Valerie Bunce
Biographic Data
| ID | 363034 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Valerie Bunce |
| GIVEN NAMES | Valerie |
| FAMILY NAME | Bunce |
| SIGNATURE | BUNCE V |
| AFFILIATIONS | Cornell University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 59 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 930 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 57 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1976 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2020 |
| H-INDEX | 15 |
Citizens and the State in Authoritarian Regimes: Comparing China and Russia
Findings in Search of a Controversy and in Need of More Data
Based on their quantitative survey of democracy protests from 1989 to 2011, Dawn Brancati and Adrian Lucardi conclude that diffusion of such protests is the exception, not the rule; that domestic factors rather than international diffusion are key in determining if diffusion occurs and that their findings call into serious question the received wisdom about democratic diffusion. We have several problems with their analysis. First, no serious scho…
A Discussion of Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt’s How Democracies Die
Among the many scholarly attempts to reckon with the causes and consequences of Donald Trump’s rise, few have attracted popular attention on the scale of Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt’s How Democracies Die. Seldom do books by political scientists make it onto the New York Times best sellers list, but this one has, a testament to its broad influence. Levitsky and Ziblatt situate Trumpism within a broader comparative and historical context in …
A Discussion of Aviezer Tucker's The Legacies of Totalitarianism: A Theoretical Framework
The concept of totalitarianism emerged between the two world wars in twentieth-century Europe to become a central concept of Cold War social science designed to highlight similarities between the Nazi and Soviet regimes and implicitly to contrast these forms of dictatorship with liberal democracy. While in the 1960s and 1970s many critics challenged the concept’s Cold War uses as an ideology of “the West,” the idea of totalitarianism and later “p…
The Prospects for a Color Revolution in Russia
From 1998 to 2005, six elections took place in postcommunist Europe and Eurasia that led to the defeat of authoritarian incumbents or their anointed successors, the empowerment of opposition forces, and, thereafter, the introduction of democratic reforms. Because Putin's regime closely resembles those regimes that were successfully challenged by these dramatic changes in politics, Russia is a logical candidate for such a “color revolution,” as th…
Nationalism, Myth, and the State in Russia and Serbia: Antecedents of the Dissolution of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia
The New Middle East: Protest and Revolution in the Arab World
The New Middle East is one of the first comprehensive books to critically examine the Arab popular uprisings of 2011–12. While these uprisings prompted a number of cursory publications, this volume contains meticulous and thoughtful reflections on the causes, drivers and effects of these seminal events on the internal, regional and international politics of the Middle East and North Africa. Although specific conditions in individual countries tha…
The Constitution of the American Political Science Association
This Association shall be known as The American Political Science Association
Defeating authoritarian leaders in postcommunist countries
From 1998 to 2005, six elections took place in postcommunist Europe and Eurasia that had the surprising outcome of empowering the opposition and defeating authoritarian incumbents or their designated successors. Valerie J. Bunce and Sharon L. Wolchik compare these unexpected electoral breakthroughs with one another and with elections that had the more typical result of maintaining authoritarian rule. They draw three conclusions. First, the opposi…
Democracy and Authoritarianism in the Postcommunist World
Democracy and Authoritarianism in the Postcommunist World examines three waves of democratic change that took place in eleven different former Communist nations. It draws important conclusions about the rise, development, and breakdown of both democracy and dictatorship in each country, providing a comparative perspective on the post-Communist world. The first democratic wave to sweep this region encompasses the rapid rise of democratic regimes f…
Reflections on 1989 and Authoritarianism
Some of the conclusions that social scientists and policymakers drew from the events of 1989-particularly about the value of area studies and the viability of communist and other authoritarian regimes-have since then turned out to have questionable validity. Unfortunately, those mistaken lessons have not just informed arcane debates within political science; they have also influenced U.S. foreign policy
Debating the Color Revolutions: Getting Real About “Real Causes
Way is correct that structural factors make competitive regimes more or less vulnerable, but he ignores the durability of even very weak regimes. In the color revolutions, defeat occurred because of the formation of a united opposition; collaboration among oppositions, civil society groups and international democracy promoters; ambitious campaigns to win public support, register new voters, and get out the vote; and widespread use of vote monitor…
