Informal Institutions in Azerbaijan: Exploring the Intricacies of Tapsh

Research on informal aspects of the post-communist economy and political institutions has developed rapidly since the collapse of the Soviet Union. While there is no lack in research on informal practices in Russia and other Eastern European countries, comprehensive empirical investigations of informality in peripheral regions of the former Soviet Union—such as the Caucasus and Central Asia—are still rare. This article aims to fill this gap by providing an evidence-based empirical account of informal practices in post-Soviet Azerbaijan. Drawing its empirical data from a two-decade-long ethnographic participant observation carried out in various locales of Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, this study offers nuanced insights into the hitherto unexplored informal practice of tapsh.     

The Soviet and the Post-Soviet: Street Names and National Discourse in Almaty

Abstract

While discussing Kazakhstan's post-Soviet identity, scholars treat ‘Kazakhisation’ as a given, and the substance of the process of developing such an identity is usually ignored. This article gives an insight into this process by analysing the politics of street names in Almaty and its relation to collective memory in post-Soviet Kazakhstan. It is argued that the so-called ‘Kazakhisation’ of the country has been shaped primarily by the Soviet legacy, and it is in no sense pursuing the elimination of the Soviet past, or moving essentially anti-Russian lines. In fact, the post-Soviet discourse of the Kazakh nation is not a rupture but a continuation of Soviet discourses.     

Cossack identity in the new Russia: Kuban Cossack revival and local politics

This article deals with the problem of contemporary Cossack identities, and discusses the question of popular support for the Kuban Cossack organisation in the southern Russian region, Krasnodar krai. In the early 1990s the Cossack movement gathered between 3.5 and 5 million people, and constituted a significant political movement in post-Soviet Russia. Today, the movement's political force has weakened. In this article it is argued that one important reason for this is the tension between the urban based, official Cossack politics, and the constructions of Cossack identity in rural Cossack settlements (stanitsas). It is further argued that this tension is produced by the Cossacks' historically changing relation towards the state.     

Rose,Orange, and Tulip: The failed post-Soviet revolutions

In 2003–2005, democratic revolutions overthrew the Georgian, Ukrainian, and Kyrgyz post-Soviet authoritarian regimes. However, disillusioned citizens witness today their new leaders creating a Bonapartist regime, entering into open conflict with former revolutionary allies or being forced to accept cohabitation with leaders of the previous regime. This article argues that despite internationally acclaimed civic mobilisation, civil society's weakness seriously affected the three revolutionary processes. These were in fact initiated, led, controlled, and finally subordinated by former members of the authoritarian regimes’ political elite. Finally, the supposedly democratic revolutions proved to be little more than a limited rotation of ruling elites within undemocratic political systems.     

Mastering space in Eurasia: Russia’s geopolitical thinking after the Soviet break-up

This essay assumes the significance of spatial imagination in shaping the political and cultural boundaries of the post-Soviet Eurasia and reviews the newly emerged geopolitical arguments in Russia. Rather than perceiving Eurasianist views in Russia as relatively homogeneous, I argue that such thinking is highly diverse and varies from West-friendly versions to those that are openly isolationist and expansionist. To support my argument, I select six recently published Russian volumes and group them into five distinct schools of Russia’s geopolitical thinking, each with their own intellectual assumptions, worldviews, and bases of support in the society. While writing on the same subject of the Eurasian geopolitics, each author proposes principally different solutions to the problems that emerged over the 10 years of Russia’s post-communist experience. The argument invites us to rethink the nature of Russia’s spatial thinking and activities in Eurasia and to seriously consider engaging Russia as an equal participant in a larger collective security-based arrangement in the region.

Geography may ‘matter’ … only as the moment in which abstract universal social processes, such as social stratification, state-building, and ideological hegemony, are revealed in space.

John Agnew and Stuart Corbridge, Mastering Space (1995, 13)     

Between Neoliberalism and Difference: Multiple Practices of Property in Post-Soviet Russia

Two decades of aggressive neoliberalisation in Russia has failed to produce a uniform system of private property and profit-maximising enterprises. Instead, the complex interactions of multiple ‘practices of property’ that are pre-Soviet, Soviet and post-Soviet in origin, and not private property alone, have created a diverse economic landscape. Moreover, multiple practices of property have produced both capitalist economies (such as Moscow's early capitalist enterprises) and non-capitalist, ethically guided economies (such as the indigenous enterprises of Arctic reindeer herders). The persistence of alternative economic logics in Russia illustrates the limits of the role of private property in shaping the post-Soviet economy.     

