Cook and Dimitrov Flashcards
How do they use the social contract within their argument?
They use it in their thesis to try and understand the stability of oppressive regimes especially under communist regime the violence across the socialist bloc decreased yet these regimes continued to be stable. why? because of the social construct constructed between state providing benefits like educ housing employment and the citizens remain passive
soviet union
Soviet regime provided a set of policy goods and allocational outcomes, including full and secure employment, stable
and subsidised consumer prices, socialised health and education services, and egalitarian wage and income policies.
constraints on both parties
In sum, Soviet leaders responded to popular protests as politically urgent, heeded them as critical policy feedback, and punished them as leadership failures.
needed information about attitudes and preferences in their societies to prevent future upheavals that might lead to their dismissal from office.3 Getting
the necessary information imposed two conditions: avoiding repression, which would cut off the flow of reliable information, and responding to the societal aspirations and grievances
china
the social contract plays a central role in the
maintenance of single-party communist regimes, regardless of the economic model they adopt.
as China was moving from a socialist to a market social contract, the scope of the contract initially shrank but eventually expanded and reached levels that surpassed the
provision under Mao
in China has been expanding largely in response to pressure from the population expressed through citizen complaints and frequent protests.
post soviet russia
the relevance of the social contract in dominant
party authoritarian regimes
Putin regime has re-constructed a narrower, more strategic ‘market social contract’ that shapes and constrains key areas of contemporary social and labour policies. This market contract is far less comprehensive than the Soviet version
