Political Theory and Community Building in Post-Soviet Russia

<p>This book revisits many aspects of current social science theories such as actor-network theory and the French school of science and technology studies to test how the theories apply in a specific situation in this case after 1991 in the city of Cherepovets in Russia home of Russia’s second biggest steel producer Severstal. Using political philosophy to analyse the down-to-earth details of the real techno-scientific problems facing the world the book examines the role of things - and urban infrastructure in particular - in political change. It considers how the city’s infrastructure including housing ICT networks the provision of public utilities of all kinds has been transformed in recent years; examines the roles of different actors including the municipal authorities and explores citizens’ differing and sometimes contradictory images of their city. It includes a great deal of new thinking on how communities are built how common action is initiated to provide public goods and how the goods themselves - physical things – are a crucial driver of community action and community building arguably more so than more abstract social and human forces. </p>