Author: m11p2714
Seminar May 19: The Colonial Imaginary of ‘Europe’ in the EU’s Asymmetrical Response to the Russian and Israeli Aggressions: Ukraine as a Member of the ‘Family’ Whilst ‘Othering’ Palestine
🎓Welcome to our online seminar!
Seminar May 19: The Colonial Imaginary of ‘Europe’ in the EU’s Asymmetrical Response to the Russian and Israeli Aggressions: Ukraine as a Member of the ‘Family’ Whilst ‘Othering’ Palestine
🎤Alvaro Oleart, Post-doctoral Researcher at the Université Libre de Belgique (ULB)
📅May 19, 15:15-17:00
🏢Zoom: https://lnkd.in/e8wPDsrm
Abstract: What is ‘Europe’? The response to this question is not straightforward, as ‘Europe’ is a floating signifier that is in constant renegotiation. In this article, we focus on the imaginary of ‘Europe’ that has been deployed in the most salient international crises of the last years that have heavily shaken European Union (EU) politics: the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and the attack of Hamas on 7 October 2023, followed by the ensuing offensive of Israel on the Palestinian Gaza Strip. More concretely, we ask: what is the narrative of ‘Europe’ articulated by the European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, and the HRVP, Josep Borrell, in response to these events? We argue that, in the context of these two cases, two distinct imaginaries of ‘Europe’ have been mobilised based on differentiated conceptualisations of the relationship of ‘Europe’ to Ukraine and Palestine. Whereas Ukraine is conceived as part of the ‘European family’, there is a process of ‘othering’ Palestine. Our article exposes the racism and double standards of the EU in regard to the defence of international law and human rights, the exclusiveness of who belongs to ‘Europe’ and the continuity of the colonial thinking that permeates the narratives of EU leaders.
Seminar May 12: From role change to policy change: EU member states and change in EU foreign policy after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
Seminar May 12: From role change to policy change: EU member states and change in EU foreign policy after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
🎤Tyyne Karjalainen, Research Fellow in the European Union research programme at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs – FIIA (FIIA)
📅May 12, 15:15-17:00
🏢Zoom: https://lnkd.in/ejcufBbr
Abstract: Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine has led to a fundamental rethinking of EU foreign policy, including enlargement, security and defence and energy policy. This lecture builds on a recent article published in the Journal of European Integration and analyses the EU policy shift as an outcome of the member states’ co‑constitutive role changes: abandoning opposition to enlargement, renouncing the energy partnership with Russia, and the military turn. It shows that these changes remain contested and highly context-specific, limiting outcomes of the EU policy shift. While the EU is increasingly expected to implement its new defence agenda, the member states’ objectives remain fragmented. In enlargement policy, the member states’ role changes are not sufficient for enlargement to materialise.
Tyyne Karjalainen is a Research Fellow in the European Union research programme at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA) since 2020, and a doctoral researcher in political science at the University of Turku since 2021. Her research focuses on European security, Ukraine, the EU’s foreign and security policies, and EU enlargement. She has also published on peacebuilding, crisis management, and peace mediation. Her work has appeared in several peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of European Integration, European Journal of International Security, The International Spectator, and Contemporary Social Science.
RUCARR Distinguished Speaker April 14: Prof. Henry E. Hale
RUCARR Distinguished Speaker Series
The Role of Traditional Moral Appeals in Putinite Autocracy
Speaker? Henry E. Hale, Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at George Washington University (GW),
When? April 14th, 17:30-19:00
Where? Niagara, NI:C0E11 or on Zoom (click here for the Zoom link)
Abstract: Over the last decade and a half, Russia’s Kremlin has increasingly emphasized traditional moral values in its appeals for public support. This marked a major shift in regime strategy from its earlier “catch-all” approach to a socially divisive form of “wedge politics.” Has this worked? What have been the consequences of this strategy for the regime? In this event, the speaker will examine data from Russia to show that the results have been mixed. Traditional moral appeals’ most powerful effects have been to help the regime win support even from Putin opponents for major initiatives ranging from term-limit contravention to war. But at the same time, they have alienated some potential Putin supporters and inadvertently catalyzed a (relatively) moral liberal opposition coalition that is potentially larger than commonly believed.
Moderator: Stefan Hedlund, Professor Emeritus of Soviet and East European Studies, Uppsala University
Seminar March 16: Silent Dissent: Transforming Russia from within: Illiberal legislation and silovik coalition-building in the Russian State Duma, 2011-202
🎓Welcome to our online seminar!
