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2024Where is Russia Heading?
by Jens Siegert
Vladimir Putin has been ruling Russia for 25 years. There is no end in sight to his dictatorship. He relies on repression at home and is waging a war of destruction against a neighbouring country. The conflict with the West has long become a systemic conflict between an illiberal-autocratic ideology and liberal-democratic principles. Nothing will change as long as Putin remains in power. Nevertheless, as far as can be ascertained under unfree conditions, the majority of the population seems to be supporting Putin. Does this mean that too many people in Russia do not want democracy or peace? Will everything remain the same after Putin? Or is there a chance that Russia will eventually take a different, more democratic path? Whatever the outcome of the war in Ukraine, Russia is not going to disappear. We will still have to deal with our big neighbour in the east. This makes it all the more important to focus on longer-term developments. As a recognised expert on Russian history and society, the author outlines what the post-Putin era might look like. His in-depth analysis makes it clear that Russia is partly Putin, but Putin is not everything about Russia.
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Humanities & Social SciencesOctober 2022Germany's Russia problem
The struggle for balance in Europe
by John Lough
The relationship between Germany and Russia is Europe's most important link with the largest country on the continent. But despite Germany's unparalleled knowledge and historical experience, its policymakers struggle to accept that Moscow's efforts to rebalance Europe at the cost of the cohesion of the EU and NATO are an attack on Germany's core interests. This book explains the scale of the challenge facing Germany in managing relations with a changing Russia. It analyses how successive German governments from 1991 to 2014 misread Russian intentions, until Angela Merkel sharply recalibrated German and EU policy towards Moscow. The book also examines what lies behind efforts to revise Merkel's bold policy shift, including attitudes inherited from the GDR and the role of Russian influence channels in Germany.
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Humanities & Social SciencesOctober 2006Securitising Russia
The domestic politics of Vladimir Putin
by Bettina Renz, Edwin Bacon, Julian Cooper
Securitising Russia shows the impact of twenty-first-century security concerns on the way Russia is ruled. It demonstrates how President Putin has wrestled with terrorism, immigration, media freedom, religious pluralism, and economic globalism, and argues that fears of a return to old-style authoritarianism oversimplify the complex context of contemporary Russia. The book focuses on the internal security issues common to many states in the early twenty-first-century, and places them in the particular context of Russia. Detailed analysis of the place of security in Russia's political discourse and policy-making reveals nuances often missing from overarching assessments of Russia today. To characterise the Putin regime as the 'KGB-resurgent' is to miss vital continuities, contexts, and on-going political conflicts which make up the contemporary Russian scene. Securitising Russia draws together current debates about whether Russia is a 'normal' country developing its own democratic and market structures, or a nascent authoritarian regime returning to the past. ;
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Humanities & Social SciencesOctober 2020The European Union and its eastern neighbourhood
Europeanisation and its twenty-first-century contradictions
by Mike Mannin, Paul Flenley
This volume is timely in that it explores key issues which are currently at the forefront of the EU's relations with its eastern neighbours. It considers the impact of a more assertive Russia, the significance of Turkey, the limitations of the Eastern Partnership with Belarus and Moldova, the position of a Ukraine in crisis and pulled between Russia and the EU, security and democracy in the South Caucasus. It looks at the contested nature of European identity in areas such as the Balkans. In addition it looks at ways in which the EU's interests and values can be tested in sectors such as trade and migration. The interplay between values, identity and interests and their effect on the interpretation of europeanisation between the EU and its neighbours is a core theme of the volume.
