About

John P. Willerton is a Professor of Political Science and an Affiliated Faculty member at the University of Arizona. He is associated with the College of Humanities and is based in the Social Sciences Building at the university. His professional role involves teaching and research within the Department of Russian and Slavic Studies, although specific research focus areas are not detailed on the page. His contact information includes an email address (jpw@arizona.edu) and a phone number (520-621-7341). The page indicates his involvement in academic and departmental activities, but does not provide further biographical details or descriptions of his research contributions.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Sociology
• Law
• Political economy
• Social psychology
• Psychology
• Pedagogy
• Mathematics education

Selected publications

• The presidency

  Routledge eBooks · 2022 · 1 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Political Science
  • Law

  Russia’s political system, with a strong emphasis on executive authority, is led by a powerful federal-level executive, the president, whose extensive formal powers and informal influences cumulate to a “hegemonic” position for the country’s head of state and chief executive. The continuing centrality to the country’s political and socioeconomic life of the president and the supporting presidential administration is a core feature of contemporary Russian reality. Russia’s “paramount leader,” President Vladimir Putin, has been the most important figure not only in fashioning Russia’s post-Soviet presidency and executive branch, but in setting the norms of Russia’s twenty-first century political system. Today, with more than two decades of experience behind them, President Vladimir Putin and his governing team are in a strong position to continue to govern – and for the foreseeable future. The Putin team has evolved with the times, with the changing needs of the polity, and with the aging realities of the personnel at the helm.

  PublisherDOI

• A Russian National Idea and the International System

  Journal of Political Research · 2021 · 2 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Sociology
  • Political Science

  Vladimir Putin and his governing team have operated out of a weltanschauung that offers a twenty first century Russian national idea that animates the Russian federal government’s post-1999 policy program. This article explores the Russian national idea, illuminating the syndrome of pillars that comprise it, and tying the national idea to the Putin government’s policy program. We apply an interdisciplinary case study approach, relying on a modified process tracing analysis, to identify the national idea and its direct relevance to policy making. The notion of a Russian national idea has long preoccupied Russian intellectuals and even officials, and we focus on Vladimir Putin’s thinking and the Putin team’s actions as a national idea emerged and drives policies. Putin’s Russian national idea is comprised of four pillars, the consolidated state, a functioning market economy, a re-established social welfare system, and Russia’s return as a Eurasian leader. We understand these four pillars as constituting a syndrome, signifying that these four pillars reinforce one another. In this article, we give attention to the fourth, international, pillar of the twenty first century national idea. We consider the Russian Federation’s return as a natural Eurasian leader, with a longer-term, historical notion of foreign policy honor that entails Russia’s continued long-term commitment to Eastern Slavs and Eastern Orthodoxy. We link the notion of national honor with a contemporary consideration of a so-called Russian civilization that is relevant to both domestic and foreign policy interests. We highlight various policies, domestic and foreign, that are inherently related to this Russian national idea, and while we acknowledge a complex array of policy successes and dilemmas, we posit an overall Russian Federation programmatic advance. The theoretical significance of our article rests with its exploration of a regime’s worldview and programmatic priorities in advancing policies intended to advance the society it governs. This article is guided by the judgment that the Russian national idea, as articulated by Putin and as applied in policies by the Putin team, merits our serious attention.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Fostering Student Sensitivity to Diversity and Inclusion in Today’s Classroom

  2020 · 1 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Sociology
  • Political Science
  • Psychology

  Engaging diversity and fostering inclusion – across various dimensions (nationality-ethnicity, age, sex, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and socioeconomic development, among others) – are critical to the teaching goals of the two co-presenters of this Inclusive Classroom Track proposal. The authors are comparativist political scientists who engage issues of diversity and inclusion in different -- yet interconnected-- ways. One of us uses an early-in-the-semester task, drawing upon personality types (Myers-Briggs Test Indicator) and a policy task (enhancing inclusion of Native Americans into the American societal mainstream), to sensitize his students to diversity at the most basic level. The other of us develops a collaborative classroom experience that spans students in the U.S. and Ukraine. Drawing on the "Global Classrooms" program, he is able to foster international interaction and collaboration in tackling group-level diversity and cross-national acceptance. Our combined efforts are intended to foster enhanced student sensitivity to diversity and inclusion.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Perestroika and the Public: Citizens' Views of the "Fruits" of Economic Reform

