Category: Events

Seminar “Communist state administrative structures” with Astrid Hedin – Dec 14

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Seminar with Dr. Astrid Hedin, Associate Professor, Visiting scholar at Harvard Univ. Davis Center: Communist state administrative structures. Welcome!

When? December 14, 4.15-5.30 pm
Where: Zoom link

Abstract

Despite the common progeny of communist regimes across the world, research has often treated each communist regime as sui generis, as a class by itself. At the same time, area studies tend to assume that readers are already familiar with the basic structures and core administrative traits of communist regimes. 

This article seeks to acquaint a broader set of researchers with communist state administration as a “family” or type (cf. Wollman, 2021). In focus are the core political-institutional features and administrative traditions of the communist state; the historical doctrines, terminology, and actual practices under communism. Administrative structures are described from a broad institutionalist perspective, guided by classic questions concerning principles of hierarchy, autonomy, and complexity, as well as historical praxis and norms, emergent standard operating procedures, and informal rules and relations. 

Popular understanding often envisages communist-type administration as hierarchical commands from the top, which can be quietly resisted and circumvented by a purportedly nonpolitical bureaucracy and everyday life. In contrast, empirical studies of both historical communist regimes and 21st-century China draw up a picture of political control more as a tangled and overlapping grid, trellis, espalier, or net.  

A concluding section comments on the historical difficulties of doing research on communist administration and suggests some prospects for the field’s change and development

 

Whose Culture War is it? Seminar with Rico Isaacs on Dec 7

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Dr Rico Isaacs, Associate Professor in Politics, University of Lincoln:
Whose Culture War is it? The Istanbul Convention and the Politics of Gender, Tradition & Morality in Latvia

PhD Candidate Isobel Squire, Dept. of Global Political Studies (GPS) will introduce the speaker.
 
Meeting ID: 650 6223 9038
Passcode: 516968
 
December 7, 3-5 pm (zoom)
This paper explores the concept of culture wars through a thematic analysis of an on-going discussion of the ratification of the Istanbul Convention in Latvia. The analysis finds that the Latvian parliament’s struggle to ratify the Convention can be ultimately understood as a power struggle in which various political, religious and family-based interest groups are aiming to restore a self-perceived equilibrium within Latvian society In response to the perceived loss of male power, prestige and highly contestable notions of ‘traditional’ Latvian family values. The analysis eschews simple dichotomies that litter current conceptualisations of culture wars, recognising instead the fluid, dynamic and complex nature of Latvia’s culture war, and using Björn Kraus’ (2014) constructive theory of power the paper details how different sides within the debate are seeking to instruct or restrict the rights, resources, and values of others.
 

Seminar with Prof. Vello Pettai Sept 28

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Foresight Scenarios on Populism: Imagining Central and Eastern European Politics in 2030

Welcome to the RUCARR seminar with Prof. Vello Pettai, University of Tartu: Foresight Scenarios on Populism: Imagining Central and Eastern European Politics in 2030

When: September 28, 3-5 pm (Swedish time)

Where: Zoom, sign-up here

Abstract

Foresight research offers a range of techniques and perspectives in order to analyse political trends looking toward the future. This presentation will lay out a series of foresight scenarios about populist politics in Central and Eastern Europe that have been developed within the EU Horizon-2020 project “POPREBEL”. The scenarios are not meant as predictions, but rather as perspective-enhancing exercises about how different drivers might come together to create different outcomes by 2030. Participants will be asked to provide their analytical advice about how to improve the scenarios.

Seminar with Dr. Nino Antadze – October 19

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The role of traditional rituals in resisting energy injustice: The case of hydropower developments in Svaneti, Georgia

RUCARR seminar with Dr. Nino Antadze (University of Prince Edward Island)

October 19, 3.15 pm (zoom)

Sign-up here

Abstract

This study with co-author Kety Gujaraidze intervenes in the energy justice literature by bringing to the foreground the local, emplaced, and bottom-up perspective. We specifically explore the potential of place-based agency, expressed in the form of traditional rituals, to expand the repertoire of extra-institutional means of resistance against various manifestations of energy injustice. We investigate the recent developments in the hydropower sector in the Svaneti region of the Republic of Georgia. Based on a qualitative research design involving personal interviews and document analysis, we explain how and why the traditional ritual of taking the oath of unity on the icon of St. George has been used to oppose hydropower developments, and how the employment of this extra-institutional action is linked to the changed political opportunity structure. In addition to underscoring the need to recognize and respect the cultural and religious importance assigned to traditional rituals by local communities, the findings of our study imply a need to consider traditional rituals not merely as symbolic or/and performative means of resistance, but also as political tools that may have a significant impact on the development of energy projects.

Bio

Dr. Nino Antadze is an Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at the University of Prince Edward Island (Canada). Dr. Antadze studies environmental planning processes with the emphasis on environmental and energy justice, and large-scale environmental change with the focus on climate justice and just transitions. Dr. Antadze earned a PhD in urban and regional planning from the University of Waterloo, Canada. She also holds an MSc in Environmental Management and Policy from Lund University, Sweden and an MSc in Environmental Sciences and Policy from Central European University, Hungary.