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Humanities & Social SciencesOctober 2009Regional politics in Russia
by Cameron Ross
This innovative, multi-contributed book, now available in paperback, argues convincingly that Russia will never be able to create a viable democracy as long as authoritarian regimes are able to flourish in the regions. The main themes covered are democratisation at the regional level, and the problems faced by the federal states in forging viable democratic institutions in what is now a highly assymetrical Federation. A major strength of the book lies in its combination of thematic chapters with case studies of particular regions and republics. Very little has been published to date on the actual processes of democratisation in particular republics and regions. The book takes into account the literature available on the 'new institutionalism' and outlines the importance of institutions in developing and maintaining democracy. It looks at the importance of sovereignty, federalism and democratic order, and considers the distinct problems of party-building in Russia's regions. Electoral politics are also considered fully, before the book goes on to consider the whole issue of regional politics and democratisation in five particular areas of Russia - Novgorod, the Komi Republic, Russia's Far East, Tatarstan and Bashkortostan. The authors, the majority of whom are internationally recognised experts in their field, have been drawn from Britain, the USA, Russia and Germany, giving the book a truly global perspective. ;
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Humanities & Social SciencesNovember 2024US public diplomacy in socialist Yugoslavia, 1950–70
Soft culture, cold partners
by Carla Konta
The first comprehensive account of the public and cultural diplomacy campaigns carried out by the US in Yugoslavia during the height of the Cold War, this book examines the political role of culture in US-Yugoslav bilateral relations and the fluid links between information and propaganda. Tito allowed the US Information Agency and the State Department's cultural programmes to enter Yugoslavia, liberated from Soviet control. The exchange of intellectual and political personnel helped foster the US-Yugoslav relationship, yet it posed severe ideological challenges for both sides. By providing new insights into porous borders between freedom and coercion in Tito's regime, this book shows how public diplomacy acted as an external input for Yugoslav liberalisation and dissident movements. Using extensive archival research and interviews, Konta analyses the links between information and propaganda, and the unintended effects of propaganda beyond the control of producers and receivers.
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Business, Economics & LawMay 2021Regulating homosexuality in Soviet Russia, 1956–91
by Rustam Alexander
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Humanities & Social SciencesJuly 2005Late Imperial Russia
Problems and prospects
by Ian Thatcher
This volume offers a detailed examination of the stability of the late imperial regime in Russia. Students and scholars will appreciate the lively summaries of the latest scholarship in political, economic, social, cultural, and international history. Accessible yet insightful, contributions cover the historiography of complex topics such as peasants, workers, revolutionaries, foreign relations, and Nicholas II. In addition, there are original studies of some of the leading intellectuals of the time. The late imperial economy is examined through the writings of Tugan-Baranovsky. There is an account of M. N. Pokrovskii's radical interpretation of late imperial Russia's historical path of development. The state of the Russian theatre is studied through the lives of theatrical impresarios. Each chapter also highlights a unique interpretation, suggesting new lines of inquiry and research. This book will be compulsory reading for students of Russian and European history of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries seeking to better understand why Tsarism collapsed in 1917. ;
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Humanities & Social SciencesJanuary 2024The urban life of workers in post-Soviet Russia
Engaging in everyday struggle
by Alexandrina Vanke
Despite the intense processes of deindustrialisation around the world, the working class continues to play an important role in post-industrial societies. However, working-class people are often stigmatised, morally judged and depicted negatively in dominant discourses. This book challenges stereotypical representations of workers, building on research into the everyday worlds of working-class and ordinary people in Russia's post-industrial cities. The urban life of workers in post-Soviet Russia is centred on the stories of local communities engaged in the everyday struggles that occur in deindustrialising settings under neoliberal neo-authoritarianism. The book suggests a novel approach to everyday life in post-industrial cities. Drawing on an ethnographic study with elements of arts-based research, the book presents a new genre of writing about workers influenced by the avant-garde documentary tradition and working-class literature.
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Humanities & Social SciencesMay 2025
The Caucasus Emirate
Ideology, identity, and insurgency in Russia’s North Caucasus
by Mark Youngman
Insurgency has plagued the North Caucasus since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Between 2007 and 2015, rebels waged their struggle under the banner of the Caucasus Emirate (Imarat Kavkaz, IK). This book systematically examines the IK's ideology to explain what the group claimed to be fighting for and against and how it sought to mobilise people behind its cause. It reveals a group with a weakly developed political programme, which aligned itself with global jihadism but consistently prioritised local concerns. It demonstrates the priority rebel leaders afforded to shaping local identities, but also their failure to forge a unified movement or revitalise armed struggle. Re-evaluating the IK's ideology helps us better understand the past and future of armed struggle in the North Caucasus.
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Humanities & Social SciencesSeptember 2017Gender and housing in Soviet Russia
Private life in a public space
by Pamela Sharpe, Lynne Attwood, Penny Summerfield, Lynn Abrams, Cordelia Beattie
This book explores the housing problem throughout the 70 years of Soviet history, looking at changing political ideology on appropriate forms of housing under socialism, successive government policies on housing, and the meaning and experience of 'home' for Soviet citizens. Attwood examines the use of housing to alter gender relations, and the ways in which domestic space was differentially experienced by men and women. Much of Attwood's material comes from Soviet magazines and journals, which enables her to demonstrate how official ideas on housing and daily life changed during the course of the Soviet era, and were propagandised to the population. Through a series of in-depth interviews, she also draws on the memories of people with direct experience of Soviet housing and domestic life. Attwood has produced not just a history of housing, but a social history of daily life which will appeal both to scholars and those with a general interest in Soviet history.
