Glamorous politics or political glamour? Content analysis of political coverage in Russian glossy magazines

This article analyzes political and social themes of Russia's glossy magazines which represent the few remaining public spaces for surviving freedom of speech and expression in that post-communist country. As authoritarian nature of Russian political system deepens, the democratic openings often appear in unexpected places. Content analysis of two glamour monthlies, one (GQ-Russian Edition) intended for male audience, another (Cosmopolitan-Russia) – for female readership, shows consistently oppositional (anti-Putin) thrust of both publications, but also persistent political gender stereotypes. Analysis of these publications, intended for Russia's nascent urban class – traditionally a social strata most associated with democratic impulses – provides an important explanation behind recent democratic protest activities in Moscow and St. Petersburg.     

Russia's changing security role in Central Asia

The paper explores Russia's role in security in Central Asia, which analysts interpreted as projection of hegemony. It argues that this role is changing and is shaped by a variety of factors, sometimes acting in contradiction to one another. Domestic agenda is influenced by the danger discourse on drugs and anti-migrant sentiment and urges to detach from Central Asia. Moscow maintains a military presence in the region but is uncertain if it has serious enough stakes to justify a robust approach to security. Refusal to intervene in Kyrgyzstan in 2010 serves as a potent case. Regional organisations echo the non-intervention stance. As a ‘cost-benefit’ approach to security gains momentum, the paper asks if a policy of selective engagement is emerging when only the issues threatening Russia directly will be addressed. The implication can be a security vacuum in the region, affected by ethnic conflict, inter-state disputes and the consequences of withdrawal from Afghanistan.     

Voluntary organizations and society–military relations in contemporary Russia

The 2014 crisis in Ukraine has refocused attention on Russia as a European security actor. Despite showing renewed military capability, compared to the post-Soviet period, Russian society–military relations have remained the same. This relationship (between society and the security organs) provides the key context for assessing security. Analysis of everyday militarization and the role of voluntary organizations (such as DOSAAF [Dobrovol'noe obshchestvo sodeistviya armii, aviatsii i flotu] and Nashi [Molodezhnoe demokraticheskoe antifashistskoe dvizheni]) in supporting the military can provide an important insight into Russian behaviour as a security actor. These organizations generate a pro-military outlook and at the same time provide training and activities, thus contributing to military effectiveness by developing the competency of young people prior to military service as well as increasing public knowledge of military affairs. However, strong support for the military, a lack of independent information, and an absence of a shared vision on how society–military relations should be developed and also represent political challenges in terms of everyday militarization. This dynamic is important for understanding both Russia's security posture and wider security implications for Europe.     

俄加入世贸组织过渡期黑龙江省对俄经贸合作对策

俄罗斯于2012年8月正式成为世贸组织成员国。加入WTO后,俄必须遵守WTO规则要求,投资环境进一步趋好,市场准入扩大,将为黑龙江省推进对俄经贸合作提供难得发展机遇。但这并不意味着对俄合作风险已完全消除,黑龙江省对俄合作仍将面临诸多挑战,在俄加入WTO过渡期,应主动适应新形势,推动对俄经贸合作实现又好又快发展。     

黑龙江省对俄林业经贸合作战略升级研究

对俄林业经贸合作是黑龙江省可以先行的和最有发展潜力的合作领域。未来黑龙江省对俄林业经贸合作将呈现良好的发展态势,实行跨国经营、加强两国地区间和企业间合作,采取灵活多样的形式与策略等,都是保障黑龙江省对俄林业经贸合作真正富有成效的可行途径。     

俄罗斯的东北亚政策

俄罗斯的东北亚政策在其对外政策中具有非常特殊的位置,俄罗斯在制订东北亚政策时,是以东西伯利亚和远东地区为主要背景,并注重寻找两个平衡点:一是既要积极参与东北亚的政治合作,保证俄罗斯不被排斥在地区事务之外,又要保证这种参与不危害俄罗斯东西伯利亚和远东地区的安全与稳定;二是既要积极参与东北亚的经济合作,保证东西伯利亚和远东所需要的市场、资金、技术和劳动力,又要防止该地区的经济完全脱离俄罗斯,成为东北亚经济的"资源附庸"。俄罗斯在东北亚的政策越来越积极、越来越主动、越来越全面。俄罗斯完成了由旁观者向参与者的转变,正在由普通参与者向核心参与者转变。     