Bokpresentation med Kalle Kniivilä

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Journalisten och författaren Kalle Kniivilä presenterar i samtal med Bo Petersson (RUCARR) sin bok Putins värsta fiende : Aleksej Navalnyj och hans anhängare. Boken utkommer den 7 juni på bokförlaget Atlas.

Tid: Tisdag 8 juni, 15:00 – 16:30  (på svenska / in Swedish)

Om boken: Putins värsta fiende : Aleksej Navalnyj och hans anhängare

Den 20 augusti 2020 förgiftades den ledande ryske oppositionspolitikern Aleksej Navalnyj med ett militärt nervgift som nästan tog hans liv. Den ryska säkerhetstjänsten stod bakom mordförsöket, vars uppenbara syfte var att bli av med den jobbiga mannen som inte låtit sig tystas. När Navalnyj envisades med att inte dö försökte makthavarna tvinga honom att stanna utomlands och förvandla honom till ännu en marginaliserad regimkritiker i exil. Men han återvände till Ryssland, trots att han visste att Vladimir Putin i så fall kan låta bura in honom så länge han vill. Varför är han inte rädd och varför måste han tvunget återvända till Ryssland? Och framför allt, varför är Vladimir Putin rädd för honom, om det nu är så att majoriteten av ryssarna fortfarande tycker att Putin gör ett bra jobb, medan bara ett fåtal aktivt stödjer Navalnyj? Vem är egentligen Navalnyj och vilka är hans anhängare? Det är några av frågorna den här boken försöker ge svar på.

Läs mer om boken och Kalle Kniivilä

Seminar on the history of Caucasian Studies with Prof. Oliver Reisner

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On the history of Caucasian Studies in the Tsarist Empire and early Soviet Union

Welcome to the RUCARR zoom seminar with Prof. Oliver Reisner (School of Arts & Sciences, Jean Monnet Chair, European & Caucasian Studies, Ilia State University, Tbilisi). The topic of his talk is On the history of Caucasian Studies in the Tsarist Empire and early Soviet Union.

When: May 25, 2021
Where: zoom, sign up here

Abstract

In the past few years the first systematizing and critically reflective works on area studies in the Tsarist Empire and the Soviet Union appeared. However, neither Eastern European history concentrating on the Slavic peoples nor philological Oriental studies have so far sufficiently addressed the effects of Tsarist and Soviet systems of scientific research into the Caucasus. In contrast, in the young post-Soviet nation-states, scholars often tend to interpret the share of Soviet research in their own national research traditions as a product of external determination, oppression or colonization, or at least they completely ignore it. The establishment of ‘kavkazovednie’ or Caucasiology as area studies represents the focus of my talk. The knowledge gained in this field is not considered as fixed, but seen as part of a culturally negotiated understanding of the Caucasus region. We will take a look at the places and groups supporting research in a concrete ‘microcosm’, here the Faculty for Oriental Languages of St. Petersburg University, the Caucasian Historical Archaeological Institute (1917) or the first Georgian university (1918) in Tbilisi. Research was embedded in varying political and social environments of Petersburg/Leningrad, Moscow and Tbilisi (Tiflis) for the Caucasus. I attempt to clarify the interdependence of these three ‘areas of experience’ in my discussion of the role of scholarship in state and society. Scientific achievement has been of particular importance for the self-understanding and representation of an imperial-state as well as respective nations. Recent studies into the practice of research in the early Soviet Union address most of all the effectiveness of scientific paradigms of nation building, but not so far scope and approaches of Caucasus Studies as area studies as an academic practice.
 

Short bio

Oliver Reisner is professor in European and Caucasian Studies at Ilia State University Tbilisi (Georgia) since 2015. He received his Dr. phil. degree in East European History for a thesis on nation building in Georgia at Göttingen University (2000), coordinated the MA programme “Central Asia / Caucasus” at Humboldt University Berlin (2000-2003). After implementing an EU-funded civic integration project with World Vision in Georgia, from 2005 until 2015 he was working as project manager at the EU Delegation to Georgia. He published a monograph and 28 papers, most recently on Europeanisation, religion, civil society in Georgia as well as the Georgia country reports for the Bertelsmann Transformation Index. He is a member of the board of the “Association of European Studies for the Caucasus” and of the advisory council of the “European Journal of Minority Issues”. Currently he is leading a research project “In Search of Social Cohesion in Minor Urban Settings of Georgia” (Rustaveli National Science Foundation). Finally, he is co-editor of the series “Caucasian Studies” at Reichert Verlag Wiesbaden.

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.

