From Garrison State to Nation-State: Political Power and the Russian Military under Gorbachev and Yeltsin by John P. s> Moran (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 979 features in Russia's regional politics, and Pavel Baev's chapter on military aspects of regionalism. Crucially, the former (p. ii o) points to the difficulties of creatinga trulynationalpartysystem,and by implicationuniversalnational policies within an environmentthat is conducive to the politics of regionalism. Forhis part, Baev neatly untangles the web of relationshipsthat exists within the armed forces and the competing demands made upon and by what he labels an 'imperial presidency'. In so doing he throws light upon the dysfunctionaldecision-makingprocessesthatled to the two Chechen wars. Partthree consistsof a seriesof case studies.Worthyof specialattention are Stanislav Tkachenko's contribution on Saint Petersburg,and Steven Main's piece on Kaliningrad. Tkachenko points to the historic uniqueness of Saint Petersburgas a city that has long seen itself as a firmly'Western'outpost and how in post-Soviet Russia this orientation has facilitated the growth of a particularly vibrant, albeit sometimes opaque, style of governance. In his contributionon Kaliningrad,Main sparesthe readersensationalisticaccounts of the city and wider oblastas a hotbed of criminality and instead sensibly focuses upon the various strategies that have been employed to utilize the exclave'sposition to the benefit of the region and itsinhabitants.In turn, Oleg Alexandrov'scontributionon Moscow neatlyjuxtaposes the seeming paradox that in termsof governance, the city is both centre and periphery.His analysis of Iurii Luzhkov's stormy relationship with the Kremlin is particularly illuminating.As for the remainingcontributionsto thissection, they all have a great deal of merit. Having said that, it could be argued that Michael Bradshaw's contribution on Sakhalin dwells too much on various plans to exploit the potential wealth of the oblastat the expense of analysis of its relationswith Moscow and other regionalactors. The volume is rounded-offwith a conclusion by the editorswho present a reasonably optimistic assessment of the future, although to my mind the relevance to the volume of their excursion into Russia in the wake of the attacksof i i September 200I is not fully explained. It is perhaps also a pity that the book did not appear a little earlier than it did. Most of the contributions appear to have been written in 200I. Putin's is very much a workin progressand as a resulteventshave overtakenelementsof the analysis. Puttingthese minor caveats to one side, this is a workwell worth reading, and one that will appeal to those with an interestboth in Russian politics and the studyof federalism. School ofSociology, PoliticsandLaw KARL CORDELL University ofPlymouth Moran,John P. FromGarrison StatetoNation-State: PoliticalPower andtheRussian Militaryunder Gorbachev andreltsin.Praeger, Westport, CT, and London, 2002. X+ 236 pp. Tables. Notes. Bibliography.Index. ?54.50. ACCORDING to John P. Moran, the fact that Russia has not experienced a militarycoup is a mystery.So, forthat matter,is his book. FromGarrison Stateto Nation-State deals with civil-militaryrelations during that highly troublesome 980 SEER, 82, 4, 2004 period in Russian history:the perestroikayears and the firstdecade of postSoviet rule. Moran seeks to explain why the Russian military has not attempted to seize power during the firstdecade of post-Communist Russia. This he mainlyputsdown to the factionalismof the militarythat resultedfrom the 'divide-and-rule' tactics applied by both Gorbachev and El'tsin in their effortsto exert civiliancontrol over the armedforces. Moran's workconsistsof a theoreticalintroduction,four empiricalsections and a concluding chapter. Despite the promise in the introductory chapter heading to provide an 'understandingof democratization and civil-military relations in communist and post-communist Russia', the chapter itself is largely limited to a somewhat disjointedreview of existing literatureon civilmilitaryrelations ,with a predominantfocus on Samuel Huntington's concept of professionalism. Unfortunately, the role of democratization remains unexplored and, crucially, Moran fails to indicate the significance of the concepts of the 'garrisonstate' and 'nation-state'alluded to in the title of the book. These remainwithout definitionthroughoutthe entirevolume. Moran's choice of analytical framework is a slightly revised version of Timothy Colton's two-dimensionalmodel formeasuringmilitaryinvolvement and intervention in politics, which was generated for the study of the Soviet militaryin I979. Moran distinguishesfive types of activitiesin which military officers engage, ranging from 'preparatoryactivities' as the least aggressive form of exercising power, to 'violent activities'as the most aggressiveform of military intervention. These types of activities in turn are...