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Three Revolutions: Mobilization and Change in Contemporary Ukraine II
The second part of this multi-volume project assembles a series of recollections and debates on the Ukrainian revolutions of 1990, 2004, and 2013–2014. After an introduction to the methodology of oral history, it presents twenty interviews with participants and eyewitnesses of the events in Ukraine, and documents a series of workshop discussions conducted at a symposium held in 2017. In these workshops, activists and observers of each of the three revolutions exchanged and compared their memories, analyses, and evaluations. This volume thus not only provides a comprehensive collection of firsthand accounts of the three historic Ukrainian upheavals, but also reveals the interrelations between them. The volume documents assessments from Barbara Krauz-Mozer, Markiyan Ivashchyshyn, Natalia Klymovska, Vakhtang Kipiani, Mykola Kniazhycki, Natalyia Zubar, Yulia Tymoshenko, Aleksander Kwaœniewski, Viktor Taran, Markiyan Matsekh, Yulia Tychkivska, Leonid Findberg, Yulia Mostova, Oksana Zabuzhko, Eduard Drach, Michailo Cherenkoff, Andriy Dudchenko, Oleg Mahdych, Rebecca Harms, Herman van Rumpoy, and Jacek Saryusz-Wolski.
How Corruption and Anti-Corruption Policies Sustain Hybrid Regimes
Leaders of hybrid regimes in pursuit of political domination and material gain instrumentalize both hidden forms of corruption and public anti-corruption policies. Corruption is pursued for different purposes including cooperation with strategic partners and exclusion of opponents. Presidents use anti-corruption policies to legitimize and institutionalize political domination. Corrupt practices and anti-corruption policies become two sides of the same coin and are exercised to maintain an uneven political playing field. This study combines empirical analysis and social constructivism for an investigation into the presidencies of Leonid Kuchma (1994–2005), Viktor Yushchenko (2005–2010), and Viktor Yanukovych (2010–2014). Explorative expert interviews, press surveys, content analysis of presidential speeches, as well as critical assessment of anti-corruption legislation are used for comparison and process tracing of the utilization of corruption under three Ukrainian presidents.
Post-Soviet Secessionism
The USSR’s dissolution resulted in the creation of not only fifteen recognized states but also of four non-recognized statelets: Nagorno-Karabakh, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, and Transnistria. Their polities comprise networks with state-like elements. Since the early 1990s, the four pseudo-states have been continously dependent on their sponsor countries (Russia, Armenia), and contesting the territorial integrity of their parental nation-states Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Moldova. In 2014, the outburst of Russia-backed separatism in Eastern Ukraine led to the creation of two more para-states, the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) and the Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR), whose leaders used the ...
The Russian Orthodox Church and Modernity
The Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) faced various iterations of modernization throughout its history. This conflicted encounter continues in the ROC’s current resistance against—what it perceives as—Western modernity including liberal and secular values. This study examines the historical development of the ROC’s arguments against—and sometimes preferences for—modernization and analyzes which positions ended up influencing the official doctrine. The book’s systematic analysis of dogmatic treatises shows the ROC’s considerable ability of constructive engagement with various aspects of the modern world. Balancing between theological traditions of unity and plurality, the ROC’s today context of operating within an authoritarian state appears to tip the scale in favor of unity.
Religion, Expression, and Patriotism in Russia
The 2010s saw an introduction of legislative acts about religion, sexuality, and culture in Russia, which caused an uproar of protests. They politicized areas of life commonly perceived as private and expected to be free of the state's control. As a result, political activism and radical grassroots movements engaged many Russians in controversies about religion and culture and polarized popular opinion in the capitals and regions alike. This volume presents seven case studies which probe into the politics of religion and culture in today's Russia. The contributions highlight the diversity of Russia's religious communities and cultural practices by analyzing Hasidic Jewish identities, popular...
Public Policy and Politics in Georgia
After the break-up of the USSR, the former Soviet countries took different paths. While many of them face severe economic problems or have become only questionably democratic, Georgia’s socio-political development has become a relatively successful post-Soviet transition story. A deeper understanding of Georgia can offer insights that are also useful for other transitional and developing states. Many of the good governance implications of the research papers assembled in this volume are highly relevant to the broader Caucasus region and other post-Communist countries. The contributions deal with central issues pertinent to Georgian public policy, administration, and politics, as well as to Georgia’s ongoing struggle for independence and democracy. The collection illustrates a particularly revealing case in the comparative study of modern governance.
Geopolitical Rivalries in the “Common Neighborhood”
This timely book analyses ‘soft power’ in the light of neoclassical realist premises as part of the foreign policy toolkit of great powers to expand their sphere of influence. Vasif Huseynov argues that if nuclear armed great powers compete against the same type of powers to expand or sustain their sphere of influence over a populated region, they use soft power as a major expansive instrument while military power remains a tool to defend themselves and back up their foreign policies. Presenting his model of soft power, the author explores the role of soft power projection by great powers in the formation of the external alignment of regional states. He focuses on the rivalries between Russia and the West (i.e. the EU and the USA) over the states located between the EU and Russia (the region known as the “common [or shared] neighborhood”) and on two of these regional states (Ukraine and Belarus) to test his hypotheses.
Between Lenin and Bandera
On 8 December 2013, Ukraine’s central Lenin monument in Kyiv was pulled down. In the following months, in what became known as the “Leninfall,” Ukraine swept away hundreds of communist monuments, expressing an explicit desire to break away from the Soviet past and, implicitly, from Russia. This book examines the evolution of post-Euromaidan de-Sovietization beyond the issues of toppling of old statues and implementation of new anti-totalitarian laws. It explores decommunization as both a political and cultural phenomenon that exposes the multivocality of the Ukrainian population and involves various forms of dialogical interaction between ordinary citizens and the state. Posters, graffiti, or street names are physical and discursive canvases where old meanings are being contested and re-articulated, and where new political symbols that combine nationalist and democratic elements are being defined.
Russian Voices on Post-Crimea Russia
Russia has changed dramatically since the beginning of this decade. This volume presents a unique collection of articles by Russian scholars and experts, originally published in Russian in the journal Kontrapunkt (Counterpoint). The authors include Yulia Bederova, Andrey Desnitsky, Maria Eismont, Aleksandr Gorbachev, Tatiana Nefedova, Ella Paneyakh, Sergey Parkhomenko, Nikolay Petrov, Kirill Rogov, Sergey Sergeev, Ekaterina Sokiryanskaya, Andrey Soldatov, Svetlana Solodovnik, Anna Tolstova, Aleksandr Verkhovsky, and Natalia Zubarevich. Their essays cover a broad range of subjects from the Russian political scene and state-society relations to the politics of culture and the realm of ideas and symbols. These contributions offer fascinating insights into Russia’s multifaceted and complex development after the annexation of Crimea in 2014.
Civil War? Interstate War? Hybrid War?
This volume of collected papers takes stock of what has become known about the war in eastern Ukraine’s Donets Basin (Donbas) between April 2014 and mid-2020. It provides an introduction to the conflict and illustrates the key point of contention in the academic debate surrounding it—the question whether this war is primarily an internal Ukrainian phenomenon or the result of a covert Russian invasion. The contributions by recognized specialists from Ukraine, Russia, Germany, and Japan offer multifaceted views and insights into this long-lasting conflict for both expert readers and those who are new to the topic. The volume’s contributors are Tymofii Brik, Jakob Hauter, Sanshiro Hosaka, Yuriy Matsiyevsky, Nikolay Mitrokhin, Maximilian Kranich, and Ulrich Schneckener.
