the geopolitically important basin of the mazandaran sea found its new identity after the collapse of the soviet :union: as an active region with specific functions. the power vacuum arising from the collapse of the soviet :union: and presence of huge energy resources attracted the attention of trans-regional powers and flow of big investment companies to the region. regional developments are a...

This article explores the impact of the professional culture of rocket engineering in Stalin’s Soviet Union on the engineering and organizational practices of the space program during the Khrushchev era. The Stalinist legacy and the dual military / civilian character of rocket engineers’ work profoundly affected the identity of this elite part of Soviet technical intelligentsia. Focusing on suc...

Even though the Soviet Union is a large industrial state which bases its economic development on its own mineral fuel resources, it cannot afford to neglect the development of nuclear power, because about 80% of its energy resources are concentrated in eastern regions of the country, while 75% of the population and consumers of power are concentrated in the European part of the USSR. The transp...

What explains the divergent political paths that the post-communist countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union have followed since the fall of the Berlin Wall? While some appear today to be consolidated democracies, others have all the features of consolidated autocracy. This study reviews the patterns of change and examines correlates of progress towards democracy. Variation acros...

he development of the Russian federal system has been marked by conflict, co-optation, and consensus. Emerging from the generally unitary Russian republic within a formally federal but largely unitary Soviet Union, post-Soviet Russia began its development as a federal system with little experience and few institutional structures salvageable from the earlier system. The patchwork Soviet-era con...