The Tasks of Democratic Transition and Transferability
Global Patterns and Postcommunist Dynamics
Favorable Conditions and Electoral Revolutions
From 1996 to 2005 a wave of electoral revolutions swept through east Central Europe, the Balkans, and Soviet successor states. The success of these revolutions and their concentration in the post-communist world reflect favorable political and social conditions, as well as the fact that the common structures and policies of communist regimes created unusually good conditions for diffusion of the electoral model after communism’s end. These struct…
The National Idea: Imperial Legacies and Post-Communist Pathways in Eastern Europe
Why has the national idea played such a powerful role, both positive and negative, in the regime, state, and economic transitions that have taken place in post-communist Eurasia? This article emphasizes the powerful but variable effects of imperial rule in this region, beginning with the Habsburgs and continuing through the more recent experiences of the Soviet bloc and the Yugoslav, Soviet, and Czechoslovak ethnofederations. The national idea, a…
Electoral Systems and Elite Bargaining in Central Asia
Over the past decade, a new generation of political scientists in the West have discovered Central Asia—a region composed of five states: Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. Central Asia caught the imagination of these political scientists for three reasons. First, in a world in which regions have tended to be durable constructs, Central Asia stands out as the exception. It is a new region, having been invented by th…
Rethinking Recent Democratization: Lessons from the Postcommunist Experience
This study compares democratization in the postcommunist region (or the twenty-seven countries that emerged from the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe) in order to evaluate some of the assumptions and arguments in the literature on recent democratization in southern Europe and Latin America. Five conclusions are drawn, all of which challenge the received wisdom about democratization in southern Europe and Latin America. First, the uncertainty surro…
Subversive Institutions: The Design and the Destruction of Socialism and the State
Democratization and Economic Reform
Are democratization and economic reform in tension with each other, or are they mutually supportive processes? A survey of new democracies in Latin America, Southern Europe, and the postsocialist world suggests that the answer varies by region. In the postsocialist cases, the relationship is positive and robust; in the other two regions, the relationship is negligible. Region, however, cannot serve as the explanation. Instead, what emerge as crit…
The Postsocialist Experience and Comparative Politics
I see four areas where the study of postsocialism has made significant contributions to our understanding of politics, One is in providing an ideal laboratory for comparison. Here, I refer to three aspects of the region. First, it contains a large number of cases—28 in all and a good deal more, once we take into account “patch-work” politics and economics of the Russian Federation, for example. Second, the “great transformation,” to borrow from P…
Quand le lieu compte: Spécificités des passés autoritaires et réformes économiques dans les transitions à la démocratie
Comparative Democratization: Big and Bounded Generalizations
Comparative studies of democratization have produced two types of generalizations: those having nearly universal application and those applying to a range of countries within a region. In the first category are such arguments as the role of high levels of economic development in guaranteeing democratic sustainability, the centrality of political elites in establishing and terminating democracy, and deficits in rule of law and state capacity as th…
Quand le lieu compte. Spécificités des passés autoritaires et réformes économiques dans les transitions à la démocratie
L'article s'attache à trois questions. Premièrement : les modèles des démocratisations intervenues dans le monde postsocialiste sont-ils semblables aux modèles des démocratisations récentes en Amérique latine et en Europe du Sud ? Deuxièmement : que suggère la réponse à cette première question en ce qui concerne la possibilité de généraliser ces modèles de démocratisations récentes, celles du « Sud », et, plus largement, en ce qui concerne le pos…
Subversive Institutions: The Design and the Destruction of Socialism and the State
From 1989 to 1992, all of the socialist dictatorships in Europe (including the Soviet Union) collapsed, as did the Soviet bloc. Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia dismembered, and the Cold War international order came to an abrupt end. Based on a series of controlled comparisons among regimes and states, Valerie Bunce argues in this book that two factors account for these remarkable developments: the institutional design of socialism…
Rethinking Recent Democratization: Lessons from the Postcommunist Experience
This study compares democratization in the postcommunist region (or the twenty-seven countries that emerged from the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe) in order to evaluate some of the assumptions and arguments in the literature on recent democratization in southern Europe and Latin America. Five conclusions are drawn, all of which challenge the received wisdom about democratization in southern Europe and Latin America. First, the uncertainty surro…
