Vladimir Shlapentokh
Biographic Data
| ID | 3686058 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Vladimir Shlapentokh |
| GIVEN NAMES | Vladimir |
| FAMILY NAME | Shlapentokh |
| SIGNATURE | SHLAPENTOKH V |
| AFFILIATIONS | Michigan State University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 79 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 163 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 78 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1982 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2019 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
State Organized Terror: The Case of Violent Internal Repression
A Normal Totalitarian Society: How the Soviet Union Functioned and How It Collapsed
Shlapentokh undertakes a dispassionate analysis of the ordinary functioning of the Soviet system from Stalin's death through the Soviet collapse and Russia's first post-communist decade. Without overlooking its repressive character, he treats the USSR as a "normal" system that employed both socialist and nationalist ideologies for the purposes of technological and military modernization, preservation of empire, and expansion of its geopolitical p…
Rethinking Class in Russia
Corruption, the power of state and big business in Soviet and post-Soviet regimes
The growth of corruption after 1991 was probably unavoidable. The privatization of the state economy created favorable conditions for corruption, which did not exist before. The feudalization of a society, with its weakening of the state and the high autonomy of its office holders, was another major factor behind the outburst of corruption. However, while these “objective” factors account for a great part of corruption’s growth, the transformatio…
Feudal America: Elements of the Middle Ages in Contemporary Society
Do Americans live in a liberal capitalist society, or a society in which big money, private security, and personal relations determine key social outcomes? Shlapentokh and Woods argue that the answer to these questions cannot be found among the conventional models. Offering a new analytical tool, the authors present a provocative explanation of the nature of contemporary society by comparing its essential characteristics to those of medieval Euro…
Russia’s openness to the world: The unpredicted consequences of the country’s liberalization
The author challenges the dogma that complete openness of the country to the external world has only a positive impact on its current state of affairs and its future. He uses post-Soviet Russia to show that in several respects openness, in particularly systematic emigrations of active people from the country, creates a lot of the problems which, however, can be partially solved if society has true democratic institutions
Feudal America: Elements of the Middle Ages in Contemporary Society
The Puzzle of Russian Anti-Americanism: From ‘Below’ or From ‘Above’
The author challenges the dominant view about the deep roots of anti-Americanism in the Russian mentality. Using historical analysis, paying particular attention to the oscillation of Russian public opinion, he shows that attitudes toward the United States in Russia have mostly been shaped by the ruling elite. The population almost instantly changed its stance toward America under the impact of the media controlled by the government
Expediency always wins over ideology: Putin’s attitudes toward the Russian Communist Party
Vladimir Putin provides us with an excellent example of a politician whose attitude toward ideology is instrumental to his political longevity. He has shown that in the fight between ideology and political expedience, to maintain authority and control within the country, or to achieve geopolitical ambitions in the international arena, ideology will almost always lose the battle. It is well known that the major threat to political power stems ofte…
Is Putin's Regime Less Vulnerable than Monarchist Russia in 1916 or the Soviet Union in 1990
Former president Vladimir Putin still appears to dominate an unassailable regime from the position of prime minister. However, parallels with imperial Russia shortly before the tsar's overthrow, and with its Soviet successor in the year before the union collapsed, suggest that the security of the regime should not be taken for granted. The failure of ‘experts’ to identify the weakness of the earlier regimes should teach us to be prepared for the …
Stalin in Russian Ideology and Public Opinion: Caught in a Conflict Between Imperial and Liberal Elements
We will examine the views of the country's political and cultural elite as well public opinion on the mass terror in Stalin's time. The authors conclude that public attitudes toward Stalin and the mass repressions are deeply contradictory. It is another powerful indicator that Russia still, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, does not have an ideology that can unite the majority of the elite and the masses. Russian society continues to …
