‘This book is not only an important contribution to post-communist studies. It is also a deliberate attempt to chart a novel theoretical position that challenges current orthodoxies from the perspective of a scholarly tradition whose growth seems to have reached a new threshold of relevance.’ Paul Dragos Aligica, Perspectives on Politics
‘Why do different countries make different choices when it comes to international economic institutions? Darden sees the post-Soviet states as an ideal test case, because they began with similar characteristics and histories but nonetheless chose differently … International relations theorists will find the effort a genuine contribution to a key debate. General readers will benefit from what is the most thorough review available of the economic foreign policies of nearly all 15 former Soviet republics during the 1990s.’ Robert Levgold, Foreign Affairs
‘Drawing on the natural experiment that was the collapse of the USSR, this superb analysis of distinct economic trajectories among the former Soviet republics demonstrates that economic ideas led policymakers to adopt divergent policies regarding membership in international institutions. Darden’s meticulously researched and incisively argued account transforms our understanding of post-communist policymaking, and of the causal role of ideas in institutional choice.’ Anna Grzymala-Busse, University of Michigan
‘Will the post-Soviet states join the global economy, reintegrate with Russia, or go it alone? At a time when Russia is attempting to reshape its ‘near abroad,’ Keith Darden has provided us a theoretically innovative and much-needed study of the foreign economic policies of countries about which we still know far too little.’ Jeffrey Kopstein, University of Toronto
‘The book has a clear and strong argument about the role of ideas in economic policymaking. The author traces how elites in the states to emerge from the collapse of the Soviet Union adopt different ideas and then make choices about how to interact with international institutions based on these ideas. The simultaneous creation of 15 states is a near perfect test of this kind of theory. This book fits into a much needed and growing literature on the role of actors and ideas as important independent variables in explaining political, social, and economic outcomes of any sort. It is particularly good at stressing the role of contingency in producing outcomes. This book could become a major text in shaping this academic debate and in teaching this kind of argument.’ Michael McFaul, Stanford University
About the Author
Keith A. Darden is Associate Professor of Political Science, Director of the Yale Central Asia Initiative, and recipient of the Lex Hixon ’63 Prize for Teaching Excellence in the Social Sciences at Yale University. His extensive field work has carried him to Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic states, the states of Central Asia and the Caucasus, as well as Greece, Germany and other more comfortable locales. After receiving his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, and prior to taking his appointment at Yale, Professor Darden was an Academy Scholar at Harvard University and a visiting fellow at the Davis Center for Russian Studies. Professor Darden’s work has been published in World Politics, Politics and Society, the Journal of Common Market Studies, and other journals.
Wow! eBook
