The Limits of Reform. This item is unavailable.The Limits of Reform

The Limits of Reform examines the institutional, social, and cultural foundations of bureaucratic power and authority in Imperial Russia using the deeply rooted and wide ranging Ministry of Internal Affairs as example. The author develops the concept of “Ministerial Power” to explain the enduring and highly personalized mode of authority in Russian history. This analysis and concept have implications for understanding both Soviet and post-Soviet governmental institutions.

Daniel Orlovsky was born in Chicago and educated at Harvard (AB, AM, PH.D.). He studied Russian at the Defense Language Institute, Monterey, CA while in the US Marine Corps. At Southern Methodist University since 1976, he served as Department Chair, (1986 – 97) and Director of the SMU in Oxford summer school at University College, Oxford (1994 – present). He has been Visiting Professor of History at UC Berkeley, Stanford, and the University of Texas at Austin and continues to make frequent research trips to Russia and Helsinki, Finland. His research interests include the Russian Provisional Government, bureaucracy, the role of white-collar workers/lower middle strata in Russian and Soviet history, and the intersection of institutions, society and politics across the divide of the Russian Revolution. His most recent book is A Companion to the Russian Revolution.