Chandler A. Institutions of Isolation: Border Controls in the Soviet Union and Its Successor States, 1917-1993

Montreal&Kingston, London, Buffalo: McGill-Queen's University Press. 1998. — 205 p. — ISBN: 0773517170, 9780773517172.Chandler provides a comprehensive examination of border controls from the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 to the collapse of the U.S.S.R. in 1991 and shows the continued importance of border controls for the newly independent Soviet successor states. She reveals the changing nature of Soviet border control policy, from the extreme Stalinist isolation of the 1930s to liberalization - and eventual instability - during perestroika in the late 1980s. Chandler argues that Communist ideology was not the only reason for the self-imposed isolation of the state and explores a complex, ever-changing set of political, inter-bureaucratic, and economic factors that combined to influence the Soviet Union's closed-border policies. She draws on social science theories of comparative institutional change and state formation to illuminate policies within the Soviet state, which has often been regarded as a unique case. By exploring why a political system that originally prided itself on its internationalism devoted such intense efforts to seal its society from the outside world, Institutions of Isolation provides a revealing case study of the strengths and weaknesses of the Soviet state.The Paradox of Socialist Isolation: Ideology and Territory in the Construction of Soviet Border
Controls
States, Regimes, and Border Controls: The Link between Communism and Isolation
Borderland Sovereignty Struggles and the Creation of the Soviet State, 1917-1922
The Politics of Autarky: Soviet Customs Institutions and the Post-revolutionary Economy in the 1920s
Border Control and Centre-Periphery Relations in the Soviet Union, 1921-1941
State-Sponsored Isolation and Institutional Politics
The Reconstruction and Maintenance of Border Controls, 1941-1985
Perestroika and the Iron Curtain: The Dilemmas of Changing Institutions, 1986-1991
Ending Isolation: Border Control in the Soviet Successor States