Comparative Democratization: Big and Bounded Generalizations
Comparative studies of democratization have produced two types of generalizations: those having nearly universal application and those applying to a range of countries within a region. In the first category are such arguments as the role of high levels of economic development in guaranteeing democratic sustainability, the centrality of political elites in establishing and terminating democracy, and deficits in rule of law and state capacity as th…
Should Transitologists Be Grounded
The collapse of state socialism in eastern Europe has led to a proliferation of studies analyzing aspects of democratization throughout the region. Central to many of these studies (particularly those by nonspecialists) is an assumption that postcommunism is but a variation on a larger theme, that is, recent transitions from authoritarian to democratic rule
Favorable Conditions and Electoral Revolutions
From 1996 to 2005 a wave of electoral revolutions swept through east Central Europe, the Balkans, and Soviet successor states. The success of these revolutions and their concentration in the post-communist world reflect favorable political and social conditions, as well as the fact that the common structures and policies of communist regimes created unusually good conditions for diffusion of the electoral model after communism’s end. These struct…
Subversive Institutions: The Design and the Destruction of Socialism and the State
From 1989 to 1992, all of the socialist dictatorships in Europe (including the Soviet Union) collapsed, as did the Soviet bloc. Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia dismembered, and the Cold War international order came to an abrupt end. Based on a series of controlled comparisons among regimes and states, Valerie Bunce argues in this book that two factors account for these remarkable developments: the institutional design of socialism…
The Political Economy of Postsocialism
There were two good reasons to expect that developments after socialism, whether in the former Soviet Union or in east central Europe, would follow a roughly similar course. The first was the homogenizing effects of the socialist experience. In contrast to other regions of the world, such as Latin America and southern Europe, where dictatorships had also given way to more liberalized orders, the socialist regimes of eastern Europe and the Soviet …
Uncertainty in the Transition: Post-communism in Hungary
Often the feeling prevails that everything is falling apart. In a way, this is true. The former centralist, bureaucratic, and dysfunctional system of support for order cannot be self-supporting and is collapsing. The new system, in all its aspects, is being born, prepared, thought through. But it is not yet up and working. Václav Havel
The empire strikes back: The evolution of the Eastern bloc from a Soviet asset to a Soviet liability
The structure of the Soviet bloc would appear to be ideal for the maximization of Soviet domestic and foreign interests. The actual ledger of Soviet gains and losses from control over Eastern Europe, however, reveals a different picture. Over the postwar period Eastern European contributions to Soviet national security, economic growth, and domestic stability have declined. This decline in the value of empire to the Soviets is a function of three…
Regional Differences in Democratization: The East Versus the South
1998). Regional Differences in Democratization: The East Versus the South. Post-Soviet Affairs: Vol. 14, No. 3, pp. 187-211
The National Idea: Imperial Legacies and Post-Communist Pathways in Eastern Europe
Why has the national idea played such a powerful role, both positive and negative, in the regime, state, and economic transitions that have taken place in post-communist Eurasia? This article emphasizes the powerful but variable effects of imperial rule in this region, beginning with the Habsburgs and continuing through the more recent experiences of the Soviet bloc and the Yugoslav, Soviet, and Czechoslovak ethnofederations. The national idea, a…
Comparing East and South
Comparing East and South Valerie Bunce (bio) Throughout the Cold War era, Eastern Europe (including the former Soviet Union) was the scholarly preserve of regional specialists and was largely excluded from mainstream social-science discourse. With the collapse of communism, however, the region has become a fashionable area to study. The change has been most evident in the burgeoning literature on recent transitions to democracy. Researchers speci…
Paper Curtains and Paper Tigers
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The Political Economy of the Brezhnev Era: The Rise and Fall of Corporatism
When Leonid Brezhnev came to power in 1964, the Soviet empire consisted of Cuba and six reliable satellites in Eastern Europe, the bloc was dominated politically and economically by the Soviet Union, and East–West interactions were kept to a minimum. Soviet military capabilities at this time, moreover, were clearly inferior to the military power of the West. And while East–West relations were testy, they had improved in the aftermath of the Parti…
