good reflection, or indicator, of the pace of transition on the regional level, and an objective criterion of regional democratization The regional media markets are not shaped entirely by the national government Each of the 88 regional mass media markets is ‘the product of the cultural traditions of a region, its economy, the unique local relationship between the state and society, the tendency of a region towards a traditional/modernized or agrarian/urban society’ However, while these factors are important and have been analyzed in a number of articles, the role of foreign, transnational, factors has hardly been taken into account This article is an attempt to single out the European impact on the development of the freedom mass media in the regions through different forms of transnational regional cooperation

66 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the role of the Communist legacy in the development of various aspects of corruption in the former Communist states of Russia has been investigated through disentangling the complex phenomenon of corruption and focusing on its three aspects: supply, demand and attitude of the population.
Abstract: Corruption is widespread throughout the former Communist states, and it is particularly severe and entrenched in Russia. Despite the fact that Russia's contemporary corruption has recently become a subject of analysis, there is, however, no study that has addressed the role of the Communist legacy in the development of various aspects of corruption. This paper contributes to the debates through, first, disentangling the complex phenomenon that is corruption, and focusing on its three aspects: supply, demand, and the attitude of the population. Second, the paper also contributes to the literature on modern corruption by explicitly focusing on the role of the historical legacy in these different aspects of corruption. The study is based on several rich data-sets on corruption and on an original data-set compiled to measure the percentage share of Communists in various regions of Russia in the last decades of the USSR (1970s–1980s). The analysis presented in the paper uncovers different roles of the Communis...

62 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigate whether and how regional international organizations created by authoritarian countries can aid the regime survival of their member states and evaluate the benefits of these strategies for both leading and targeted states.
Abstract: This article investigates whether and how regional international organizations created by authoritarian countries can aid the regime survival of their member states Numerous regions of the world have witnessed a proliferation of regional organizations established by powerful authoritarian states We argue that the external influence of these organizations can affect regime survival and reinforce non-democratic regime trajectories, but in a nuanced manner The article argues that, in addition to examining the impact of the regional organization itself, one must examine how the existence of these regional organizations changes the strategy of autocratic leading states, which-in bilateral relations with other countries-could become more eager to support authoritarian regimes of geopolitical importance We use the case of the Eurasian Economic Union to explore various strategies of Russia, the leading state, vis-a-vis post-Soviet Eurasian countries These strategies, however, appear only to matter for authoritarian consolidation when countries, from the Russian point of view, are on the 'front line' of geopolitical competition with the EU, and which are, therefore, important in stabilizing Russian influence The article identifies five strategic foreign policy models of leading states which are determined by the existence of regional organizations and evaluates the benefits of these strategies for both leading and targeted states

55 citations


Cited by
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01 Jan 2008
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that rational actors make their organizations increasingly similar as they try to change them, and describe three isomorphic processes-coercive, mimetic, and normative.
Abstract: What makes organizations so similar? We contend that the engine of rationalization and bureaucratization has moved from the competitive marketplace to the state and the professions. Once a set of organizations emerges as a field, a paradox arises: rational actors make their organizations increasingly similar as they try to change them. We describe three isomorphic processes-coercive, mimetic, and normative—leading to this outcome. We then specify hypotheses about the impact of resource centralization and dependency, goal ambiguity and technical uncertainty, and professionalization and structuration on isomorphic change. Finally, we suggest implications for theories of organizations and social change.

2,134 citations

01 Jan 1999
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore whether the world economy is breaking up into regional trading and currency blocs centred on the European Community, Japan and the United States, and conclude with an analysis of how trends in regional economic integration can be used as building blocks for a stronger multilateral system.
Abstract: This book explores whether the world economy is breaking up into regional trading and currency blocs centred on the European Community, Japan and the United States. Frankel uses trade, investment and financial data to assess this issue. He concludes with an analysis of how trends in regional economic integration can be used as building blocks for a stronger multilateral system.

1,035 citations

Book ChapterDOI
01 Jan 2002
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss the impossibility of the impossible to the inevitable and the inevitability of Russian mobilization and the accumulating 'inevitability' of Soviet collapse, and conclude: nationhood and event.
Abstract: 1. From the impossible to the inevitable 2. The tide and the mobilizational cycle 3. Structuring nationalism 4. 'Thickened' history and the mobilization of identity 5. Tides and the failure of nationalist mobilization 6. Violence and tides of nationalism 7. The transcendence of regimes of repression 8. Russian mobilization and the accumulating 'inevitability' of Soviet collapse 9. Conclusion: nationhood and event.

668 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The Uniting of Europe: Political, Social, and Economic Forces, 1950-1957 History: Reviews of New Books: Vol 33, No 2, pp 82-82 as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: (2005) The Uniting of Europe: Political, Social, and Economic Forces, 1950–1957 History: Reviews of New Books: Vol 33, No 2, pp 82-82

452 citations

Posted Content
TL;DR: In this paper, the interrelationships among economic institutions, political institutions, openness, and income levels, using identification through heteroskedasticity, were estimated using a cross-national dataset.
Abstract: We estimate the interrelationships among economic institutions, political institutions, openness, and income levels, using identification through heteroskedasticity (IH). We split our cross-national dataset into two sub-samples: (i) colonies versus non-colonies; and (ii) continents aligned on an East-West versus those aligned on a North-South axis. We exploit the difference in the structural variances in these two sub-samples to gain identification. We find that democracy and the rule of law are both good for economic performance, but the latter has a much stronger impact on incomes. Openness (trade/GDP) has a negative impact on income levels and democracy, but a positive effect on rule of law. Higher income produces greater openness and better institutions, but these effects are not very strong. Rule of law and democracy tend to be mutually reinforcing.

390 citations