Mark R Beissinger
Biographic Data
| ID | 273575 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Mark R Beissinger |
| GIVEN NAMES | Mark R |
| FAMILY NAME | Beissinger |
| SIGNATURE | BEISSINGER M R |
| AFFILIATIONS | Princeton University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 30 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 640 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 30 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1983 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 12 |
The Evolving Study of Revolution
As the practice of revolution has evolved, so too have theories of revolution. Much of the current literature on revolutions focuses on contentious processes. But a need exists to take a more holistic approach—one that better incorporates history, thinks across divides in the literature, contemplates what precedes and follows revolution, and places revolutionary processes and the structural factors that underpin them into dialogue with one anothe…
The Revolutionary City: Urbanization and the Global Transformation of Rebellion
Conventional" and "Virtual" Civil Societies in Autocratic Regimes
Self-determination as a Technology of Imperialism: The Soviet and Russian Experiences
Self-determination is widely understood as an anti-imperial norm responsible in significant part for the global break-up of empires. But self-determination norms have been utilized as well to justify Great Power territorial expansion. This essay examines the ways in which self-determination norms have been wielded by the Soviet Union and Russia to justify overriding sovereignty norms, challenge the territorial integrity of weaker states, and rati…
Explaining Divergent Revolutionary Coalitions: Regime Strategies and the Structuring of Participation in the Tunisian and Egyptian Revolutions
An End to “Patience”?
This chapter explores the factors that shaped patterns of economic protest across 18 European post-communist countries during the Great Recession. It explains how the Great Recession altered the level and nature of economic protest in the region and why patterns of protest varied considerably across countries. Strikes and ethnic protests decreased overall. Economic protests increased as a percentage of total protests but focused mostly on austeri…
The Historical Legacies of Communism: An Empirical Agenda
A summary is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
Historical Legacies of Communism in Russia and Eastern Europe
This book takes stock of arguments about the historical legacies of communism that have become common within the study of Russia and East Europe more than two decades after communism's demise and elaborates an empirical approach to the study of historical legacies revolving around relationships and mechanisms rather than correlation and outward similarities. Eleven essays by a distinguished group of scholars assess whether post-communist developm…
The Semblance of Democratic Revolution: Coalitions in Ukraine's Orange Revolution
Using two unusual surveys, this study analyzes participation in the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine, comparing participants with revolution supporters, opponents, counter-revolutionaries, and the apathetic/inactive. As the analysis shows, most revolutionaries were weakly committed to the revolution's democratic master narrative, and the revolution's spectacular mobilizational success was largely due to its mobilization of cultural cleavages and…
Beyond the Nationalities Question
While the collapse of the Soviet Union altered tremendously the configuration of power in Eurasia, the nationality issues that played such a critical role in fueling the Soviet collapse have hardly dissipated, but remain very much a part of the Eurasian landscape. Issues associated with cultural difference are openly discussed, and groups engage in autonomous self-organization in ways that could not have been imagined in Soviet times
Mechanisms of Maidan: The Structure of Contingency in the Making of the Orange Revolution
This study evaluates the validity and causal weight of competing causal mechanisms that purport to explain a single set of choices (and critical turning point) within a contentious episode: the decision to participate in the Orange Revolution protests in Ukraine in November 2004. These protests were characterized by extraordinarily high levels of participation, despite freezing temperatures and the threat of violence. Using evidence from public-o…
Nationalism and the Collapse of Soviet Communism
This article examines the role of nationalism in the collapse of communism in the late 1980s and early 1990s, arguing that nationalism (both in its presence and its absence, and in the various conflicts and disorders that it unleashed) played an important role in structuring the way in which communism collapsed. Two institutions of international and cultural control in particular – the Warsaw Pact and ethnofederalism – played key roles in determi…
Debating the Color Revolutions: An Interrelated Wave
In contrast to the arguments of those who study the color revolutions as an interrelated phenomenon, Lucan Way’s highly structural account considers the failure of authoritarian consolidation causally sufficient, something that obviates the need to explain opposition mobilization against the state and its role in the collapse of these regimes. Yet for scholars who take the politics of mobilization seriously, such arguments fail on several account…
A New Look at Ethnicity and Democratization
