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This article lays out a methodology for studying the nature of communist legacies and their impact on current political behavior and attitudes. It identifies four possible linkages between the communist past and the present: early socialization, socio-demographic landscapes, and political and economic institutions., Explaining Post-Communist Differences In the world outside of the post-communist countries of Central and .Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, younger, more educated, and more democratically inclined citizens tend [...]

HENRY STOBART. Music and the Poetics of Production in the Bolivian Andes. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006. 336 pp. Near the beginning of Henry Stobart's book Music and the Poetics of Production [...]

MENDOZA, ZOILA S. 2008. Creating Our Own: Folklore, Performance, and Identity in Cuzco, Peru. Durham: Duke University Press, 234 pp. Reading Zoila Mendoza's pithy study of folkloric performance in early [...]

We consider the question of whether Russia's greatly weakened political parties might continue to exert an influence on public opinion in twenty-first century Russia. To do so, we carried out a series of survey-based experiments in Moscow in the spring of 2006. We present evidence showing that partisan cues increase support for public policy proposals and make it more likely that respondents will adopt a position on an issue that mirrors their party's preferred position ('opinion taking'), as well as increase the likelihood that respondents will adopt a position on a given issue at all ('opinion giving'). We also present evidence that party cues can sway the opinions of nonpartisans, though such influence may be limited to cases when the position of a party constitutes an unusually informative or credible signal. The findings should be of interest to those concerned with Russia's post-communist political development, those interested more broadly in the effects of partisan cues on political behavior, as well as to scholars trying to characterize the nature of 'competitive authoritarian' regimes. Consideramos la cuestion de si partidos politicos fuertemente debilitados, como es el caso de los partidos rusos, podrian continuar influyendo la opinion publica en la Rusia del siglo XXI. Para responder esto llevamos a cabo una serie de investigaciones basadas en encuestas realizadas en Moscu en la primavera de 2006. Presentamos evidencia que demuestra que las pautas partidistas incrementan el apoyo del publico a sus propuestas de politicas y hacen mas probable que un encuestado conozca la preferencia del partido e incluso la llegue a asumir como suya ('tomando opinion'), asi como que incremente la posibilidad de que ellos adopten una determinada posicion sobre un determinado topico ('dando opinion'). Tambien presentamos evidencia que las pautas del partido pueden producir cambios de opinion, aunque dicha influencia puede estar limitada a casos donde la posicion del partido constituye una senal inusualmente informativa o creible. Los resultados seran de interes para aquellos preocupados por el desarrollo politico de Rusia post-comunista, aquellos interesados mas ampliamente en los efectos de las pautas partidistas en el comportamiento politico, asi como para los academicos que buscan precisar las caracteristicas de los regimenes 'autoritarios competitivos.', The twentieth anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall presents a good impetus to consider some of the overarching themes of the post-communist experience. Undoubtedly, one of the most [...]

GEOFFREY BAKER. Imposing Harmony: Music and Society in Colonial Cuzco. Durham: Duke University Press, 2008. 308 pp. Geoffrey Baker's Imposing Harmony: Music and Society in Colonial Cuzco is an outstanding [...]

Increasing levels of political animosity in the United States invite speculation about whether polarization extends to aspects of daily life. However, empirical study about the relationship between political ideologies and lifestyle choices is limited by a lack of comprehensive data. In this research, we combine survey and Facebook Page "likes" data from more than 1,200 respondents to investigate the extent of polarization in lifestyle domains. Our results indicate that polarization is present in page categories that are somewhat related to politics – such as opinion leaders, partisan news sources, and topics related to identity and religion – but, perhaps surprisingly, it is mostly not evident in other domains, including sports, food, and music. On the individual level, we find that people who are higher in political news interest and have stronger ideological predispositions have a greater tendency to "like" ideologically homogeneous pages across categories. Our evidence, drawn from rare digital trace data covering more than 5,000 pages, adds nuance to the narrative of widespread polarization across lifestyle sectors and it suggests domains in which cross-cutting preferences are still observed in American life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Newly competitive party systems provide an opportunity to observe individuals as they first acquire partisan orientations. The development of partisanship shortly after the advent of multiparty competition in Russia is investigated. Expectations from existing scholarship are grouped into potential 'pathways' to partisanship: political motivation and ability, voting experience, exposure to politics, civic motivations, group pressures, and immersion in social networks. The contributions of these pathways to partisan stability, consistency, and self-identification are assessed. This study examines the origins of party identification in democracies and helps to clarify a discrepancy between theories of partisanship as a crutch for the unaware and evidence that partisans are more sophisticated than their fellow citizens.

HEIDI CAROLYN FELDMAN. Black Rhythms of Peru: Reviving African Musical Heritage in the Black Pacific. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2006. 306 pp. $50.00. ISBN: 0819568147/978-0819568151 (paper). Afro-Peruvian music has [...]

A study on the public opinions in Russians on economic reforms occurring across the globe is presented. The study focuses on people who do not respond to such surveys or offer no opinions.

Abstract: What could be motivating voters in transition countries to vote for leaders who have proven themselves to be skilled at violating human rights, repressing civil liberties, and ruling without [...]

An American political scientist employs regional electoral, economic, and demographic data across several transition countries--Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, Czech Republic, and Russia--to examine the effects of economic conditions on the electoral fortunes of thirty-two incumbent political parties in ten parliamentary elections. 'Primary Incumbents' and 'Other Incumbents' are distinguished in order to analyze how the 'Degree of Incumbency' affects the relationship between economic conditions and election results for these two different types of incumbents in post-communist countries. The article points to new questions and methods for examining multiparty elections as well as for the relationship between economic conditions and voting outcomes.