Seminar with Sofya du Boulay, May 13th: Mythmaking, Mega-events, and Coercion: Autocratic Legitimation in Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan

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Mythmaking, Mega-events, and Coercion: Autocratic Legitimation in Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan
Dr. Sofya du Boulay

When? Tuesday 13th of May, 15:15-17:00
Where? Seminar room, 9th floor, Niagara or online: https://mau-se.zoom.us/j/64306600653

Abstract:

What constitutes legitimate order in modern autocracies? This research argues that the persistence of autocratic domination evolves beyond simple mechanisms of repression but represents a dynamic process of nurturing public consent and imitating socioeconomic progress. It explores why and how the autocratic regimes in Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan are remarkably resilient, despite domestic policy failures, mass protests, and suffocating geopolitical alliances. Drawing on comparative political analysis, this study analyses the stabilisation mechanisms of autocratic self-justification through three complementary sources: discourses, spectacles, and repression. Input discourses serve as a coherent body of political arguments, normalising official narratives about the suitability of existing authority structures and state-building processes. To maintain power, modern autocracies need to adapt to global norms and spectacles. Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan host mega-events to increase their international recognition, exercising a balancing act between inherent political vulnerability and stability. Mega-events satisfy elite ambitions to reinvent and promote national identity under increased media exposure. Coercion prevents the opposition from rebelling against those in power, ensuring regime survival once discourses and spectacles are unavailable as alternative sources of legitimation. Through document analysis and sixty expert interviews collected in Baku, Astana, and Almaty this work traces the evolution of regime practices, actors, and events involved in formulating the right to rule in Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan between 1991 and 2022.

Speaker:

Dr. Sofya du Boulay is an authoritarian politics scholar with a special interest in Central Asia and Caucasus, she is currently a visiting fellow at the University of Sussex. Published on politics of succession, legitimation, post-Soviet legacy in Communist and Post-Communist-Studies and Problems of Post-Communism. She has worked for various international organizations including the Norwegian Helsinki Committee, the UN Population Fund, and the UN Economic Commission for Europe and is passionate about research community building: USTA Mentorship Program

 

Seminar with Ángel Torres-Adán: Language or ideology? Studying the sources of the ethnic gap in geopolitical preferences in the Association Agreement countries. Evidence from Georgia (2015-2021), March 25

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When? March 25th, 15:15-17:00

Where? Seminar room 9th floor, Niagara or online: https://mau-se.zoom.us/j/65864362451

Speaker: Ángel Torres-Adán

Ángel Torres-Adán is a research fellow at the Institute for Sociology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava. He recently completed a Ph.D in Politics, Policies and International Relations (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona). He also hold a Bachelor’s degree in Geography (Universidad de Castilla-la Mancha) and a Master’s degree in International Politics (Universidad Complutense de Madrid). His research is focused on individual geopolitical preferences in post-Soviet Europe.

Abstract:

The existence of differences in geopolitical preferences between the titular nationalities and ethnic minorities has been thoroughly documented for the Association Agreement countries and other post-Soviet states. This paper goes beyond simply identifying the existence of this “ethnic gap” in geopolitical preferences, by also testing some of the common theories that try to explain it. To do so, I use different regression analyses based on survey data from Georgia (2015–2021). The results of a first multivariate analysis that aims to explain the ethnic gap show that the linguistic differences between the titular nationalities and the ethnic groups explain a higher percentage of the gap in support for the EU than differences related to ideology, values, and information. Furthermore, a second analysis that divides the sample into different ethnic groups reveals that certain variables influence the geopolitical preferences of members of the titular nationalities and members of each of the studied ethnic minorities in different ways.

Welcome!

Russia Reverts to Muscovy: What if We Drop “Russia” from the Discourse? – RUCARR seminar with Prof. Stefan Hedlund

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Stefan Hedlund: “Russia Reverts to Muscovy: What if We Drop “Russia” from the Discourse?”

