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by Kimberly Marten Zisk
How do powerful people react to revolutionary circumstances? How quickly and effectively do elites adapt to, and shape, the structures of new social and political systems? Zisk offers a detailed examination of the unexpected ways Russian defense industrials have acted in the new market economy. Bridging the gap between political economy and international security studies, Zisk plunges into the debate of whether rational self-interest or broader cultural norms explain behavior best, focusing on three institutions that structured the Russian defense managers' working life in the 1992-95 transition era: the large defense enterprises dating from Soviet times, the webs of political authority spanning both local and national levels, and the newly emerged, market-oriented spin-off firms.
"Wherever one looks today in the social sciences, it seems that rationalist and culturalist theories stand toe to toe as the main rivals. Zisk engages this debate through a beautifully designed study of the responses of post-Soviet defense industrial managers to the revolutionary changes of the economic system in they operate. Drawing on her painstaking field research, Zisk shows that much of the managers' adaptive behavior fits rationalist theories, but she also demonstrates how the pattern of socialization to distinctive cultural norms becomes part and parcel of the structure of incentives that rational managers face."
-- Jack Snyder, Columbia University
About the author.
Weapons, Culture, and Self-Interest: Soviet Defense Managers in the New Russia
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