Political scientists have long believed that ethnic diversity and strongly-held national identities work against the cause of democratic consolidation, yet new evidence reveals that this need not be so, and even suggests that these factors can, under certain conditions, work in its favor. And while there is evidence that ethnic diversity correlates with poor government performance, lower rates of aggregate economic growth, and ineffective provisi…
Structure and Example in Modular Political Phenomena: The Diffusion of Bulldozer/Rose/Orange/Tulip Revolutions
The article develops an approach to the study of modular political phenomena (action based in significant part on emulation of the prior successful example of others), focusing on the trade-offs between the influence of example, structural facilitation, and institutional constraints. The approach is illustrated through the example of the spread of democratic revolution in the post-communist region during the 2000–2006 period, with significant com…
"Soviet Empire as "Family Resemblance
Empire has become a common analytical frame through which the Soviet state and its collapse are interpreted. Commenting on the other contributions to this forum, Mark R. Beissinger examines the limits and utility of this concept, arguing that empire needs to be understood, not as a clearly bounded transhistorical model, but as a Wittgensteinian "family resemblance" whose meaning and referents have altered significantly over time. The article then…
How Nationalisms Spread - Eastern Europe Adrift the Tides and Cycles of Nationalist Contention
L'A. montre que le nationalisme consiste en une exacerbation du sentiment national. Il montre que le nationalisme semble, apres une eclipse apparente, apres la Seconde Guerre mondiale, s'etre reveille en 1987 principalement en U.R.S.S.. Il porte son attention sur le nationalisme en Armenie et dans les republiques baltes. Il montre que le nombre de manifestations de masse et de violences a connu une formidable augmentation entre 1989 et 1991 en U.…
Beyond State Crisis: Postcolonial Africa and Post-Soviet Eurasia in Comparative Perspective
Part I Overview and Retrospective: 1. Introduction - Comparing State Crises Across Two Continents, Mark Beissinger and Crawford Young 2. Convergence to Crisis - Pre-Independence State Legacies and Post-Independence State Breakdown in Africa and Eurasia, Mark Beissinger and Crawford Young. Part II Sovereignty, Violence, and War: 3. At the Edge of the World - Boundaries, Territoriality, and Sovereignty, Achille Mbembe 4. Who is Strong When the Stat…
Nationalist Mobilization and the Collapse of the Soviet State
This 2002 study examines the process by which the seemingly impossible in 1987 - the disintegration of the Soviet state - became the seemingly inevitable by 1991, providing an original interpretation not only of the Soviet collapse, but also of the phenomenon of nationalism more generally. Probing the role of nationalist action as both cause and effect, Beissinger utilizes data and case studies from across the USSR during its final years to elici…
Nationalist Violence and the State: Political Authority and Contentious Repertoires in the Former USSR
Of the reasons to study nationalism, nationalist violence undoubtedly ranks among the most salient. Few would argue that it matters little whether nationalisms manifest themselves violently or nonviolently. Understood as political activity aimed at defining authority over the physical, human, or cultural boundaries of the state, nationalism in and of itself is neither good nor evil. Rather, the forms that nationalism assumes and the ways in which…
The Persisting Ambiguity of Empire
The Nationalities Factor in Soviet Politics and Society
The Nationalities Factor in Soviet Politics and Society
Politics and the Soviet System: Essays in Honour of Frederick C. Barghoorn
Fathers and sons - the dialectics of Soviet studies, T.F.Remington understanding the world - the cognitive grid of Soviet television news, E.Mickiewicz religion and youth in the Soviet Union, D.E.Powell Gorbachev and the strategy of Glasnost, T.F.Remington Soviet bureaucratic politics - the role of leaders and of lower officials, C.H.Fairbanks, Jr allocation politics and the arms race - a Soviet constituency for arms control, M.McCain regional as…
Political Reform and Soviet Society
Essay| October 01 1988 Political Reform and Soviet Society Mark R. Beissinger Mark R. Beissinger Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison Mark R. Beissinger, formerly assistant professor of government at Harvard University, specializes in Soviet domestic politics. He is the author of the book Scientific Management, Socialist Discipline, and Soviet Power (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988), as well as artic…
Structure and Example in Modular Political Phenomena: The Diffusion of Bulldozer/Rose/Orange/Tulip Revolutions
The article develops an approach to the study of modular political phenomena (action based in significant part on emulation of the prior successful example of others), focusing on the trade-offs between the influence of example, structural facilitation, and institutional constraints. The approach is illustrated through the example of the spread of democratic revolution in the post-communist region during the 2000–2006 period, with significant com…
The Semblance of Democratic Revolution: Coalitions in Ukraine's Orange Revolution
Using two unusual surveys, this study analyzes participation in the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine, comparing participants with revolution supporters, opponents, counter-revolutionaries, and the apathetic/inactive. As the analysis shows, most revolutionaries were weakly committed to the revolution's democratic master narrative, and the revolution's spectacular mobilizational success was largely due to its mobilization of cultural cleavages and…