A Russian intelligent as a cultural relic: The case of Felix Raskolnikov
In the first decades after the emergence of the term `intelligentsia' at the end of the 19th century, almost everybody assumed that those who deserved to be members of this group should be highly educated and have a deep interest in culture, literature and the arts. By the end of the 20th century this type of person had almost disappeared from Russia. The article is a memoir of Felix Raskolnikov, a relic Russian intelligent, whom the author found…
Perceptions of foreign threats to the regime: From Lenin to Putin
During his second term, Putin’s foreign policy was strongly influenced by the belief that the West’s hostility could help the opposition change the current regime, as the West had done in Ukraine and Georgia. A regime change would deprive the ruling elite, mostly people from the security police and army, of their power and illegally acquired wealth. Moscow restored, in early 2000, the ideology of Russia’s “encirclement” from the 1920s, which sugg…
Big Money as an Obstacle to Democracy in Russia
Established Western social science theory equates democratization with rising levels of wealth and the associated establishment of a middle class that has an interest in the peaceful resolution of conflict through a political process. The case of Russia under Putin suggests that there is no necessary link between wealth as such and democratization. During his two terms as president, Putin benefited enormously from the rapid rise in world oil pric…
Putin as a flexible politician. Does he imitate Stalin
The article is about Putin's ‘Jewish anomaly’. Against all expectations, Putin during his tenure as president of the Russian Federation showed in various ways his concern about the life of Jews in his country
The Hatred of Others: The Kremlin's Powerful but Risky Weapon
China in the Russian mind today: Ambivalence and defeatism
This article describes the ambivalence of Russian attitudes toward China at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Russians of all strata combine a willingness to see China as a friendly neighbour with a high level of fear of the giant that could swallow much of the country whole, especially the Asian part. The article pays special attention to the split in Russian views of China among elites. While some elites, who have strong anti-American …
How Putin’s Russia embraces authoritarianism: The case of Yegor Gaidar
The ability of an Orwellian society to bend the will of individuals and force them to change their minds is well known. Putin’s Russia, however, has proved that not only a harsh totalitarian state, such as the Soviet Union, but also a somewhat milder, authoritarian regime is able to achieve almost the same result. Such a regime can threaten to diminish the income, privileges or social status of prominent people. By murdering or jailing only a few…
Trust in public institutions in Russia: The lowest in the world
The article’s topic is the attitudes of the Russians toward their social institutions. As it will be shown, Russia is a country, much more than any other, that mistrusts its social institutions, political institutions in particular. There is no one institution that can garner more than 40 to 50 percent of the nation’s trust. Indeed, in terms of their lack of confidence in social institutions, the Russians are behind not only the most advanced cou…
Are today’s authoritarian leaders doomed to be indicted when they leave office? The Russian and other post-Soviet cases
The attitudes of leaders toward their personal future are very important to domestic and international politics. These views are particularly vital in the case of leaders of nondemocratic regimes who could face legal prosecution for their corrupt acts or violations of human rights in their own country and abroad. In spite of these fears, however, the leaders in many authoritarian societies trespass laws, both domestic and international, in order …
The short time horizon in the Russian mind
An individual’s vision of the future is an important factor that shapes his or her quality of life and behavior. The character and intensity of this factor varies from society to society, group to group, and from one moment to the next. Four actors are central to the analysis of the Russians’ perspective of the future: the leadership, political elites, business elites and the masses. The members of each of these groups have their own ‘‘time horiz…
Russia's demographic decline and the public reaction
RUSSIANS HAVE BEEN HOTLY DEBATING whether to take the position of optimist or pessimist in regard to the privatisation of the 1990s, the country's future geopolitical status, relations with China and the Muslim World, as well as its economy, culture and science. There is, however, one issue upon which no one disagrees; Consensus is found when Russians assess the seriousness of their country's demographic problems. No one denies the crisis. Russia…
