Erik Davtyan is Assistant Professor at Yerevan State University, Armenia.
Abstract
This talk will examine Armenia’s agency in the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). It will demonstrate how Armenia, being the smallest member state and facing a huge power asymmetry, has been able to influence the decision-making in the EAEU. The presenter will talk about three different strategies Armenia used to protect its interests: a) instrumentalizing the opportunities emanating from the institutional settings of the organization, b) negotiating exemptions from the EAEU legislation and securing core interests in the external relations of the union, and c) promoting specific ideas with the purpose of tailoring EAEU’s policy in a particular field to its economic needs.
Joint REDEM/RUCARR seminar: «The importance of solving the problems of internally displaced persons by local authorities and protecting their rights in the administrative courts in Ukraine
Seminar given by Olena Miliienko, British Academy Fellow at the Politics & International Studies Department of the University of Warwick UK
Abstract: In Ukraine, since 2014 (the beginning of Russia’s armed aggression in the east of the country and illegal annexation of Crimea), a significant number of people have become internally displaced persons who have repeatedly suffered violations of their rights, including the right to life, basic social services, medical care, education, access to housing. Resolving these issues requires effective intervention by administrative courts to protect the rights of IDPs. The purpose of the study was to reveal the mechanisms and effectiveness of administrative courts’ intervention in resolving internal displacement issues, and to identify problems and shortcomings of government policies that encourage internally displaced persons to apply to the court. It was found that administrative courts play an important role in resolving issues of internal displacement in case of possible shortcomings in government policy. They provide legal protection and support for those in need of internal displacement and can influence the improvement of government policies in this area.
The study highlights the need to change government policies, systematically assess and develop effective internal displacement strategies. The study has practical implications for understanding the impact of administrative courts on internal displacement and government policies. There is a need to improve coordination and cooperation among various government bodies to ensure appropriate conditions and protect the rights of persons in need of internal displacement. In this way, court decisions can be a catalyst for changes in government policy and force the government to provide adequate protection and support to affected individuals.
What Constitutes Post-Soviet Sovereignty? Tajikistan and the (re)Formation of National Security after the Collapse of the USSR
Isaac McKean Scarborough
As recent events attest, the state of post-Soviet sovereignty is, to put it lightly, contested. Yet this is nothing new: since 1991 the traditional boundaries of sovereignty, from national borders to state security services to control over populations have existed in fluctuating and hybrid forms across the former Soviet Union. This paper argues that the hybridity of post-Soviet sovereignty and the blending of national security structures across national borders in the post-Soviet space is directly related to the collapse and reformation of the Soviet security services in and around 1991. Using the case study of Tajikistan, it demonstrates that the breakdown of state order across the Soviet divide was accompanied by a close and immediate reintegration of security services between Tajikistan and Russia, which over the coming decades would have important consequences both for Tajikistan’s sovereignty and the engagement between the countries’ governments.
On November 19, Ass. Prof. Per-Anders Rudling will give the paper “History as a political instrument in the Cold War: the 1941 Pogroms, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, and the CIA”. When: 15.15-17.00, Nov 19 Where: Niagara building, room C0826 Abstract The intersection of Stalinist, Nazi, and Ukrainian nationalist violence profoundly, and irreversibly changed the social and demographic situation in Ukraine. The Holocaust, the expulsion and massacres of the Polish minority turned a multiethnic borderlands of what used to be eastern Poland into ethnically highly a homogenous heartland of Ukrainian nationalism. In west Ukraine, the Holocaust started with a wave of massive anti-Jewish violence, in which local nationalist militias played a central role. After the war, several hundred thousand Ukrainian nationalists ended up as political refugees in the West, where they set up intensely anti-communist political communities. A historical memory, centred around Ukrainian suffering while excluding the plight of Jews and Poles came to constitute the basis of the Ukrainian diaspora’s identity. During the Cold War, this memory culture was successfully instrumentalized for political purposes by Western intelligence services, in particularly, the CIA. After the collapse of the Soviet Union this memory culture was “re-exported” to Ukraine. After the “Orange Revolution” of 2004/05 and the “Euromaidan” of 2013/14 a highly selective historical memory was elevated to state ideology, and radical nationalist groups such as the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and its armed wing, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) and its leaders were posthumously rehabilitated. My lecture deals with the difficult legacy of the 1941 anti-Jewish pogroms, their absence in Ukrainian “national memory,” and the migration of memory between homeland and diaspora during and after the Cold War.
Per Anders Rudling An associate professor of history at Lund University, Per Anders Rudling, currently is a Senior Lecturer in European Studies at Malmö University, and a Research Associate at the Center for Baltic and East European Studies at Södertörn University College. He holds MA degrees in the Russian language and literature from Uppsala University (1998) and in history from San Diego State University (2003). After completing his Ph.D. in history from the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada in 2009, he was a post-doctoral fellow at the Universities of Greifswald (2010-2011) and Lund (2012-2014). In 2015, he was a visiting professor at the University of Vienna, and 2015-2019 Senior Visiting Fellow and Coordinator of the European Studies Program at the National University of Singapore.
The Malmö-based LUPSRUSS (Legitimacy, Urban Planning and Sustainability in Russia and Sweden) project held its dissemination conference in Stockholm on 29-30 November 2018.
There were researchers, municipal representatives and several organisations and NGOs represented from 14 towns, including Aramil, Ekaterinburg, Kostomuksha, Petrozavodsk, St Petersburg (Russia); Gällivare, Halmstad, Karlskrona, Malmö, Stockholm (Sweden); Ballerup, Odsherred, Copenhagen (Denmark); and Dublin (Ireland), RUCARR researchers took part along with their other colleagues in the research group.
The inaugural conference of the research platform Russia and the Caucasus Regional Research (RUCARR) will be held at the Faculty of Culture and Society, Malmö University on December 8-9, 2016. The conference will include presentations from internationally leading experts on Russia and the Caucasus. Keynote addresses will be delivered by Prof Vladmir Gel’man (European University at Saint Petersburg & University of Helsinki) and Prof Stephen Jones (Mount Holyoke College, Massachusetts)
Please, use the sign-up link. Looking forward to seeing you in December!
Bo Petersson and Karina Vamling
RUCARR Co-directors
Prof. Bo Petersson, Global Politicas Studies, Malmö University, acted as commentator at the film screening of “The Russian Woodpecker”, organized by Doc Lounge in Malmö.
