Shocking Mother Russia ― Democratization, Social Rights, And Pension Reform In Russia, 1990-2001

The "shock therapy" economic liberalization instituted by Russian President Boris Yeltsin rapidly brought crisis to vast swathes of Russia's population while enriching a small few. Focusing on the politics of pension reform, Chandler (political science, Carleton U., Canada) investigates how the "shock therapy" played out politically. After describing the institutional development of the pension system from the Soviet era through the 1990s, she locates the failure of pension reform efforts in a dysfunctional relationship between the executive and legislative branches of government and poorly defined relationships between the center and subfederal levels of Russian government, among other factors. Annotation c2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Andrea Chandler is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at Carleton University.