Explaining Divergent Revolutionary Coalitions: Regime Strategies and the Structuring of Participation in the Tunisian and Egyptian Revolutions
Mechanisms of Maidan: The Structure of Contingency in the Making of the Orange Revolution
This study evaluates the validity and causal weight of competing causal mechanisms that purport to explain a single set of choices (and critical turning point) within a contentious episode: the decision to participate in the Orange Revolution protests in Ukraine in November 2004. These protests were characterized by extraordinarily high levels of participation, despite freezing temperatures and the threat of violence. Using evidence from public-o…
A New Look at Ethnicity and Democratization
Political scientists have long believed that ethnic diversity and strongly-held national identities work against the cause of democratic consolidation, yet new evidence reveals that this need not be so, and even suggests that these factors can, under certain conditions, work in its favor. And while there is evidence that ethnic diversity correlates with poor government performance, lower rates of aggregate economic growth, and ineffective provisi…
The Persisting Ambiguity of Empire
Conventional" and "Virtual" Civil Societies in Autocratic Regimes
Beyond State Crisis: Postcolonial Africa and Post-Soviet Eurasia in Comparative Perspective
Part I Overview and Retrospective: 1. Introduction - Comparing State Crises Across Two Continents, Mark Beissinger and Crawford Young 2. Convergence to Crisis - Pre-Independence State Legacies and Post-Independence State Breakdown in Africa and Eurasia, Mark Beissinger and Crawford Young. Part II Sovereignty, Violence, and War: 3. At the Edge of the World - Boundaries, Territoriality, and Sovereignty, Achille Mbembe 4. Who is Strong When the Stat…
Nationalism and the Collapse of Soviet Communism
This article examines the role of nationalism in the collapse of communism in the late 1980s and early 1990s, arguing that nationalism (both in its presence and its absence, and in the various conflicts and disorders that it unleashed) played an important role in structuring the way in which communism collapsed. Two institutions of international and cultural control in particular – the Warsaw Pact and ethnofederalism – played key roles in determi…
Nationalist Violence and the State: Political Authority and Contentious Repertoires in the Former USSR
Of the reasons to study nationalism, nationalist violence undoubtedly ranks among the most salient. Few would argue that it matters little whether nationalisms manifest themselves violently or nonviolently. Understood as political activity aimed at defining authority over the physical, human, or cultural boundaries of the state, nationalism in and of itself is neither good nor evil. Rather, the forms that nationalism assumes and the ways in which…
"Soviet Empire as "Family Resemblance
Empire has become a common analytical frame through which the Soviet state and its collapse are interpreted. Commenting on the other contributions to this forum, Mark R. Beissinger examines the limits and utility of this concept, arguing that empire needs to be understood, not as a clearly bounded transhistorical model, but as a Wittgensteinian "family resemblance" whose meaning and referents have altered significantly over time. The article then…
Debating the Color Revolutions: An Interrelated Wave
In contrast to the arguments of those who study the color revolutions as an interrelated phenomenon, Lucan Way’s highly structural account considers the failure of authoritarian consolidation causally sufficient, something that obviates the need to explain opposition mobilization against the state and its role in the collapse of these regimes. Yet for scholars who take the politics of mobilization seriously, such arguments fail on several account…
Nationalist Mobilization and the Collapse of the Soviet State
This 2002 study examines the process by which the seemingly impossible in 1987 - the disintegration of the Soviet state - became the seemingly inevitable by 1991, providing an original interpretation not only of the Soviet collapse, but also of the phenomenon of nationalism more generally. Probing the role of nationalist action as both cause and effect, Beissinger utilizes data and case studies from across the USSR during its final years to elici…
Industrial Innovation in the Soviet Union
Self-determination as a Technology of Imperialism: The Soviet and Russian Experiences
Self-determination is widely understood as an anti-imperial norm responsible in significant part for the global break-up of empires. But self-determination norms have been utilized as well to justify Great Power territorial expansion. This essay examines the ways in which self-determination norms have been wielded by the Soviet Union and Russia to justify overriding sovereignty norms, challenge the territorial integrity of weaker states, and rati…
In Search of Generations in Soviet Politics
The hypothesis that generation has become a major source of political cleavage within the Soviet regional party apparatus is examined in the context of existing models of political generations. The attitudes of a sample of RSFSR provincial officials toward problems in the Soviet economy, as expressed in their newspaper writings, are analyzed according to several variables, including political generation. While it is difficult to speak of a signif…
The Evolving Study of Revolution
