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The land border between Russia and the European Union is one of the longest land borders in the world, with very considerable trade flowing across the border in both directions. This book examines the nature of the EU-Russia border, and the issues connected with its management. It describes the territories and the societies on each side of the border, discusses the challenges which confront border management, including migration and criminal activities, and explores how people on both sides perceive each other and perceive threats and security issues. It concludes by assessing achievements to date in managing the border and by assessing continuing unresolved challenges.
The Arctic has, for some forty years, been among the most innovative policy environments in the world. The region has developed impressive systems for intra-regional cooperation, responded to the challenges of the rapid environmental change, empowered and engaged with Indigenous peoples, and dealt with the multiple challenges of natural resource development. The Palgrave Handbook on Arctic Policy and Politics has drawn on scholars from many countries and academic disciplines to focus on the central theme of Arctic policy innovation. The portrait that emerges from these chapters is of a complex, fluid policy environment, shaped by internal, national and global dynamics and by a wide range of political, legal, economic, and social transitions. The Arctic is a complex place from a political perspective and is on the verge of becoming even more so. Effective, proactive and forward-looking policy innovation will be required if the Far North is to be able to address its challenges and capitalize on its opportunities.
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...
Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the question remains ’Do good fences still make good neighbours’? Since the Great Wall of China, the Antonine Wall, built in Scotland to support Hadrian's Wall, the Roman ’Limes’ or the Danevirk fence, the ’wall’ has been a constant in the protection of defined entities claiming sovereignty, East and West. But is the wall more than an historical relict for the management of borders? In recent years, the wall has been given renewed vigour in North America, particularly along the U.S.-Mexico border, and in Israel-Palestine. But the success of these new walls in the development of friendly and orderly relations between nations (or inde...
Punk culture is currently having a revival worldwide and is poised to extend and mutate even more as youth unemployment and youth alienation increase in many countries of the world. In Russia, its power to have an impact and to shock is well illustrated by the state response to activist collective and punk band Pussy Riot. This book, based on extensive original research, examines the nature of punk culture in contemporary Russia. Drawing on interviews and observation, it explores the vibrant punk music scenes and the social relations underpinning them in three contrasting Russian cities. It relates punk to wider contemporary culture and uses the Russian example to discuss more generally what constitutes 'punk' today.
Urban space is an important part of the political environment—a place where people congregate to discuss, deliberate, and interact with each other. In times of great public discontent, people often turn to urban spaces to make their opinions heard and to demand change, with varying degrees of success. How are mass protests affected by the urban public space in which they occur? This book provides a theoretical model to analyze city spaces, based on the use of theories from political science, urban planning, and sociology. Hansen’s approach consists of a mapping of the causal mechanisms between spatial elements, the political environment, and their combined effects on protests. This mapping is applied to three case studies—Kyiv, Minsk, and Moscow. In addition to the spatial perspective model, Urban Protest provides new insights as to how the interactions in space occur, and demonstrates how geography can create limitations and opportunities in a large variety of ways.
Much has been written on the 1917–1920 revolution in Ukraine, on the national movement, the Makhnovists and the Bolsheviks. Yet there were others with a mass following whose role has faded from history books. One such party was the Borotbisty, the heirs of the mass Ukrainian Party of Socialist-Revolutionaries, an independent party seeking to achieve national liberation and social emancipation. Though widely known in revolutionary Europe in their day, the Borotbisty were decimated during the Stalinist holocaust in Ukraine. Out of print for over half a century, this lost text by Ivan Maistrenko, the last survivor of the Borotbisty, provides a unique account on this party and its historical role. Part memoir and part history, this is a thought-provoking book which challenges previous approaches to the revolution and shows how events in Ukraine decided the fate not only of the Russian Revolution but the upheavals in Europe at the time.
This book adopts a novel analytical approach to understanding how Russia's stalled democratisation is related to the incomplete liberalisation of the economy. Based on extensive original comparative study of Russia’s regions, the book explores the precise channels of interaction that create the mutuality of property rights, entrepreneurship, rule of law, norms of citizenship and liberal democracy. It demonstrates that the extent of democratisation varies across regions, and that this variation is connected to the extent of liberalisation of the economy. Moreover, it argues that the key factor in producing this linkage is the relative prominence of small business owners and their supporters in articulating their interests vis-à-vis regional and local administrations, especially through the institutionalisation of networks and business associations. The book develops its key theses by means of detailed analysis of the experiences of four case study regions. Overall, the book provides a major contribution to understanding the path of democratisation in Russia.
"Is Bulgaria's Left heading towards decomposition or to a new identity? Popivanov offers an excellent analytical answer."?Georgi Karasimeonov, Professor of Political Science at Sofia University