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Traumatized Political Cultures: The After Effects of Totalitarianism in China and Russia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 November 2000

Lucian W. Pye
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology E53-365, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA

Abstract

Developments in both China and Russia are a challenge to political science, and more particularly to theories of political culture. Both countries are engaged in profound processes of transition involving the abandonment of totalitarianism and the adoption of market-based economies. It is, however, far from clear what form their political systems will eventually take. They are currently following strikingly different paths. Are the differences a reflection of their distinctive cultures? Or, are the differences more structural, a manifestation of their respective stages of economic and social development? Or, are they merely the consequences of the idiosyncratic choices and policy decisions of the two leaderships?

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 2000 Cambridge University Press

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