  2019-07-11

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  The process of perestroika reflected a country in economic duress, Glasnost enabled that duress to be widely acknowledged, with potential remedies being advanced from many quarters. In the pre-Gorbachev era, Western scholars possessed little information about Soviet citizens' assessments of the national economy and of their personal economic situations, but there were numerous signs of widespread and fundamental satisfaction. While nearly half the Russian respondents perceived a worsening of their personal economic situations, the counterpart figures were closer to three in ten for Ukrainians and Lithuanians. The Lithuanians' especially critical views of the government could hardly be considered surprising in light of the already exacerbated Moscow-Vilnius negotiations on Lithuanian independence. The greatest negativism was expressed by Russians and the least by Lithuanians, who were undoubtedly cheered by the prospect of their republic's imminent sovereignty. Though widespread, concern about personal finances paled in comparison to negativism about the state's economy.

  PublisherDOI

• Patronage Networks and Coalition Building in the Brezhnev Era

  2018-01-18 · 2 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Leadership change, at any level of political authority, brings with it the potential for policy change. This chapter about the all-union elite politics analyzes and examines the patronage networks and coalitions which flourished within the national political elite during the Brezhnev period. Politicians identified as 'proteges' of General Secretary Brezhnev are individuals who served with him and experienced mobility under him prior to his 1964 succession. The chapter encompasses a range of politicians who had worked with Brezhnev in the pre-1964 period, whose careers had flourished under Brezhnev, and who had the political influence to cultivate their own patronage factions. Brezhnev's institutional powers as General Secretary were extensive and conferred at least a primus inter pares role within the decision-making process. His powers as the head of a large patronage network, however, permitted him to expand his power base into a wider range of political institutions.

  PublisherDOI

• Russia, the CIS and Eurasian interconnections

  Manchester University Press eBooks · 2018-07-30 · 1 citations

  book-chapterOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Central to post-Soviet Eurasian security calculations and economic stabilisation efforts are Russia's power interests and efforts to reclaim a leadership role in the region. This chapter examines the fledgling organisational arrangements, under the aegis of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), which have been used to channel the transformation of the former Soviet Union (FSU) area and to re-establish a zone of linked FSU states. The desire of anti-Soviet Russian Republic officials to maintain Russia's sphere of influence and to limit full independence for the Soviet republics was communicated during 1990-1991, well before the August coup and subsequent appearance of the CIS. Geographical realities interconnect the security needs of the FSU states, but underlying infrastructural and resource linkages constantly complicate any CIS member's unilateral calculations and behaviour.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Searching for a Russian National Idea: Putin Team Efforts and Public Assessments

  Project Muse (Johns Hopkins University) · 2017-06-01 · 2 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  The crafting of a new national idea has been the most elusive of the four processes comprising Russia’s quadruple revolution in the wake of the failing state of the 1990s. However, the seven policy position papers of Vladimir Putin’s 2012 presidential campaign illuminate a Putin-contoured national idea of four primary components. Relying on the October 2014 ROMIR national survey results, augmented with results from other surveys, this article explores Russian public judgments that are connected with a new national idea. Russians are found to strongly support a key component of Putin’s national idea, the strong state, and their views accord with the hegemonic leadership position assumed by Putin. Russians view Putin’s strong state as a democracy, though their understanding of democracy and its key components varies from that of Westerners. Russians’ overall mixed assessments of key policy efforts by the governing team generally fit with Putin’s articulated preferences, but there are policy soft spots. Putin and his team confront a Russian public that is more supportive of their hegemonic political-institutional position and vision of a national idea than laudatory of the results of that team’s policy efforts.