Debating the Color Revolutions: Getting Real About “Real Causes
Way is correct that structural factors make competitive regimes more or less vulnerable, but he ignores the durability of even very weak regimes. In the color revolutions, defeat occurred because of the formation of a united opposition; collaboration among oppositions, civil society groups and international democracy promoters; ambitious campaigns to win public support, register new voters, and get out the vote; and widespread use of vote monitor…
Democratization and Economic Reform
Are democratization and economic reform in tension with each other, or are they mutually supportive processes? A survey of new democracies in Latin America, Southern Europe, and the postsocialist world suggests that the answer varies by region. In the postsocialist cases, the relationship is positive and robust; in the other two regions, the relationship is negligible. Region, however, cannot serve as the explanation. Instead, what emerge as crit…
Elite Succession, Petrification, and Policy Innovation in Communist Systems: An Empirical Assessment
Changing Leaders and Changing Policies: The Impact of Elite Succession on Budgetary Priorities in Democratic Countries
Leadership succession is a topic of immediate concern for political scientists and laypeople alike. However, most scholarly studies of elections have analyzed the process as a dependent variable. This paper takes up where these studies of leadership change have left off, by assessing the policy impact of leadership changeover in democratic polities. My guiding concern, then, is not rules, but whether who rules matters in terms of government polic…
Power and Policy in Communist Systems: "The Problem of "Incrementalism
Peaceful versus Violent State Dismemberment: A Comparison of the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia
Domestic reform and international change: The Gorbachev reforms in historical perspective
Two rounds of stagnation and reform in Russia have occurred: from Nicholas I to Alexander II (1825–81) and from Brezhnev to Gorbachev (1964–90). A comparison between them reveals striking similarities in the sources of stagnation, the approach to reform, and the international and domestic consequences of the reforms. What emerges in particular is a pattern wherein international stability, Russian conservatism, and expanding Russian power in the i…
Do New Leaders Make a Difference?: Executive Succession and Public Policy Under Capitalism and Socialism
Professor Bunce assesses the impact of changes in leadership on priorities in policy within the Soviet bloc and western democratic states during the postwar era, with particular emphasis on the Soviet Union and the United States. Originally published in 1981. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. T…
Leadership Succession and Policy Innovation in the Soviet Republics
In his diagnosis of the prevailing ills of political science in general, and comparative politics especially, Lucian Pye has concluded that political scientists all too often been more interested in analyzing sources and causes than in studying consequences and outcomes.l This criticism is particularly apt with respect to the analysis of leadership succession: Political scientists have been far more inclined to treat succession as a dependent var…
Subversive Institutions: The End of the Soviet State in Comparative Perspective
1998). Subversive Institutions: The End of the Soviet State in Comparative Perspective. Post-Soviet Affairs: Vol. 14, No. 4, pp. 323-354
Lessons of the First Postsocialist Decade
From soviet studies to comparative politics: The unfinished revolution
Elite Succession, Petrification, and Policy Innovation in Communist Systems: An Empirical Assessment
Power and Policy in Communist Systems: "The Problem of "Incrementalism
From soviet studies to comparative politics: The unfinished revolution
Socialism in the Soviet Union
Leadership Succession and Policy Innovation in the Soviet Republics
In his diagnosis of the prevailing ills of political science in general, and comparative politics especially, Lucian Pye has concluded that political scientists all too often been more interested in analyzing sources and causes than in studying consequences and outcomes.l This criticism is particularly apt with respect to the analysis of leadership succession: Political scientists have been far more inclined to treat succession as a dependent var…
The political consumption cycle: A comparative analysis
Measuring Communist Priorities: A Reply to Bahry
Changing Leaders and Changing Policies: The Impact of Elite Succession on Budgetary Priorities in Democratic Countries
Leadership succession is a topic of immediate concern for political scientists and laypeople alike. However, most scholarly studies of elections have analyzed the process as a dependent variable. This paper takes up where these studies of leadership change have left off, by assessing the policy impact of leadership changeover in democratic polities. My guiding concern, then, is not rules, but whether who rules matters in terms of government polic…
Do New Leaders Make a Difference?: Executive Succession and Public Policy Under Capitalism and Socialism