As the practice of revolution has evolved, so too have theories of revolution. Much of the current literature on revolutions focuses on contentious processes. But a need exists to take a more holistic approach—one that better incorporates history, thinks across divides in the literature, contemplates what precedes and follows revolution, and places revolutionary processes and the structural factors that underpin them into dialogue with one anothe…
Administrative Science and Politics in the USSR and the United States: Soviet Responses to American Management Techniques, 1917-Present
Beyond the Nationalities Question
While the collapse of the Soviet Union altered tremendously the configuration of power in Eurasia, the nationality issues that played such a critical role in fueling the Soviet collapse have hardly dissipated, but remain very much a part of the Eurasian landscape. Issues associated with cultural difference are openly discussed, and groups engage in autonomous self-organization in ways that could not have been imagined in Soviet times
Industrial Innovation in the Soviet Union
The Age of the Soviet Oligarchs
Research Article| October 01 1984 The Age of the Soviet Oligarchs Mark R. Beissinger Mark R. Beissinger Assistant Professor of Government, Harvard University Mark R. Beissinger specializes in Soviet and East European government. He is the author of a number of articles on political leadership and economic affairs in the Soviet Union, and is currently working on a book on the history of Soviet attempts to borrow Western managerial techniques. Sear…
Administrative Science and Politics in the USSR and the United States: Soviet Responses to American Management Techniques, 1917-Present
The New Leadership and the Soviet Party Congress
Research Article| October 01 1986 The New Leadership and the Soviet Party Congress Mark R. Beissinger Mark R. Beissinger Assistant Professor of Government, Harvard University Mark R. Beissinger specializes in Soviet and East European affairs. He is currently completing a book on the Soviet scientific management movement. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Current History (1986) 85 (513): 309–312. https://doi…
In Search of Generations in Soviet Politics
The hypothesis that generation has become a major source of political cleavage within the Soviet regional party apparatus is examined in the context of existing models of political generations. The attitudes of a sample of RSFSR provincial officials toward problems in the Soviet economy, as expressed in their newspaper writings, are analyzed according to several variables, including political generation. While it is difficult to speak of a signif…
Political Reform and Soviet Society
Essay| October 01 1988 Political Reform and Soviet Society Mark R. Beissinger Mark R. Beissinger Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison Mark R. Beissinger, formerly assistant professor of government at Harvard University, specializes in Soviet domestic politics. He is the author of the book Scientific Management, Socialist Discipline, and Soviet Power (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988), as well as artic…
Politics and the Soviet System: Essays in Honour of Frederick C. Barghoorn
Fathers and sons - the dialectics of Soviet studies, T.F.Remington understanding the world - the cognitive grid of Soviet television news, E.Mickiewicz religion and youth in the Soviet Union, D.E.Powell Gorbachev and the strategy of Glasnost, T.F.Remington Soviet bureaucratic politics - the role of leaders and of lower officials, C.H.Fairbanks, Jr allocation politics and the arms race - a Soviet constituency for arms control, M.McCain regional as…
The Nationalities Factor in Soviet Politics and Society
The Nationalities Factor in Soviet Politics and Society
The Persisting Ambiguity of Empire
Nationalist Violence and the State: Political Authority and Contentious Repertoires in the Former USSR
Of the reasons to study nationalism, nationalist violence undoubtedly ranks among the most salient. Few would argue that it matters little whether nationalisms manifest themselves violently or nonviolently. Understood as political activity aimed at defining authority over the physical, human, or cultural boundaries of the state, nationalism in and of itself is neither good nor evil. Rather, the forms that nationalism assumes and the ways in which…
Nationalist Mobilization and the Collapse of the Soviet State
This 2002 study examines the process by which the seemingly impossible in 1987 - the disintegration of the Soviet state - became the seemingly inevitable by 1991, providing an original interpretation not only of the Soviet collapse, but also of the phenomenon of nationalism more generally. Probing the role of nationalist action as both cause and effect, Beissinger utilizes data and case studies from across the USSR during its final years to elici…
Beyond State Crisis: Postcolonial Africa and Post-Soviet Eurasia in Comparative Perspective
Part I Overview and Retrospective: 1. Introduction - Comparing State Crises Across Two Continents, Mark Beissinger and Crawford Young 2. Convergence to Crisis - Pre-Independence State Legacies and Post-Independence State Breakdown in Africa and Eurasia, Mark Beissinger and Crawford Young. Part II Sovereignty, Violence, and War: 3. At the Edge of the World - Boundaries, Territoriality, and Sovereignty, Achille Mbembe 4. Who is Strong When the Stat…
How Nationalisms Spread - Eastern Europe Adrift the Tides and Cycles of Nationalist Contention
L'A. montre que le nationalisme consiste en une exacerbation du sentiment national. Il montre que le nationalisme semble, apres une eclipse apparente, apres la Seconde Guerre mondiale, s'etre reveille en 1987 principalement en U.R.S.S.. Il porte son attention sur le nationalisme en Armenie et dans les republiques baltes. Il montre que le nombre de manifestations de masse et de violences a connu une formidable augmentation entre 1989 et 1991 en U.…