Rethinking civil society: radical politics and the legitimization of unpaid activities

This article examines recent debates on the concept of civil society as a source of renewal for political economy and a contributing factor to the establishment of social inclusion. In terms of political economy it contends that the relationship between markets and civil society has been under-theorized and that the potentially deleterious impact of the hegemony of market discourses on civil society has been neglected. Thus there is a need to engage with more radical theories which suggest that, if we want to support and legitimize socially useful activities such as unpaid work, spaces within civil society should be protected from the penetration of economic rationality. To this end the article argues that, following contemporary radical democratic theory, it is important to think of civil society as a differentiated space in which a wide range of actors engage in a multiplicity of activities. However, where radical democrats have tended to focus on a differentiated space for political engagement, this article concludes that we should do the same for economic and non-economic activities and, in so doing, construct an alternative political economy to the hegemony of market discourses.     

Hegel,Haiti and revolution: the post-colonial moment

Abstract

Susan Buck-Morss’s argument that the Haitian Revolution embodied the most universal aspect of the French Revolution, namely the quest for universal freedom, relies on the supposed references to Haiti in the master–slave dialogue in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. The revolution’s lodgement at the core of this foundational text of Enlightenment universalism is, for her, about as convincing a demonstration as one can have of the universal significance of the Haitian Revolution. Marxists have opposed her venture, and demonstrated their hostility to post-colonial thinking, principally by claiming that the master–slave is an expression of European class conflict. This paper agrees with Buck-Morss that the Haitian Revolution critically affirmed the principle of universal freedom and, indeed, pushed the revolution in France and Europe in a radical direction. A better affirmation of the universal significance of the Haitian Revolution than the thoughts of Hegel is possible. The latter do not actually provide such affirmation, because racism, Eurocentrism and a hostility to political radicalism are fundamental aspects of Hegel’s thought. The alternative affirmation can be found in Marxist analysis. This paper outlines such an analysis, and concludes that post-colonialism of Buck-Morss’s sort is no substitute for the perspective provided by historical materialism.     

Embedded Activism 2.0: Re-shaping the Space for Civil Society in Russia and China

Abstract

NGOs have been seen as an integral part of civil society and a necessary feature of democratic transition. It has been argued that depoliticised NGOs in China ‘embedded’ in existing political structures would eventually bring about democratic changes through incremental actions, as they did in post-Soviet Russia. Both countries, however, recently witnessed the shrinking of political and legal space for public participation, especially for foreign-funded civil society organisations. This article analyses the impact of the NGO laws on civil society in Russia and China to update the embedded activism hypothesis. It draws on empirical data to describe the strategies that the NGOs use to adapt and how the future of the sector is perceived by young people in both countries.     

The tension between might and rights: Siberians and energy developers in post-socialist binds

One of the flashpoints of post-socialist life has been the conflict between indigenous peoples and energy developers in the Russian Federation North. As a result of tensions over land and resources, multiple identities and political rivalries have been revealed. Such tensions spark the uncertainties that are not only a hallmark of post-socialism, but also hallmarks of post-colonial and post-welfare societies. The many levels of social interaction in ‘transition societies’ provide a challenge for anthropologists accustomed to focus refined ethnographic lenses at the nomadic camp, village or ‘ethnic’ level. This article covers conflicts of values and expectations for several Siberian groups regarding ecology, land and homeland, as well as cultural rights and revitalisation. Featured cases derive from West Siberia (Yamal and Khanty-Mansi okrug) as well as the Far East (Sakha Republic), and highlight the author's field experience in Siberia for over 25 years. Conclusions urge greater sensitivity to internal debates and trans-national comparisons as we struggle to define a range of analytical categories that both embrace and go beyond ‘post-socialist’ and ‘post-Soviet’ studies. In the process, dilemmas of advocacy are probed, as well as dilemmas of defining ‘homelands’ for indigenous peoples.     