  Publisher

• Gel′man, Vladimir Authoritarian Russia: Analyzing Post-Soviet Regime Changes (review)

  The Slavonic and East European Review · 2016-10-01

  article1st authorCorresponding

  SEER, 94, 4, October 2016 774 concerned with the nature of authoritarian regimes, but to all who take an interest in life in ‘Europe’s last dictatorship’. It may be warmly recommended. London Arnold McMillin Gel´man, Vladimir. Authoritarian Russia: Analyzing Post-Soviet Regime Changes. Pitt Series in Russian and East European Studies. University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, PA, 2015. xiv + 208 pp. Notes. Index. $25.95 (paperback). There are many observers of Russian politics whose thoughts merit our serious attention, but few observers have the intellectual prowess or practical on-thescene experience that Vladimir Gel´man brings to his assessment of Russian political realities. The informed student of Russia takes any work by Gel´man seriously, and he does not disappoint in this important and insightful book. This volume should be mandatory reading for all students of Russian politics. In a mere 154 pages of narrative text, Gel´man provides an analytical tour d’horizon of the El´tsin-Putin period polity and society. The author deals with politicians, institutions and policies, and he does so with confidence and persuasiveness. The volume is dense, yet the arguments are accessible. The discussion is thorough, yet amazingly this academic monograph at times proceeds as a page-turner in drawing the reader into a lively and engaging narrative. The reader may or may not agree with Gel´man’s overarching set of arguments and interpretations, but I found myself in general agreement and intellectually enriched. I was stimulated, motivated to revisit some of my own assumptions and interpretations, and even drawn to make some adjustments to my own intellectual compass in tackling the complex Russian polity. I expect many readers of this book will react similarly. This book offers all readers many riches, some that might be expected, but others that will be unexpected. What does Gel´man attempt and succeed in doing in this important monograph? In a nutshell, he explains how and why Russia did not become a democracy after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The book’s title reflects Gel´man’s ultimate judgment that Putin’s Russia moved to become an authoritarian system. Gel´man’s analysis is multifaceted, rich in detail and compelling as he builds his set of arguments. He persuasively illuminates the efforts of political elites to maximize their power, focusing on more than two decades of political struggle. Opening his narrative with recollections of his own personal encounters with Dmitri Medvedev and the Putin team, Gel´man makes it clear that authoritarianism was not the inevitable result of Russian political struggles in the 1990s and early 2000s. Russia’s political REVIEWS 775 development was a product of profound socioeconomic forces, chance, dilemmas of new institutional design and more conscious choices of elites. As Gel´man meticulously moves through the various stages of Russia’s evolution from 1992–2015, he compellingly shows how events and forces came together to shape an increasingly authoritarian reality. What Gel´man carefully evaluates, overall, is the developmental trajectory of the post-Soviet Russian state. The result is a strong presentation that constitutes a major contribution to our scholarship on Russian politics. A brief review permits only cursory attention to even the most central elements of post-Soviet Russian political history. Suffice it to make mention of the governing Putin team, which has dominated Russia for more than fifteen years, and which will continue to shape the polity for years to come. Gel´man makes clear that the first Putin presidency (2000–08) entailed two conditions, markedly absent in the preceding El´tsin period, that were central to Russia’s evolution to authoritarianism: 1) the country’s high economic growth; combined with 2) the Putin team’s ability to secure a monopoly over political power. Gel´man convincingly argues that the country’s improving economic condition was central to the Putin team’s ability to realize — and then maintain — a position of hegemonic political control. Gel´man is quite articulate in illuminating the Putin team’s ‘imposed consensus’ on the elite that relied on an effective use of both carrots and sticks. But if Gel´man details the effectiveness of the Putin team in taking hold of the political...