Professor Bunce assesses the impact of changes in leadership on priorities in policy within the Soviet bloc and western democratic states during the postwar era, with particular emphasis on the Soviet Union and the United States. Originally published in 1981. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. T…
The Political Economy of the Brezhnev Era: The Rise and Fall of Corporatism
When Leonid Brezhnev came to power in 1964, the Soviet empire consisted of Cuba and six reliable satellites in Eastern Europe, the bloc was dominated politically and economically by the Soviet Union, and East–West interactions were kept to a minimum. Soviet military capabilities at this time, moreover, were clearly inferior to the military power of the West. And while East–West relations were testy, they had improved in the aftermath of the Parti…
Reply to Donna Bahry
The empire strikes back: The evolution of the Eastern bloc from a Soviet asset to a Soviet liability
The structure of the Soviet bloc would appear to be ideal for the maximization of Soviet domestic and foreign interests. The actual ledger of Soviet gains and losses from control over Eastern Europe, however, reveals a different picture. Over the postwar period Eastern European contributions to Soviet national security, economic growth, and domestic stability have declined. This decline in the value of empire to the Soviets is a function of three…
The Effects of Leadership Succession in the Soviet Union
What happens when there is a change in leadership in the Soviet Union? Does the period of leadership succession present unusual opportunities for domestic policy concerns to be vented? Or, are major issues on the Soviet domestic policy agenda addressed mainly after a succession of leadership is completed? Answers to such questions have a bearing on how the Soviet elite is replenished, and more generally help to improve understanding of Soviet pol…
Market Reforms in Socialist Societies: Comparing China and Hungary
In this book, eminent Chinese and Hungarian scholars evaluate the present status of market reforms in their countries and assess their own and each other's problems and achievements
Eastern Europe: Is the Party Over
Absolute systems are strong as long as they are absolute. When they begin to reform, they are lost. Yet they cannot avoid reform, or they will explode. Milovan Djilas It is easy to make a strong case for economic and political reforms in Eastern Europe. First, this is what Mikhail Gorbachev wants, and what a Soviet leader wants carries special weight in the bloc. Second, it is clear that socialist economics does not work, especially in Eastern Eu…
Decline of a Regional Hegemon: The Gorbachev Regime and Reform in Eastern Europe
Europe
The Soviet Union under Gorbachev: Ending Stalinism and Ending the Cold War
collapse of the post-World War II international order. One is that the Soviet Union is a formidable power in the international system. At first glance, this would appear to be a rather peculiar assertion. After all, there are ample grounds for arguing that the Soviet Union is quite weak abroad and at home. Since Mikhail Gorbachev's rise to power in 1985 the Soviet Union has admitted that state socialism is bankrupt and has declared the West to be…
On Gorbachev
From Power without Politics to Politics without Power
Changes in Soviet Policy towards the West
The Crisis of Socialism in Europe, by Christiane Lemke and Gary Marks
The recent revolutions in Eastern Europe and the recasting of socialism in Western Europe since 1989 have given rise to intense debate over the origins, character and implications of the crisis of socialism. Is socialism in ideological, electoral or organizational decline? Is the decline inevitable or can socialism be revitalized? This volume draws together historians and political scientists of Eastern and Western European politics to address th…
Uncertainty in the Transition: Post-communism in Hungary
Often the feeling prevails that everything is falling apart. In a way, this is true. The former centralist, bureaucratic, and dysfunctional system of support for order cannot be self-supporting and is collapsing. The new system, in all its aspects, is being born, prepared, thought through. But it is not yet up and working. Václav Havel
Domestic reform and international change: The Gorbachev reforms in historical perspective
Two rounds of stagnation and reform in Russia have occurred: from Nicholas I to Alexander II (1825–81) and from Brezhnev to Gorbachev (1964–90). A comparison between them reveals striking similarities in the sources of stagnation, the approach to reform, and the international and domestic consequences of the reforms. What emerges in particular is a pattern wherein international stability, Russian conservatism, and expanding Russian power in the i…
Comparing East and South
Comparing East and South Valerie Bunce (bio) Throughout the Cold War era, Eastern Europe (including the former Soviet Union) was the scholarly preserve of regional specialists and was largely excluded from mainstream social-science discourse. With the collapse of communism, however, the region has become a fashionable area to study. The change has been most evident in the burgeoning literature on recent transitions to democracy. Researchers speci…
Political science (55 works) · Law (44 works) · Politics (43 works) · Political economy (41 works) · Law (36 works) · Sociology (33 works) · Economics (30 works) · Democracy (25 works) · Communism (19 works) · Economic history (19 works)