Routledge Constitutional Bargaining in Russia, 1990-93: Institutions and Uncertainty (BASEES/Routledge Series on Russian and East European Studies)

The years 1990-93 were a critical moment in Russia’s political development. This book provides a systematic explanation of outcomes of constitutional bargaining processes in Russia, which radically reshaped the institutions of the Russian state: removing Russia from constitutional subordination to the Soviet Union in 1990; creating a presidency and a constitutional court in 1991; and restructuring the relationship between the central state and its component federal units with the passage of three Federal Treaties in 1992. The book explores the reasons for these outcomes and identifies why there were consistent delays to the passage of a new Russian constitution as well as why negotiations eventually broke down. The book assesses the plausibility of different theoretical approaches to constitutional choice and argues that the role of uncertainty (and politician's strategic responses to uncertainty) in shaping constitutional outcomes has been under-explored by rational choices approaches to constitutional bargaining. Using a rich set of source materials - including roll call votes, parliamentary records, unpublished parliamentary and constitution commission documents, Russian newspapers - the book provides a detailed study of Russian politician's decision making about constitutional choices. It is a valuable resource to those interested in Russia and post-communist politics, the origins of political institutions, comparative government, democratisation and development studies. Review "This is an excellent, highly detailed account of one of the major themes of the first years of independent Russia, and one which did much to structure the course of subsequent Russian politics. Anyone interested in the course of Russian politics over this period would find this book of considerable interest." - Graeme Gill, The University of Sydney, Australia; The Soviet and Post-Soviet Review 38 (2011) "Meticulous in basing his exploration of the factors impacting the main players in Russia’s constitutional negotiations on evidence rather than conjecture, Edward Morgan-Jones has crafted a carefully-argued monograph... [his] arguments are clear and well formulated, and allow a reader coming from a discipline other than political science to follow the reasoning. He summarizes alternate explanations precisely and eschews unnecessary jargon." - Jane Henderson, School of Law, King’s College London; Slavonic and East European Review (vol. 89, no. 4, October 2011) About the Author Edward Morgan-Jones is Lecturer in Comparative Politics at the University of Kent, UK.