Time: 18th March, 15.15 – 17.00

Place: NI:C0315 or online: https://mau-se.zoom.us/j/66754621955

Abstract

The presentation expands on three of the main themes of the book Russia Reverts to Muscovy: What if We drop “Russia” from the Discourse?, all of which converge in an argument that we should stop talking about “Russia” and revert to the old name for northeastern Rus, which is “Muscovy.” The first is that so much of the territory of the former Russian Empire has now been lost that it is only logical to refer to the remnants as Muscovy. The second is that the present-day Russian Federation has reverted almost fully to the institutional order that marked old Muscovy, thus adding to the relevance of using that name, and the third is that continued use of the name “Russia” implies acceptance of the Muscovite claim to a sphere of interest that includes Ukraine.

If the present-day Muscovites want to call themselves “Russians” then that is of course their prerogative, much as others have a right to refer to themselves as Ukrainians or Belarusians. Where it goes unacceptably wrong is when it is claimed that all Eastern Slavs are “Russians,” and that those “Russians” must not only accept this distinction but also submit to being ruled from Moscow.

Stefan Hedlund is Professor Emeritus of Soviet and East European Studies at IRES, Uppsala University. He has published more than two dozen books, mainly but not exclusively on themes relating to Russian developments, and he has published more than a hundred articles on similar themes, in various forms and shapes. His works have been published in Russian and Chinese, and he has been a frequent commentator in various media across a number of countries. His most recent book, Russia Reverts to Muscovy: What if We drop “Russia” from the Discourse? (Routledge, 2025), is the latest instalment in a series of books on institutional developments in Russia and Ukraine, the previous volume being Ukraine, Russia and The West: When Value Promotion met Hard Power (Routledge, 2023).

 

Book launch with Isabell Burmester, Understanding EU and Russian Hegemony in Eastern Europe and the South Caucasus, March 11

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Understanding EU and Russian Hegemony in Eastern Europe and the South Caucasus 

When? March 11st, 15:15-17:00

Where? Niagara, NI:A0311 or online: https://mau-se.zoom.us/j/68505534320

What drives the European Union’s and Russia’s influence in Eastern Europe and the South Caucasus? How do their strategies compare, and what does this tell us about the broader regional dynamics that ultimately culminated in Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine? The talk will present the main findings of the forthcoming book EU and Russian Hegemony in the ‘Shared Neighbourhood’: Between Coercion, Prescription, and Co-optation. It will explore how the EU and Russia exert power in their shared neighborhood, using the concept of hegemony to make sense of their competing approaches. By examining the mechanisms of coercion, prescription, and co-optation, this study provides a comparative analysis of how both actors have shaped the political and economic trajectories of Moldova and Armenia since the early 2000s. Bringing together insights from EU neighborhood policy, Russian foreign policy, and international relations scholarship, the book presents an innovative framework for understanding regional power struggles. By making EU and Russian strategies analytically comparable, it sheds light on how these interactions have evolved—and what they reveal about the ongoing shifts in regional order.

 

The book will be out open access in March: https://link.springer.com/book/9783031754876

Dr. Isabell Burmester is currently a post-doctoral researcher at the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris.

Seminar with Leila Wilmers – Interpreting the Discourse of a Multi-Ethnic Russian Nation in Kazan, May 6

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Diversity or Unity: Interpreting the Discourse of a Multi-Ethnic Russian Nation in Kazan

Dr. Leila Wilmers is a Regional Scholar at Cornell University’s Einaudi Center for International Studies and teaches in Cornell’s Department of Sociology. She has a background in peacebuilding work in the non-profit sector and holds a PhD in human geography from Loughborough University, UK. Her research concerns nationalism in the contemporary world, and particularly experiences of nationhood and the processes and conditions of bottom-up engagement with nationalist ideology and politics. Her research and teaching crosses the disciplines of sociology and human geography and her regional expertise is in the post-Soviet space. Her work has been published in the journals Europe-Asia Studies, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Nationalities Papers, and Ethnicities.