  PublisherDOI

• Russian Public Assessments of the Putin Policy Program: Achievements and Challenges

  Russian Politics · 2016-06-20 · 3 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Attention is given to Russian public assessments of President Vladimir Putin, important political actors of the Putin period, and major policy areas that are at the heart of the governing Putin team’s programmatic agenda (as of the second Putin presidency, 2012–18). The intention is (1) to assess the level of support for President Putin, key political actors comprising the Putin team, other governmental institutions and a leading rival, (2) to determine the level of congruence between the preferences of the Putin team and the Russian public regarding major policies intended to strengthen the Russian state and to modernize the Russian society, and (3) to evaluate Russian public assessments of the work of the Putin team in actually addressing these overriding goals. It is found that Russians’ positive assessment of Vladimir Putin, Russia’s paramount leader, is juxtaposed with more middling assessments of all other actors, excepting opposition figure Aleksei Navalny, who is poorly viewed. A strong congruence is found between the Putin team’s policy priorities and those of the Russian public, but public assessments of the Putin team’s performance across specific policies are mixed and reveal areas where that team has been both successful and come up short. Results of the October 2014 romir public opinion survey indicate that Putin and his team are well-positioned and that their overall policy performance is acceptable, but policy soft spots and points of concern are revealed: this suggests continuing challenges for the Putin team in delivering a program accommodating the preferences of an aware domestic public. It is argued that Putin’s position as a paramount leader redounds to his governing team’s advantage, but this position also represents a profound dilemma for the Russian political system.

  PublisherDOI

• Mistrust and hegemony: Regional institutional design, the FSU-CIS, and Russia

  International Area Studies Review · 2015-03-01 · 20 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Power inequalities and mistrust have characterized many relationships between states over the centuries. One approach that states can take to deal with these two, often interrelated, problems is to create intergovernmental institutions and arrangements designed to accommodate the interests of states with varied power capabilities. The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) embodies an interesting institutional design in an effort by former Soviet Union (FSU) countries to address these dilemmas. The CIS was not only the first multilateral FSU organization created following the collapse of the Soviet Union, but it also provided a necessary and important framework for the further construction of bilateral and multilateral relations among the former Soviet republics as they reengaged one another. CIS arrangements have been augmented by extensive bilateral negotiations and treaties and, brought together, these interconnected multilateral and bilateral instruments yield a system of cautious regional security governance and framework for international relations within the FSU. This paper analyzes three key features of this foundational CIS institutional design: (1) legalism, (2) an à la carte choice of treaty instruments, and (3) nested bilateralism, wherein many details of the regional, multilateral agreements are implemented via bilateral treaties (hence constituting a combination design feature). Empirically, the paper illuminates this institutional design using a unique dataset of all multilateral security treaties of the CIS (approximately 185) and all bilateral security treaties (more than 500) between the regional hegemon, Russia, and the smaller CIS members. We further investigate the causal mechanisms of the CIS institutional design as it copes with the conditions of hegemony and mistrust in two bilateral case studies, Russia–Armenia, and Russia–Ukraine (Black Sea Fleet status). We find the CIS institutional design, built upon by subsequent FSU regional organizations (including the Eurasian Economic Union and Shanghai Cooperation Organization), has permitted both more and less powerful states to advance their interrelated security interests in the face of considerable power asymmetry and mistrust. More than twenty years after the CIS’s formation, a patchwork of Eurasian regional organizations and numerous related bilateral treaties widen regional security and other arrangements. Meanwhile, the dramatic events surrounding the February 2014 Ukrainian coup and the joining of Crimea to the Russian Federation only reinforce the importance of understanding state treaty activity in channeling state action. Questions surround Russia respecting the 1992 treaty and protocol with Ukraine and the US on the removal of nuclear weapons from the territory of Ukraine and the joint recognition of Ukraine’s sovereign borders. But Russia’s spring 2014 actions involving Crimea and its Crimean bases accorded with the various treaties concluded with Ukraine in 1997; treaties addressing the Black Sea Fleet and the Crimean Peninsula that are a subject of our analysis.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Mikhail Beznosov

  The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley

  6 shared

• Gary Goertz

  Film Independent

  5 shared

• Martin Carrier

  4 shared

• Michael O. Slobodchikoff

  3 shared

• Kathy L. Powers

  2 shared

• Tatiana Vashchilko

  University of Calgary

  2 shared

• P. J. McGovern

  Lunar and Planetary Institute

  2 shared

• Lee Sigelman

  Indiana University Bloomington

  2 shared