Seminar March 16: Silent Dissent: Transforming Russia from within: Illiberal legislation and silovik coalition-building in the Russian State Duma, 2011-2021
🎤Daniella Slabinski, PhD Candidate, Department of Literature, Area Studies and European Languages, University of Oslo
📅March 16, 10:15-12:00
🏢Zoom: https://lnkd.in/e86W-CKi
Abstract: For the last decade, the Russian State Duma has arguably become a site where production of illiberal ideology and rent seeking intersect which has resulted in severe consequences for domestic and global politics. Nevertheless, knowledge of the lawmakers and the various power coalitions that they form to achieve their goals is limited. In this paper I address this lacuna by focusing on the role of the siloviki – individuals with career experience in the military, intelligence and law enforcement apparatus – in the State Duma and ask: what coalitions do silovik representatives form when passing illiberal legislation? Drawing on a unique set of illiberal bills sponsored by silovik-MPs during the 6th (2011 – 2016) and 7th (2016 – 2021) convocations, I use social network analysis to test for Brian D. Taylor’s typology of silovik formations (clan, corporate and cohort) on a unique dataset of illiberal legislation passed by silovik-MPs during the 6th (2011 – 2016) and 7th (2016 – 2021) Duma convocations. The data illustrates that neither ideology nor institutional belonging (corporate and party affiliation) among silovik-MPs are decisive factors during coalition-building when passing illiberal bills. Instead, there is a distinctively growing trend in favor of grouping into informal networks in which silovik-MPs act as legislative patrons.
Seminar March 3: Russian informational co-aggression? Ukraine-related disinformation in Belarusian pro-government Telegram channels
Seminar March 3: Silent Dissent: Russian informational co-aggression? Ukraine-related disinformation in Belarusian pro-government Telegram
🎤Alesia Rudnik, PhD, Postdoctoral researcher at Södetrörn University and Maastricht University
📅March 3, 15.15-17.00
🏢Zoom: https://lnkd.in/exWc55gs
Abstract: Based on a qualitative content analysis of 2024 posts from leading pro-government Telegram channels in Belarus, this article examines how these sources spread disinformation about Ukraine. The authors show that such posts were relatively infrequent in 2024, and that their themes shifted in response to developments on the battlefield and changes in the broader international context of the conflict. However, certain false claims and allegations consistently received substantial attention. These include public dissatisfaction with conscription into Ukraine’s armed forces, deceptive and coercive methods of recruitment, declining morale among Ukrainian soldiers, corruption related to the war effort, and allegations of ‘neo-Nazism’ within Ukraine and its military. Although the Belarusian regime is often regarded as a co-aggressor in the Russo–Ukrainian war, little is known about whether and how it actively promotes pro-Kremlin narratives online. This article represents a first attempt to address this gap.
Speaker:
Alesia Rudnik, PhD in political science, defended her thesis “Machinery of Dissent: People and Technology in Protests in Autocracies” in 2025. Now she is a postdoctoral researcher at Södetrörn University and Maastricht University.
Rudnik’s current research project “Negotiating Digital Power: Big Tech, States & Citizens in Democratic versus Autocratic Contexts” is supported by the Swedish Research Council.
Rudnik is also a former director and an acting board member of an independent Belarusian think tank in exile Center for new ideas. Previously, Rudnik led the organization of the Belarusian diaspora in Sweden. She is also a recipient of the Swedish award “European of the Year 2022”.
Currently, she is also a member of the editorial board of Belarus Voices (Ibidem.) and Belarus Analytical Digest.
Seminar February 3 with Irina Olimpieva, Silent Dissent: Exploring Russian Civic Activism as a Form of Opposition to the War in Ukraine
Silent Dissent: Exploring Russian Civic Activism as a Form of Opposition to the War in Ukraine
🎤Irina Olimpieva, Founder and Executive Director of the Center for Independent Social Research, Inc. (CISR USA)
📅February 3, 15.15-17.00
🏢Zoom: https://lnkd.in/eJCkhJVw
Abstract: Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the apparent absence of mass antiwar protests inside Russia has often been interpreted as evidence of popular indifference or support for the war. Survey data seem to reinforce this conclusion, while street-level mobilization has remained limited even during moments of heightened political tension, such as the announcement of “partial” mobilization. This talk challenges such interpretations by shifting attention away from visible protest toward less conspicuous but socially meaningful forms of opposition that emerge under conditions of repression.
Drawing on a research project conducted since August 2022, I explore humanitarian volunteerism as a form of silent resistance. The analysis focuses on a case study of an informal volunteer network based in St. Petersburg that assists Ukrainian families who fled the war, found themselves on Russian territory, and are seeking asylum in Europe. Operating primarily through Telegram, volunteers meet refugees arriving in the city, arrange temporary accommodation, provide food, medicine, clothing, and financial assistance, and coordinate transportation to the border.