The Blue (White and Red) Orchestra: a soundtrack for the country that never was

The aim of the paper is to go beyond the commonly accepted view of Sarajevo’s Plavi orkestar (The Blue Orchestra) as the 1980s “teen pop-rock sensation” and illuminate the less conspicuous, but nevertheless crucial, political dimension of the band’s music and visual aesthetics. This will be done by discussing several “pieces of the puzzle” essential to understanding the background to and motivations behind Plavi orkestar’s political engagement in the second half of the 1980s: (1) the “Sarajevo factor;” (2) the Sarajevo Pop-rock School and the New Primitives “poetics of the local;” (3) the generational Yugoslavism; (4) the New Partisans “poetics of the patriotic;” and (5) the post-New Partisans “hippie ethos.” The concluding section of the paper will reflect on Plavi orkestar’s resurgence in 1998 and explore the question of the band’s continuing resonance within the post-Yugoslav and post-socialist contexts. An argument underlying the discussion of all of these elements is that Plavi orkestar’s Yugoslavism of the 1980s is best understood as a soundtrack for the country that never was (i.e. a popular-cultural expression of what, from the viewpoint of a particular generational cohort and its location in the “Yugoslav socialist universe,” the community they thought of as their own ought to have been but never really was), and that the current value of this soundtrack lies in offering not only a particular window into the pre-post-socialist past but also in being a symbolic referent for a certain kind of retrospective utopia that gauges the realities of the post-socialist – that is, neo-liberal capitalist – present and, in so doing, figures as a “normative compass” for the life of dignified existence.     

Of oligarchs,orientalists, and cosmopolitans: how “Armenian” is rabiz music?

This paper examines the controversial music genre rabiz in relation to political and socio-economic developments in post-Soviet Armenia. Rabiz, an urban folk-pop genre characterized by melismatic singing and “oriental” embellishments, is a ubiquitous soundtrack to everyday life in the country, with lyrics commonly covering romance, male friendship, and family ties. Ethnographic observations suggest that its popularity draws on the affective appeal with which it captures common hardships and aspirations of post-socialist transition. In spite of this, rabiz is almost universally denounced by nationalist intellectuals and liberal citizens for foreign influences, sentimentality, consumerism, and conservatism. While for the cultured classes, the rejection of rabiz as “un-Armenian” is often an integral part of the construction of a virtuous self, the alternative conceptions of performers and fans reveal the polysemy of Armenianness as a moral category.     

Language and identity in a post-Soviet world: language of education and linguistic identity among Azerbaijani students

Azerbaijan's complex history has weaved a tapestry of linguistic, cultural, and national identities among Azerbaijanis through centuries of political, social, and linguistic integration. In the current post-Soviet era, this identity is undergoing another period of change, with influences from intra-state ethnic, religious, and sociopolitical institutions as well as from regional and international powers. This article centers on linguistic identity among Azerbaijani youth at three types of schools: Azerbaijani-medium, Russian-medium, and English-medium. The authors seek to discover whether and to what extent the language of instruction in each type of school affects linguistic identity, which in turn has implications for national identity. The article first discusses the existing literature on language and identity in second language acquisition and socio-educational linguistics. It then examines Azerbaijan's linguistic and political history through the lens of the latter framework, as a context for an analysis of the data from surveys and focus groups. The article analyzes the relationship between medium of instruction in school and students' perceptions of language and identification with various language groups, and discusses the findings of a significant correlation between language of instruction and linguistic identity, with its implications for national identity.     

Biopower and geopolitics as Russia’s neighborhood strategies: reconnecting people or reaggregating lands?

In this article, we address geopolitics and biopower as two different yet mutually correlative discursive strategies of sovereign power in Russia. We challenge the dominant realist approaches to Russia’s neighborhood policy by introducing the concept of biopolitics as its key element, which makes analysis of political relations in the post-Soviet area more nuanced and variegated. More specifically, we address an important distinction between geopolitical control over territories and management of population as two of Russia’s strategies in its “near abroad.”     