Time: 6th May, 15:15 – 17:00 (rescheduled from February 18)

Place: Seminar room 9th floor, Niagara or online: https://mau-se.zoom.us/j/64838117167

 Abstract

This talk explores bottom-up responses to the Kremlin’s approach to nation-building in a multi-ethnic state. How do residents of ethnically mixed cities navigate conflicting themes of unity and diversity in the federal discourse of Russia as a multi-ethnic nation (mnogonatsional’nyi narod)? This discourse runs counter to assimilative policies and a concurrent vision of Russia as a civilisation rooted in Slavic culture. In the diverse city of Kazan, the discourse is shown to be easily adopted by residents in narrating belonging, while being a problematic basis for nation-building. The talk highlights the importance of regional and ethnic subject positions in bottom-up engagement with nation-building in Russia.

Welcome!

Yana Kirey-Sitnikova: “Transgender Russia: the rise and fall of trans-rights in an autocracy”

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“Transgender Russia: the rise and fall of trans-rights in an autocracy”

When? Tuesday 28th January, 15.15 – 17.00

Where? Seminar room floor 9 or online: https://mau-se.zoom.us/j/69268165545

Description: As many as 71% of the world population in 2023 lived under authoritarian rule, and yet a search with keywords “authoritarianism” and “transgender” in scientific databases yields very few articles. One reason for that is the overwhelming focus of transgender studies on North America. Another is conflation of trans issues with LGBT. In her lecture, Yana Kirey-Sitnikova will argue that trans rights have their own dynamics, which should be juxtaposed to the trends in democratization or autocratization. The first part will be devoted to Yana’s recent article “‘You should care by prohibiting all this obscenity’: a public policy analysis of the Russian law banning medical and legal transition for transgender people” (Post-Soviet Affairs) describing the 2023 Russian law banning “the change of sex in humans” and its prehistory. While the original article uses the Authoritarian Gender Equality Policy Making framework, in the lecture, Yana will apply the Advocacy Coalitions Framework and Punctuated Equilibrium Theory to the same data to show that the process included many semi-democratic elements, which goes against the common sense that the members of the Russian State Duma have little agency compared to the executive branch. In the second part of the lecture, Yana will present preliminary findings on the Soviet period, which form the core of her upcoming book “Transgender Russia: the rise and fall of trans rights in an autocracy”. The data being scarce on what we now call “trans”, we are obliged to deduce the situation of Soviet transvestites and transsexuals mostly from publications devoted to intersex individuals and homosexuals. While intersex people had access to legal gender recognition and medical care even in the darkest years of Soviet totalitarianism, male homosexuals were persecuted, and trans people probably balanced somewhere in-between. Extremely interesting in this regard is the case of a “transvestite with homosexual inclinations” K.K.D., whose female gender identity was recognized by the authorities in Kazan and Moscow. While more archival work needs to be done on this case, it probably dates to the 1940s, i.e. Stalin’s rule, thus demonstrating something different from what we may now think about the lived circumstances under totalitarianism.

Welcome!

RUCARR seminar with Esma Berikshvili – The Affect of Lost Infrastructure and Informal Economic Practices in the Port City of Poti, Georgia

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The City of Eternal Promises – The Affect of Lost Infrastructure and Informal Economic Practices in the Port City of Poti, Georgia

Esma Berikishvili, a visiting PhD student from Ilia State University, will give a seminar titled: “The City of Eternal Promises – The Affect of Lost Infrastructure and Informal Economic Practices in the Port City of Poti, Georgia”. This talk will explore the impact of post-Rose Revolution reforms on Poti, a Georgian port city, through an ethnographic and anthropological lens and critically examine the socio-economic and political transformations following the 2003 neoliberal reforms, including the privatization of Poti’s port and the establishment of a Free Industrial Zone (FIZ). These state-led modernization efforts, aimed at fostering economic growth, fell short of their promises, leading to failed investments, economic decline, and precarious livelihoods. The seminar will highlight how Poti’s residents adapt to these changes through informal maritime economic practices like fishing, fish-smoking, and scrap metal collection, revealing resilience and ingenuity amid structural challenges.

When: December,3, 15.15 – 17.00

 Where: Seminar room, 9th floor, Niagara, Nordenskiöldsgatan 1
Zoom: https://mau-se.zoom.us/j/66778170406, Meeting ID: 667 7817 0406