Foreign Perceptions of the USA after the Terrorist Attacks of 2001
Wealth versus political power: The Russian case
The interplay between the state and the super rich has been a subject of intense debate since the time of Aristotle, who introduced the notion of oligarchs and the oligarchic regime as the ruling of a few rich people. The ideologically loaded debates about the role of wealthy people in society can be found in each country in the contemporary world. In recent times, the fact that Silvio Berlusconi is both Italy’s prime minister and the richest per…
Hobbes and Locke at odds in Putin's Russia
(2003). Hobbes and Locke at odds in Putin's Russia. Europe-Asia Studies: Vol. 55, No. 7, pp. 981-1007
Trust in public institutions in Russia: The lowest in the world
The article’s topic is the attitudes of the Russians toward their social institutions. As it will be shown, Russia is a country, much more than any other, that mistrusts its social institutions, political institutions in particular. There is no one institution that can garner more than 40 to 50 percent of the nation’s trust. Indeed, in terms of their lack of confidence in social institutions, the Russians are behind not only the most advanced cou…
Early feudalism—The best parallel for contemporary Russia
The Puzzle of Russian Anti-Americanism: From ‘Below’ or From ‘Above’
The author challenges the dominant view about the deep roots of anti-Americanism in the Russian mentality. Using historical analysis, paying particular attention to the oscillation of Russian public opinion, he shows that attitudes toward the United States in Russia have mostly been shaped by the ruling elite. The population almost instantly changed its stance toward America under the impact of the media controlled by the government
Social Inequality in Post-communist Russia: The Attitudes of the Political Elite and the Masses (1991-1998)
ON 1 MAY 1998 much of the Russian population acknowledged International Labour Day, traditionally one of the most important holidays of the year. Demonstrators were on the streets of several major Russian cities, demanding their long-overdue wages. Backed by an ever-strengthening Communist Party and dissatisfied with the so-called liberal political and economic establishment, the people called for more social equality. On the same day, 'Vremya', …
Hobbes and Locke at odds in Putin's Russia
(2003). Hobbes and Locke at odds in Putin's Russia. Europe-Asia Studies: Vol. 55, No. 7, pp. 981-1007
Old”, “New” and “Post” Liberal Attitudes Toward the West: From Love to Hate
In the last few years, significant changes in the attitudes toward the West have occurred in Russia. While “old” Russian liberals, like Egor Gaidar, treated the West as a Russian ally, the “new” liberals, such as Boris Nemtsov, perceived the West as a rival approaching, in this respect, Russian communists and nationalists who see in the West an eternal enemy. The author describes this change using various information from the Russian media and su…
Public and Private Life of the Soviet People: Changing Values in Post-Stalin Russia
A Review: The 1993 Russian Election Polls
Journal Article THE POLLS—A REVIEW: THE 1993 RUSSIAN ELECTION POLLS Get access VLADIMIR SHLAPENTOKH VLADIMIR SHLAPENTOKH VLADIMIR SHLAPENTOKH is professor of sociology at Michigan State University. The author thanks Chris Sprecher for editing and comments: Elena Petrenko, executive director of the Public Opinion Foundation in Moscow, for providing information; and the Poll Review editors for important suggestions. Search for other works by this a…
Soviet Intellectuals and Political Power: The Post-Stalin Era
In this unprecedented work on the status and role of intellectuals in Soviet political life, a former Soviet sociologist maps out the delicate, often paradoxical, ties between the political regime and the creative thinkers who play a major part in the movement toward modernization. Beginning with Stalin, Vladimir Shlapentokh explores the mutual need and antagonism that have existed between political leaders and intellectuals. What emerges is a fa…
Two Levels of Public Opinion: The Soviet Case
The distinction between the pragmatic and mythological levels in public opinion is advanced: whereas the pragmatic level reflects values and images which directly govern human "material behavior," the mythological level serves mostly verbal behavior and enables people to demonstrate collaboration with their social milieu and to maintain self-respect. Sociological surveys, especially in the Soviet Union, often deal with the mythological level. The…
Perceptions of foreign threats to the regime: From Lenin to Putin
During his second term, Putin’s foreign policy was strongly influenced by the belief that the West’s hostility could help the opposition change the current regime, as the West had done in Ukraine and Georgia. A regime change would deprive the ruling elite, mostly people from the security police and army, of their power and illegally acquired wealth. Moscow restored, in early 2000, the ideology of Russia’s “encirclement” from the 1920s, which sugg…