Coordination and control in Russia’s foreign policy: travails of Putin’s curators in the near abroad

Abstract

This article seeks to challenge the conception of the Russian state as being centred on Vladimir Putin by looking at the actors implementing Russia’s foreign policy in its near abroad. In particular, it explores the activities of curators (kuratory), a term applied in Russia to describe officials tasked with making things work often bypassing, and sometimes competing with, formal institutions. Following the state transformation framework, the argument put forward in the article is that curation (kuratorstvo), as a practice of coordination and control in Russia’s system of governance, can be seen as a manifestation of fragmentation and internationalisation of Russia’s foreign policy making. The empirical basis for this article is a case study of Russia’s policy towards Abkhazia, which Russia officially recognised as a sovereign state in 2008. This article addresses the involvement of curators in their attempts to exert political influence as an expression of fragmentation as well as emerging institutionalised curation in development assistance as a part of internationalisation.     

Local Nomenklatura in Communist Poland: The Case of the Warsaw Voivodship (1956–1970)

The nomenklatura system granted Poland’s communist party the opportunity to control key recruitment processes. This article analyses the rules whereby party authorities, between 1956 and 1970, introduced and implemented the nomenklatura system locally. The main goal is to examine how the system functioned, focusing on the strategy pursued by local party structures. The article shows that the agents manipulated the system and modified its rules. As a result, the nomenklatura system became one of the key forces behind the growing importance of informal political practices in Poland’s socialist-state system.     

Who Receives Media Attention in South Korea: Analysing Internal and External Pluralism in the News Coverage of Policy Debates

The mass media in democracies plays an important role in portraying key policy debates and viewpoints, ultimately shaping how citizens and political actors understand policy problems. How diverse are the policy perspectives represented in the news? Research in comparative political communication typically points to two ways through which pluralism is maintained in the news coverage of policy debates—internally and externally. Using 1,341 Dong-A and 1,205 Hankyoreh Daily front-page newspaper stories published in Korea in the year 2008, this article examines the circumstances under which internal and external pluralism in the news is limited in a democratic media system. Specifically, the article argues that a unique newsgathering process relying heavily on government sources for policy-relevant information, as well as relatively weak and unstable ties between news outlets and political/social organizations significantly restrict the diversity of voices appearing in the news in Korea. Such attention patterns offer a partial explanation for rapidly declining trust in print newspapers among the Korean public, and raise concerns about whose views are actually reflected in public policy debates in the news.     

How Soviet is the Religious Revival in Georgia: Tactics in Everyday Religiosity*

This article explores everyday religiosity in post-Soviet Georgia based on multi-sited fieldwork and applying a genealogical approach. It looks at the use of tactics in negotiations between priests and believers. The article sees negotiations, prevalent in domestic religiosity and embodied practices, as a continuation of everyday Soviet tactics, particularly informal networks (Blat) and moonlighting (Khaltura). To understand how negotiations lead to greater control and an increase in religiosity, the article explores important features of the Georgian Orthodox Church and its specific development. The article concludes that tactics in this specific context strengthen the more powerful and reproduce dependency.     

Centre-right politics in Turkey after the November 2002 general election: neo-liberalism with a Muslim face

This article analyses the implications for centre-right politics and democracy in Turkey of the rise to power of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalk?nma Partisi, AKP) in the November 2002 general election. It is argued that the AKP has both similarities with and differences from the centre-right political parties that have dominated Turkish politics in the aftermath of the 1980 coup d’état. It is possible to find continuity in the conciliatory and synthesizing stance of the AKP, as well as in its rather conservative stance. The AKP’s disposition vis-à-vis state-centred politics is considered, as is its standpoint with regard to pluralism and democracy.     

Representing minorities in the city. Education policies and minority incorporation in the capital cities of Estonia and Latvia

This article explores the relationship between minority city-level and state-level political representations through the analysis of the contested implementation of state education policies in Tallinn and Riga. Referring to the US debate on this issue, the article asks what role minority incorporation into city-level power structures can play for its substantive representation. The comparison between Tallinn and Riga reveals two potential answers to this question. The case of Riga illustrates how city-level representation can be an alternative representative channel through which the minority can put pressure on state government and magnify its political voice within the country's democratic space. On the contrary, the case of Tallinn illustrates how a municipality can be an alternative locus of representation, which does not guarantee minority empowerment but rather entraps the minority at the local level within the implicit understanding that the minority (or at least the parties that get the minority vote) can “have its share” locally, but it cannot hope to influence state policies. The comparison between the two cases reveals different levels of legitimacy of the minority's voice in the democratic debate of Estonia and Latvia, and shows the risks and opportunities linked to the two models of minority city-level incorporation.