"Soviet Empire as "Family Resemblance
Empire has become a common analytical frame through which the Soviet state and its collapse are interpreted. Commenting on the other contributions to this forum, Mark R. Beissinger examines the limits and utility of this concept, arguing that empire needs to be understood, not as a clearly bounded transhistorical model, but as a Wittgensteinian "family resemblance" whose meaning and referents have altered significantly over time. The article then…
Structure and Example in Modular Political Phenomena: The Diffusion of Bulldozer/Rose/Orange/Tulip Revolutions
The article develops an approach to the study of modular political phenomena (action based in significant part on emulation of the prior successful example of others), focusing on the trade-offs between the influence of example, structural facilitation, and institutional constraints. The approach is illustrated through the example of the spread of democratic revolution in the post-communist region during the 2000–2006 period, with significant com…
A New Look at Ethnicity and Democratization
Political scientists have long believed that ethnic diversity and strongly-held national identities work against the cause of democratic consolidation, yet new evidence reveals that this need not be so, and even suggests that these factors can, under certain conditions, work in its favor. And while there is evidence that ethnic diversity correlates with poor government performance, lower rates of aggregate economic growth, and ineffective provisi…
Nationalism and the Collapse of Soviet Communism
This article examines the role of nationalism in the collapse of communism in the late 1980s and early 1990s, arguing that nationalism (both in its presence and its absence, and in the various conflicts and disorders that it unleashed) played an important role in structuring the way in which communism collapsed. Two institutions of international and cultural control in particular – the Warsaw Pact and ethnofederalism – played key roles in determi…
Debating the Color Revolutions: An Interrelated Wave
In contrast to the arguments of those who study the color revolutions as an interrelated phenomenon, Lucan Way’s highly structural account considers the failure of authoritarian consolidation causally sufficient, something that obviates the need to explain opposition mobilization against the state and its role in the collapse of these regimes. Yet for scholars who take the politics of mobilization seriously, such arguments fail on several account…
Beyond the Nationalities Question
While the collapse of the Soviet Union altered tremendously the configuration of power in Eurasia, the nationality issues that played such a critical role in fueling the Soviet collapse have hardly dissipated, but remain very much a part of the Eurasian landscape. Issues associated with cultural difference are openly discussed, and groups engage in autonomous self-organization in ways that could not have been imagined in Soviet times
Mechanisms of Maidan: The Structure of Contingency in the Making of the Orange Revolution
This study evaluates the validity and causal weight of competing causal mechanisms that purport to explain a single set of choices (and critical turning point) within a contentious episode: the decision to participate in the Orange Revolution protests in Ukraine in November 2004. These protests were characterized by extraordinarily high levels of participation, despite freezing temperatures and the threat of violence. Using evidence from public-o…
The Semblance of Democratic Revolution: Coalitions in Ukraine's Orange Revolution
Using two unusual surveys, this study analyzes participation in the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine, comparing participants with revolution supporters, opponents, counter-revolutionaries, and the apathetic/inactive. As the analysis shows, most revolutionaries were weakly committed to the revolution's democratic master narrative, and the revolution's spectacular mobilizational success was largely due to its mobilization of cultural cleavages and…
An End to “Patience”?
This chapter explores the factors that shaped patterns of economic protest across 18 European post-communist countries during the Great Recession. It explains how the Great Recession altered the level and nature of economic protest in the region and why patterns of protest varied considerably across countries. Strikes and ethnic protests decreased overall. Economic protests increased as a percentage of total protests but focused mostly on austeri…
The Historical Legacies of Communism: An Empirical Agenda
A summary is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
Historical Legacies of Communism in Russia and Eastern Europe
This book takes stock of arguments about the historical legacies of communism that have become common within the study of Russia and East Europe more than two decades after communism's demise and elaborates an empirical approach to the study of historical legacies revolving around relationships and mechanisms rather than correlation and outward similarities. Eleven essays by a distinguished group of scholars assess whether post-communist developm…
Political science (28 works) · Law (24 works) · Political economy (20 works) · Politics (20 works) · Sociology (20 works) · Law (17 works) · Economics (12 works) · History (9 works) · Soviet and Russian History (9 works) · Political Conflict and Governance (8 works)