China in the Russian mind today: Ambivalence and defeatism
This article describes the ambivalence of Russian attitudes toward China at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Russians of all strata combine a willingness to see China as a friendly neighbour with a high level of fear of the giant that could swallow much of the country whole, especially the Asian part. The article pays special attention to the split in Russian views of China among elites. While some elites, who have strong anti-American …
The Soviet Family in the Period of the Decay of Socialism
Corruption, the power of state and big business in Soviet and post-Soviet regimes
The growth of corruption after 1991 was probably unavoidable. The privatization of the state economy created favorable conditions for corruption, which did not exist before. The feudalization of a society, with its weakening of the state and the high autonomy of its office holders, was another major factor behind the outburst of corruption. However, while these “objective” factors account for a great part of corruption’s growth, the transformatio…
The Stakhanovite Movement: Changing Perceptions over Fifty Years
Russia's demographic decline and the public reaction
RUSSIANS HAVE BEEN HOTLY DEBATING whether to take the position of optimist or pessimist in regard to the privatisation of the 1990s, the country's future geopolitical status, relations with China and the Muslim World, as well as its economy, culture and science. There is, however, one issue upon which no one disagrees; Consensus is found when Russians assess the seriousness of their country's demographic problems. No one denies the crisis. Russia…
No one needs public opinion data in post communist Russia
Research Article| December 01 1999 No one needs public opinion data in post communist Russia Vladimir Shlapentokh Vladimir Shlapentokh * Michigan State University, Department of Sociology, 316 Berkey Hall, East Lansing, MI 48824-1111, USA * Tel.: +1-517-355-3349; fax: +1-517-432-2856. E-mail address:[email protected] (V. Shlapentokh) Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar * Tel.: +1-517-355-3349; fax: +1-51…
Russian patience: A Reasonable Behavior and a Social Strategy
In 1992-1994 the Russian people met with a drop in their standard of living and suffered from a rapid deterioration of public services. Yet their dissatisfaction did not manifest itself in collective protest actions. Their patience can be explained as a consequence of their desire for order, their pessimism, their capacity to adapt to difficult situations and, above all, by their evaluation of virtual outcomes. Convinced that protests would not l…
Soviet Intellectuals and Political Power
The XXVII congress—a case study of the shaping of a new party ideology
(1988). The XXVII congress—a case study of the shaping of a new party ideology. Soviet Studies: Vol. 40, No. 1, pp. 1-20
Putin’s first year in office: The new regime’s uniqueness in Russian history
The author analyzes Putin’s first year in office by comparing it to the last fifteen regimes in Russian history. Putin shares many common features with the leaders of the past. He belongs to the group of leaders who were not so concerned about the progress of society as in removing the threat to the existing political order. He is also among those who moved toward authoritarianism in their first year. As all new regimes in the 20th centuries, Put…
The Balkan War, the Rise of Anti-Americanism and the Future of Democracy in Russia
Journal Article THE BALKAN WAR, THE RISE OF ANTI-AMERICANISM AND THE FUTURE OF DEMOCRACY IN RUSSIA Get access Vladimir Shlapentokh Vladimir Shlapentokh Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Journal of Public Opinion Research, Volume 11, Issue 3, FALL 1999, Pages 275–288, https://doi.org/10.1093/ijpor/11.3.275 Published: 01 October 1999
Will Russia pass the democratic test in 2000
A calm, honest, undisputed election in Russia should not be excluded as a potential scenario in the future, but in 2000 the chances for smooth transition and honest elections are slim. Corrupt officials and “businesspeople” will not hesitate to trample on democratic values to win
Russia: Privatization and illegalization of social and political life
The Changeable Soviet Image of America
Perceptions of America in Soviet society are very changeable under the influence of domestic political developments, even if cultural traditions exert significant influence on them. In the 1970s, the image of the United States in the Soviet Union was strongly influenced by Russophile ideology, which held the upper hand over liberal ideology and which coalesced with the official ideology in its attitudes toward the United States. Unlike the previo…
