Weapons, culture, and self-interest

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 industrialists 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.