Category: Other countries

Seminar with Erica Marat: The Politics of Police Reform

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The Politics of Police Reform: Society against the State in Post-Soviet Countries

When: April 20, 3.15-5.00 CET

Where: Sign up here for Zoom link

Dr. Erica Marat is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Regional and Analytical Studies Department at the College of International Security Affairs, National Defence University. She has previously directed Homeland Defense Fellowship Program at CISA.

Dr. Marat’s research focuses on violence, mobilization and security institutions in Eurasia, India, and Mexico. During our seminar, she will present her book – The Politics of Police Reform: Society against the State in Post-Soviet Countries. What does it take to reform a post-Soviet police force? Across the region, the countries inherited remarkably similar police forces with identical structures, chains of command, and politicized relationships with the political elite. Centralized in control but decentralized in their reach, the police remain one of the least reformed post-communist institutions. As a powerful state organ, the Soviet-style militarized police have resisted change despite democratic transformations in the overall political context, including rounds of competitive elections and growing civil society. This book explores the conditions in which a meaningful transformation of the police is likely to succeed and when it will fail. Based on the analysis of five post-Soviet countries (Ukraine, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan) that have officially embarked on police reform efforts, the book examines various pathways to transforming how the state relates to society through policing. It develops a new understanding of both police and police reform. Departing from the conventional interpretation of the police as merely an institution of coercion, this study defines it as a medium for state-society consensus on the limits of the state’s legitimate use of violence. Police are, according to a common Russian saying, a “mirror of society”—serving as a counterweight to its complexity. Police reform, in turn, is a process of consensus-building on the rationale of the use of violence through discussions, debates, media, and advocacy.

Panel April 6 – Strategies for legitimation and political succession in Eurasia

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This panel was originally proposed to, and accepted by, the annual convention of the International Studies Association to be held in Las Vegas, April 6-9. As the convention for known reasons moved into a virtual mode, we decided to hold this panel outside of the formal ISA framework.

The panel provides a series of perspectives on the issue of succession in the post-Soviet states of Eurasia. The countries under consideration are similar to the extent that they are authoritarian, that (with the exception of Kyrgyzstan) they have been ruled for a long time by the same person, and that rules and practises of succession have not been tried and tested. The panel combines two more general papers with three case studies – the contrasting recent cases of Kazakhstan (Silvan) and Kyrgyzstan (Joraev), and the currently uncertain case of Russia (Petersson). Du Boulay’s paper examines how charismatic leaders have been succeeded, and how successors adopt charismatic regime features, in a number of cases. Smith considers the application of theoretical possibilities and models of succession to the Eurasian cases. Two political science concepts are key to the approach of the papers – the well established concept of legitimacy, and the more recently developed one of charismatic leadership. The contrasting successes and failures of managed succession are considered within cultural as well as institutional contexts. By considering outcomes as well as strategies, the panel thus seeks to go beyond dominant approaches which stick to institutional and realist explanations of succession.

Chair: Natia Gamkrelidze (Linnaeus University)

Papers: 

Sofya du Boulay (Oxford Brookes University): The politics of post-charismatic succession and autocratic legitimation in the former Soviet space

Bo Petersson (Malmö University): Dealing with the Putin Predicament: Dilemmas of Political Succession in Russia

Jeremy Smith (Zayed University/University of Eastern Finland): Patterns of managed succession in Eurasia

Emilbek Dzhuraev (OSCE Academy in Bishkek): Caught in a (Vicious) Cycle? Informal and Formal Underpinnings of Leader Succession in Kyrgyzstan

Kristiina Silvan (University of Helsinki): All about legitimacy? Explaining the leadership succession in Kazakhstan

Discussant: Colleen Wood (Columbia University)

Tuesday, April 6, 3 pm – 5 pm CET

Welcome to join us at what promises to be a stimulating discussion of highly topical issues! The panel will convene by zoom.

Seminar with Tornike Metreveli

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Welcome to the RUCARR zoom seminar on February 9, 15.15.

Dr. Tornike Metreveli (Postdoctoral Researcher on Christianity, Nationalism, and Populism in Lund University) will present his new book Orthodox Christianity and the Politics of Transition: Ukraine, Serbia and Georgia (Routledge, 2021).

Contact rucarr@mau.se for the zoom link.

The book Orthodox Christianity and the Politics of Transition: Ukraine, Serbia and Georgia discusses in detail how Orthodox Christianity was involved in and influenced political transition in Ukraine, Serbia, and Georgia after the collapse of communism. Based on original research, including extensive interviews with clergy and parishioners as well as historical, legal, and policy analysis, the book argues that the nature of the involvement of churches in post-communist politics depended on whether the interests of the church (for example, in education, the legal system or economic activity) were accommodated or threatened: if accommodated, churches confined themselves to the sacred domain; if threatened, they engaged in daily politics. If churches competed with each other for organizational interests, they evoked the support of nationalism while remaining within the religious domain.

Bio

Tornike Metreveli is a sociologist of religion focusing on Orthodox Christianity’s interaction with secular politics and nationalism. Before joining Lund, he had various research fellowships at the University of St. Gallen, Harvard, and London School of Economics. His recent book Orthodox Christianity and the Politics of Transition: Ukraine, Serbia and Georgia (Routledge, 2021) focuses on the comparative-historical church-state interactions, giving a grassroots and institutional account of counterintuitive secularization agendas, church involvement in public policies and revolutions, as well as interdenominational competition for the status of the national church.