Reply to Rabinovich and McGregor
Journal Article Reply to Rabinovich and McGregor Get access STAN A. KAPLOWITZ, STAN A. KAPLOWITZ Michigan State University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar VLADIMIR SHLAPENTOKH VLADIMIR SHLAPENTOKH Michigan State University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Public Opinion Quarterly, Volume 46, Issue 2, SUMMER 1982, Pages 285–287, https://doi.org/10.1086/268720 Publishe…
Possible Falsification of Survey Data: An Analysis of a Mail Survey in the Soviet Union
Analysis of data from a mall survey in the Soviet Union, carried out by the agency responsible for the distribution of America Illustrated, strongly suggests that the data were falsified. Information about Soviet society (including the results of a number of other surveys of the Soviet population) and probability theory were used to generate a set of expected results for this survey. The actual results differed dramatically from the expected—the …
The Study of Values as a Social Phenomenon: The Soviet Case
Professionalization of Soviet Society
Two Levels of Public Opinion: The Soviet Case
The distinction between the pragmatic and mythological levels in public opinion is advanced: whereas the pragmatic level reflects values and images which directly govern human "material behavior," the mythological level serves mostly verbal behavior and enables people to demonstrate collaboration with their social milieu and to maintain self-respect. Sociological surveys, especially in the Soviet Union, often deal with the mythological level. The…
Kinship and Marriage in the Soviet Union: Field Studies
Soviet Sisterhood
The Future Study of Public Opinion: A Symposium
Technocratic Socialism: The Soviet Union in the Advanced Industrial Era
Evolution in the Soviet Sociology of Work: From Ideology to Pragmatism
Soviet sociology reemerged during the late 1950s after a long hiatus under Stalin. Since that point, the sociology of work in the USSR had gone through a number of different periods characterized by the dominance of different theoretical and ideological orientations. Charged by the leadership with the task of uncovering the mechanisms by which workers could be made more productive and efficient, sociologists were forced gradually to move away fro…
The XXVII congress—a case study of the shaping of a new party ideology
(1988). The XXVII congress—a case study of the shaping of a new party ideology. Soviet Studies: Vol. 40, No. 1, pp. 1-20
The Stakhanovite Movement: Changing Perceptions over Fifty Years
The Changeable Soviet Image of America
Perceptions of America in Soviet society are very changeable under the influence of domestic political developments, even if cultural traditions exert significant influence on them. In the 1970s, the image of the United States in the Soviet Union was strongly influenced by Russophile ideology, which held the upper hand over liberal ideology and which coalesced with the official ideology in its attitudes toward the United States. Unlike the previo…
Workers' Involvement in the Soviet Union: From Lenin to Gorbachev
This article discusses the evolution of Soviet attitudes toward workers' participation. The major emphasis is on developments of the last two decades, especially the most recent period. I suggest that Brezhnev was the first Soviet leader to raise the issue of workers' participation-at, however, only a mythological level. Mikhail Gorbachev, however, includes workers' participation as a genuine element in his program for workplace reform in the Sov…
Soviet Sociology, Past and Present
Public and Private Life of the Soviet People: Changing Values in Post-Stalin Russia
Soviet Intellectuals and Political Power: The Post-Stalin Era
In this unprecedented work on the status and role of intellectuals in Soviet political life, a former Soviet sociologist maps out the delicate, often paradoxical, ties between the political regime and the creative thinkers who play a major part in the movement toward modernization. Beginning with Stalin, Vladimir Shlapentokh explores the mutual need and antagonism that have existed between political leaders and intellectuals. What emerges is a fa…
Alexander II and Mikhail Gorbachev— Two Reformers in Historical Perspective
Public opinion in Gorbachev's USSR: Consensus and polarization
State and Society in Soviet Thought
Public and Private Life of the Soviet People: Changing Values in Post-Stalin Russia
Soviet Ideologies in the Period of Glasnost: Responses to Brezhnev's Stagnation
Public and Private Life of the Soviet People: Changing Values in Post-Stalin Russia
Soviet Intellectuals and Political Power
The Soviet Family in the Period of the Decay of Socialism
Political science (77 works) · Law (61 works) · Sociology (52 works) · Politics (51 works) · Law (44 works) · Political economy (36 works) · Economics (30 works) · History (29 works) · Russia and Soviet political economy (24 works) · Economic history (23 works)