Russia Flashcards
A Just Russia:
-A small party in the Russian Duma with a social-democratic standing; came up with 13% of the vote in 2011, quickly resumed loyalty to the Kremlin
asymmetric federalism:
-power is divided unevenly between regional bodies, allows power to be concentrated in Moscow
Caucas:
-SW Russia, near Black Sea, diverse mixture of non-Slavic people
Chechnya:
-Russian republic that has been a source of military conflict since 1991
Cheka:
-Soviet secret police created by Lenin
-precursor to the KGB
Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS):
-loosely integrated body including many former Soviet republics
Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF):
-successor party to the Soviet communist party
Constitutional Court:
-highest judicial body
-both powers of abstract and concrete review
Duma:
-lower house of Russian legislature
-serves as rubber stamp to executive branch
Eurasian Economic Union (EAU):
-economic and political union between many former soviet states
Federal Security Service (FSB):
-Russian intelligence agency
-successor to the KGB
glastnost:
- “openess”
-the policy of political liberalization implemented in the Soviet Union in the late 1980’s
insider privatization:
-a process whereby former nomenklatura directors of firms were able to acquire the largest number of shares when the firms were privatized
KGB:
-soviet secret police agency charged with domestic and foreign intelligence
Mikhail Khodorkovsky:
-oligarch arrested and imprisoned for his opposition to the Putin administration