Seminar December 2: Disciplining Labour: Authoritarian Neoliberalism in Georgia
RUCARR Seminar with Konstantine Eristavi, Visiting Postdoctoral Researcher at the School of Interdisciplinary Area Studies at the University of Oxford
When? December 2, 15:15-17:00
Where? Seminar room, 9th floor, Niagara or on Zoom: https://mau-se.zoom.us/j/66397767365
Abstract:
Most accounts interpret recent developments in Georgia as “democratic backsliding” and a qualitative break from an earlier phase of democratisation. I contend instead that Georgia’s trajectory is better understood as the ongoing consolidation of an authoritarian neoliberal model. In contrast to prevailing approaches that separate the analysis of authoritarianism in former Soviet states from questions of political economy, this presentation argues that authoritarian governance in Georgia is constitutive of its development model and inseparable from strategies pursued by capitalist elites. In particular, the talk traces (dis)continuities in the configuration of state power since independence and discusses mechanisms through which successive governments have disciplined working and poor classes and depoliticised social conflict in order to entrench the neoliberal regime of capital accumulation.
Seminar November 18: The EU-Russia Competition, Multi-Modal Contestation and Governance in a Shared Sphere of Influence
RUCARR Seminar with Bidzina Lebanidze, PhD, Senior Analyst at the Georgian Institute of Politics (GIP) and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute of Slavic Languages and Caucasus Studies at Friedrich Schiller University Jena
Time: November 18th, 15:15-17:00
Place: Seminar room, 9th floor, Niagara, or on Zoom: https://mau-se.zoom.us/j/68198560054
Abstract:
In an era of resurgent multipolar competition, a fundamental update to our understanding of the reemerging concept of Spheres of Influence (SOIs) is needed. This analysis introduces the “Multi-Modal Sphere of Influence” (MMSOI) as a new analytical framework, positing that contemporary great powers project influence not just via coercion, but through a dynamic interplay of five modalities: military, economic, institutional, normative, and digital. This framework is used to deconstruct the intractable EU-Russia conflict in their “shared neighborhood” by bridging macro-, meso-, and case-level findings. At the macro-level, the core of the conflict is defined by different modalities of competition; this is not a symmetrical power struggle, but a structural clash between incompatible toolkits: the EU’s dominant normative, institutional, and economic modalities colliding with Russia’s reliance on its coercive-military and energy-based toolkit. This overlapping, multi-modal contestation creates, at the meso-level, a paradoxical environment for “in-between” states, granting them new avenues for hedging and agency while simultaneously exposing them to acute risks of coercion and conflict. Finally, the analysis unpacks the EU’s paradoxical role as an “antithetical actor.” While normatively rejecting SOIs, the EU’s institutional and regulatory expansion functions as a powerful, sui generis SOI-building tool, making it an unintentional geopolitical player. This synthesized approach explains the EU-Russia competition not merely as a regional dispute, but as a microcosm of 21st-century multi-modal, multipolar contestation.
Seminar November 11: Negotiating actorness and legitimacy: The Wagner Group and the Russian state
RUCARR Seminar with Karen Philippa Larsen, Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS)
Time: November 11th, 15:15-17:00
Place: Seminar room, 9th floor, Niagara, or on Zoom: https://mau-se.zoom.us/j/66706523090
Abstract:
Do you remember the Wagner Group? – The semi-private Russian military group that marched on Moscow one Saturday in June 2023, briefly making all of us wonder whether Putin’s grip on the Russian “throne” was as firm as we had thought.
The Wagner Group played a central role in advancing Russia’s interests internationally, in Russia’s early military operations in Ukraine, and in the full-scale war that Russia launched against Ukraine in 2022. Despite its significance, the group operated mostly in the shadows since its founding in 2014. Even after its financier, Yevgeniy Prigozhin, stepped forward and claimed leadership of the Wagner Group, it continued to operate in a nexus between practices hidden in the shadows and choreographed ‘grand’ performances, shared primarily on social media.
Karen Philippa Larsen’s presentation focuses on the Wagner Group’s actorness and examines the Wagner Group from multiple perspectives, highlighting the group’s ability to play several different roles simultaneously – both on behalf of the Russian state and in pursuit of its own interests. The presentation engages with concepts of non-state and state actors, legitimacy and agency, and opens for a discussion of how audiovisuality, which is central to our time, might influence them.
🎓Welcome to our online seminar!
Seminar June 2: Russian-led Eurasia: still holding together, but for how long?
🎤Sean Roberts, Senior Lecturer and Ulrike Ziemer PhD, Senior Lecturer, both from University of Winchester
📅June 2, 13:15-15:00
🏢Zoom: https://lnkd.in/eFB3P9Ua
Abstract: Developments in the post-Soviet space continue to raise important questions on the strength of Russia’s regional leadership. However, gauging the cohesion of Russian-led Eurasia is complicated by competing images of Russia’s relations with long-standing allies—notably Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan—which are often portrayed in terms of a ‘community of fate’ or partners destined for closer integration but also as a ‘community of fortune’ or ad hoc, situational partners, loosely centered on Russia. By drawing on the English School of International Relations and considering Russian-led Eurasia as an example of a nascent, regional interstate society, bound together by shared interests and values but also Russian hegemony, we understand how Russia’s ‘rights’ and ‘responsibilities’ serve to simultaneously unite and divide the region.