新普京时代的俄欧关系走势分析

不出大的意外,未来10年普京都将主政俄罗斯。这也是俄罗斯重新崛起的关键时期。对于俄罗斯而言,无论是现代化战略的实施,还是世界大国地位和影响力的重塑,俄欧战略伙伴关系都至关重要。显然,对于一向重视俄欧关系的普京而言,欧洲仍将是俄罗斯外交的优先方向。但考虑到一系列结构性矛盾和分歧的存在,俄欧关系仍难以迈出实质性步伐。     

Excavating Concealed Tradeoffs: How Russians Watch the News

Citizens in democracies are expected to make better decisions if they understand policy tradeoffs. However, politicians rarely have incentives to communicate them; citizens are uncomfortable choosing among valued outcomes; and devising a common metric is difficult. It is not surprising that in the United States the environment provides relatively little cuing or priming of tradeoffs in television news. Russian citizens, on the other hand, face a media environment in which tradeoff cuing is intentionally suppressed by owners' agendas, yet viewers detect concealed tradeoffs even in the absence of tradeoff priming and viewpoint diversity. Analysis of discourse among ordinary Russians in 16 focus groups convened in four cities, differentiated by political reform and media market environments, showed that when watching news in which tradeoffs are thoroughly concealed, viewers challenge stories by offering a broad spectrum of uncued tradeoffs. Tradeoffs come from diverse policy domains and represent a range of cognitive strategies, some of which are considerably more abstract than others and link elements of their observations and assumptions (together with what they can extract from the stories) into complex reasoning outcomes.     

Dominant party systems: a framework for conceptualizing opposition strategies in Russia

This article explores the problems facing opposition political parties in Russia. In order to conceptualize the conditions in which opposition parties operate and which determine the strategies they adopt, the concept of dominant party systems is used as an analytical framework. Ideological flexibility, access to administrative resources, and the ability to mobilize key socio-economic groups (key factors in the maintenance of one-party domination) are all features associated with Russia's ‘dominant’ party, United Russia. It is argued that, whilst Russia is not a dominant party system along the lines of those which existed in Mexico and Japan, there are sufficient commonalities with such systems, in terms of the problems facing opposition political parties as to make comparison a useful exercise. The optimum strategies for opposition parties in dominant party systems (activist recruitment, ideological positioning and coalition-building) are identified and it is argued that these are all areas which Russian opposition parties need to address if they are to successfully challenge the regime and the ‘party of power’, United Russia.     

Economic foundations of subnational authoritarianism: insights and evidence from qualitative and quantitative research

A growing body of subnational comparative research on democracy has focused attention on ‘subnational authoritarianism’, in tandem with increasing interest in local politics across the developing world. Unsurprisingly, this evolving field of study has been characterized by a diversity – if not a dichotomy – of approaches, with quantitative and qualitative research proceeding along parallel and sometimes intersecting tracks. But scholars working in diverse contexts and with diverging approaches have begun to converge on a set of explanations for the patterns of variance observed in subnational authoritarianism within and across national settings. Drawing on studies of Russia, the United States, southern Italy, Argentina and West Africa, this article shows how scholarship has identified the underlying economic foundations of subnational authoritarianism. Combining the findings of recent qualitative and quantitative studies with the author's own research in the Philippines, this article spells out a set of hypotheses which may help to explain patterns of variance in subnational authoritarianism. Variance in subnational authoritarianism, it is suggested, stems from varying local economic conditions and possibilities for accumulation and maintenance of control over local economies. Further ‘mapping’ of subnational authoritarianism thus requires local fieldwork to complement the strengths – and overcome the limitations – of quantitative research.