Seminar April 9 – The process of restoration of Georgia’s statehood

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This year marks 30 years since the 1991 referendum on the restoration Georgia’s statehood and the following declaration of independence. The years 1988-91 were a period of profound changes in the republics of the Soviet Union, subsequently leading up to the dissolution of the USSR at the end of 1991. In the RUCARR seminar on April 9 the presenters Merab Chukhua and Tina Tskhovrebadze approach and discuss the process of restoration of Georgia’s statehood from two perspectives:

From the 9th of April to the 9th of  April – a brief glance

Dr. Merab Chukhua was active in the national movement in Soviet Georgia during the last years of the Soviet Union and is currently Professor of Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, Department of Caucasiology, and also Director of the Circassian Culture Center (Tbilisi).

Politics of Memory in the Process of Georgian Statehood Restoration

Tina Tskhovrebadze is a PhD Candidate at the Dept of Political Science Tbilisi State University and currently working as a research assistant in the project Politics of Memory in Georgia in 1988-1991 at the Institute of Political Science. She a former visiting PhD Candidate to Caucasus Studies, Malmö University.

When:  April 9 13.15–15.00 (Zoom, CET, Swedish time).

Special thanks to Chargé d’affaires Levan Machavariani of the Embassy of  the Republic of Georgia to Sweden for his kind contribution in the organisation of this event and introduction to the seminar.

Merab Chukhua: From the 9th of April to the 9th of  April – a brief glance

 

Tina Tskhovrebadze: Politics of Memory in the Process of Georgian Statehood Restoration

 

 

Seminar with Prof. Marlene Laruelle – March 16

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Is Russia fascist? Unraveling propaganda East West

Welcome to next RUCARR seminar with Prof. Marlene Laruelle, George Washington University, where she will present and discuss her latest book Is Russia fascist? Unraveling propaganda East West.

When: March 16, 15.15–17.00 (Swedish time)
Where: Zoom, Sign up here

In the book Is Russia fascist? Unraveling propaganda East West, Dr. Laruelle argues that the charge of “fascism” has become a strategic narrative of the current world order. Vladimir Putin’s regime has increasingly been accused of embracing fascism, supposedly evidenced by Russia’s annexation of Crimea, its historical revisionism, attacks on liberal democratic values, and its support for far-right movements in Europe. But at the same time Russia has branded itself as the world’s preeminent antifascist power because of its sacrifices during the Second World War while it has also emphasized how opponents to the Soviet Union in Central and Eastern Europe collaborated with Nazi Germany. She argues that ultimately the current memory fight is a struggle to define the future of Europe, and it is the key question of Russia’s inclusion or exclusion that draws the line of divide.

Bio

Marlene Laruelle, Ph.D., is Director and Research Professor at the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES), Elliott School of International Affairs, The George Washington University.  Dr. Laruelle is also Director of the Illiberalism Studies Program and a Co-Director of PONARS (Program on New Approaches to Research and Security in Eurasia).  Dr. Laruelle received her Ph.D. in history at the National Institute of Oriental Languages and Cultures (INALCO) and her post-doctoral degree in political science at Sciences-Po in Paris. She has recently published Russian Nationalism. Imaginaries, Doctrines, and Political Battlefields (Routledge, 2018), and Memory Politics and the Russian Civil War. Reds versus Whites (Bloomsbury, with Margarita Karnysheva).

Seminar with Dr. Peter Eltsov

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The Long Telegram 2.0: A Neo-Kennanite Approach to Russia

Dr. Peter Eltsov, Associate Professor of International Security Affairs at the College of International Security Affairs, National Defense University (Washington), presents his recent book The Long Telegram 2.0: A Neo-Kennanite Approach to Russia. When: April 12, 4-6 pm (zoom, CET)

In this book, Eltsov lays out an original argument for understanding Russia that goes deep into its history, starting with the tri-partite dictum “orthodoxy, autocracy, nationality,” formulated in 1833 by count Sergey Uvarov. Eltsov explores Uvarov’s triad in the context of modern Russia, adding five more traits: exceptionalism, expansionism, historical primordialism, worship of the military, and glorification of suffering.

The author argues that, as presently constituted, Russia cannot become a democracy, and, sooner than later, it will disintegrate, replicating the fate of the Soviet Union. The key reasons for these, according to the author, are: weak mechanisms for the transition of power, poorly developed institutions of the state, feeble economy and education, frail ideology, and, most importantly, the lack of a unified national identity. Following this assessment, Eltsov defines a strategy for dealing with Russia, based on a combination of offensive realism and realpolitik, recommending that the West copes with Russia in a more pragmatic manner. Eltsov also will connect his ideas to most recent events in Russia, such as the adoption of a new constitution and the relations with Belarus.

Bio

Peter Eltsov is an anthropologist and historian. He holds MA in South and South East Asian Studies from the University of California at Berkeley and PhD in Anthropology from Harvard.  Prior to the National Defense University, Eltsov held positions at Free University in Berlin, the Library of Congress, Harvard University, and Wellesley College. Eltsov has published both in academic and mainstream venues and provided numerous commentaries for the media. In his current research, he is particularly interested in how competing interpretations of the past affect modern politics, including conflict and war.