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Much has been written to explain the collapse of the former Soviet Union. Little attention, however, has been paid to understanding why post-1991 Russia has maintained stability despite continued economic and political turmoil throughout the 1990s. This paper attempts to answer this question by applying an integrated model of territorial disintegration to examine the political, economic, demographic, and geopolitical changes in the pre-1991 Soviet Union and post-1991 Russia. The integrated model is constructed by synthesizing Goldstone’s demographic-structural model, Skocpol’s and Collins’ geopolitical model, and a modified version of Collins’ argument of the destabilizing potential brought about by rapid market development as three alternative routes to territorial disintegration. It is found that improvement in Russia’s geopolitical condition after 1991 is largely responsible for the decline in disintegrative potential. Slower population growth also rendered the demographic route less disintegrative during the 1990s. More effective taxation and the availability of foreign loans enabled the Russian state to handle its financial crises, thereby curbing the development of destabilizing forces through the dynamics proposed by Collins. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the extent to which the structure of Russian organizations is similar to that observed among organizations in the West. Data had been obtained in 1995 from a sample of organizations in the greater Moscow area by means of a structured interview schedule administered to the chief executive officer within each organization. The interview schedule contained measures developed by the Aston Group which have been used widely in previous research. The structure of Russian organizations was evaluated in terms of a causal model based upon consistent findings of previous research in this area. The results suggest that the structure of Russian organizations differs in important ways from the type of structure observed in most Western organizations. The major differences are that size, specialization and formalization are positively associated with centralization in Russian organizations. It has been suggested that the historical tradition of centralized rule in Russia and the criminal environment of current Russian organizations are, in part, responsible for this difference.