Book reviews

Karl‐Eugen Wädekin, Sozialistische Agrarpolitik in Osteuropa. II. Entwicklung und Probleme. 1960–1976. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1978. 338 pp. DM62.

Peter Vanneman, The Supreme Soviet: Politics and the Legislative Process in the Soviet Political System. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1977. xii + 256 pp. $11.75.

I. S. Koropeckyj (ed.). The Ukraine within the USSR: An Economic Balance Sheet. New York: Praeger Publishers, and London: Martin Robertson, 1977. xxi +316 pp. £14.85.

Dorothy Atkinson, Alexander Dallin, Gail Warshofsky Lapidus (eds.), Women in Russia. Hassocks, Sussex: Harvester Press, 1978. viii+410 pp. £11.50.

J. Wilczynski, Comparative Monetary Economics. London: Macmillan, 1978. x + 270 pp. £12.00.

David Turnock, Eastern Europe Studies in Industrial Geography. Kent: Dawson Publishing/Westview Press, 1978. xi+273 pp. £9.50.

Edward Allworth (ed.), Nationality Group Survival in Multi‐Ethnic States: Shifting Support Patterns in the Soviet Baltic Region. New York: Praeger Publishers, and London: Martin Robertson, 1977. xiv + 299 pp. £14.40.

Robert Conquest, Kolyma—the Arctic Death Camps. London: Macmillan, 1978. 256 pp. £6.95.

Vladimir G. Treml (ed.), Studies in Soviet Input‐Output Analysis. New York: Praeger Publishers, and London: Martin Robertson, 1977. xx + 448 pp.

Richard Hennessy, The Agrarian Question in Russia 1905–1907. The Inception of the Stolypin Reform. (Marburger Abhandlungen zur Geschichte und Kultur Osteuropas, Band 16.) Giessen: Wilhelm Schmitz Verlag, 1977. 203 pp.     

Guest editors’ introduction: Active citizenship and social accountability

By active citizenship, we [Oxfam] mean that combination of rights and obligations that link individuals to the state, including paying taxes, obeying laws, and exercising the full range of political, civil, and social rights. Active citizens use those rights to improve the quality of political or civic life, through involvement in the formal economy or formal politics, or through the sort of collective action that historically has allowed poor and excluded groups to make their voices heard. [… .]

At an individual level, active citizenship means developing self-confidence and overcoming the insidious way in which the condition of being relatively powerless can become internalised. In relation to other people, it means developing the ability to negotiate and influence decisions. And when empowered individuals work together, it means involvement in collective action, be it at the neighbourhood level, or more broadly. Ultimately, active citizenship means engaging with the political system to build an effective state, and assuming some degree of responsibility for the public domain.

(Green 2008 Green, D. 2008. From Poverty to Power: How Active Citizens and Effective States can Change the World, Oxford: Oxfam International.  [Google Scholar]: 12, 19)     

Independence or Union: Scotland's Past and Scotland's Present

Independence or Union: Scotland's Past and Scotland's Present. By T.M. Devine (London: Allen Lane, 2016), pp. xiii + 306. £20.00 (cloth).