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Humanities & Social SciencesApril 2020The US public diplomacy in socialist Yugoslavia, 1950-70
by Carla Konta, Giles Scott-Smith, J. Simon Rofe
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Humanities & Social SciencesFebruary 2000Churchill and the Soviet Union
by David Carlton
In the already vast literature on Churchill, no single work has focused on his changing attitude towards the Soviet Union. This is the first project to isolate just one major theme in Churchill's lifeExplores whether or not Churchill was consistent through forty years and examines the possibility that perceptions of domestic political advantage may have shaped his course more than high-monded and disinterested evaluations of evolving Soviet intentions and capabilitiesChurchill still arouses a great deal of general interest, and a work which challenges a number of preconceptions, as this book does, will undoubtedly appeal to the general readerA clearly argued, revisionist study of Churchill's views about and dealings with the Soviet Union. It will be part of the growing historical literature that seeks to reassess Churchill. ;
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Humanities & Social SciencesSeptember 2021
A precarious equilibrium
Human rights and détente in Jimmy Carter's Soviet policy
by Umberto Tulli
Human rights and détente inextricably intertwined during Carter's years. By promoting human rights in the USSR, Carter sought to build a domestic consensus for détente; through bipolar dialogue, he tried to advance human rights in the USSR. But, human rights contributed to the erosion of détente without achieving a lasting domestic consensus.
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Humanities & Social SciencesAugust 2021The Red and the Black
The Russian Revolution and the Black Atlantic
by David Featherstone, Christian Høgsbjerg
The Russian Revolution of 1917 was not just a world-historical event in its own right, but also struck powerful blows against racism and imperialism, and so inspired many black radicals internationally. This edited collection explores the implications of the creation of the Soviet Union and the Communist International for black and colonial liberation struggles across the African diaspora. It examines the critical intellectual influence of Marxism and Bolshevism on the current of revolutionary 'black internationalism' and analyses how 'Red October' was viewed within the contested articulations of different struggles against racism and colonialism. Challenging European-centred understandings of the Russian Revolution and the global left, The Red and the Black offers new insights on the relations between Communism, various lefts and anti-colonialisms across the Black Atlantic - including Garveyism and various other strands of Pan-Africanism. The volume makes a major and original intellectual contribution by making the relations between the Russian Revolution and the Black Atlantic central to debates on questions relating to racism, resistance and social change.
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Humanities & Social SciencesMay 2021
Disciplined agency
Neoliberal precarity, generational dispossession and call centre labour in Portugal
by Patrícia Alves de Matos
Since the mid-2000s, the harsh reality of call centre employment for a generation of young workers in Portugal has been impossible to ignore. With its endless rows of small cubicles, where human agents endure repetitive telephone conversations with abusive clients under invasive modes of technological surveillance, discipline and control, call centre work remains a striking symbol of labour precarity, a condition particularly associated with the neoliberal generational disenchantment that 'each generation does better than its predecessor'. This book describes the emergence of a regime of disciplined agency in the Portuguese call centre sector. Examining the ascendancy of call centres as icons of precarity in contemporary Portugal, this book argues that call centre labour constitutes a new form of commodification of the labouring subject. De Matos argues that call centres represent an advanced system of non-manual labour power exploitation, due to the underestimation of human creativity that lies at the centre of the regimented structures of call centre labour. Call centres can only guarantee profit maintenance, de Matos argues, through the commodification of the human agency arising from the operators' moral, relational and social embedded agentive linguistic interventions of creative improvisation, decision-making, problem-solving and ethical evaluation.
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Humanities & Social SciencesSeptember 2018Race and the Yugoslav region
Postsocialist, post-conflict, postcolonial?
by Catherine Baker, Gurminder Bhambra
This is the first book to situate the territories and collective identities of former Yugoslavia within the politics of race - not just ethnicity - and the history of how ideas of racialised difference have been translated globally. The book connects critical race scholarship, global historical sociologies of 'race in translation' and south-east European cultural critique to show that the Yugoslav region is deeply embedded in global formations of race. In doing this, it considers the everyday geopolitical imagination of popular culture; the history of ethnicity, nationhood and migration; transnational formations of race before and during state socialism, including the Non-Aligned Movement; and post-Yugoslav discourses of security, migration, terrorism and international intervention, including the War on Terror and the present refugee crisis.
