Which Minority is Appeased? Coalition Potential and Redistribution in Latvia and Ukraine

This article tests fiscal appeasement, needs-based and coalition potential hypotheses for redistribution in post-Soviet Latvia and Ukraine. I argue that the government's decision to reward a minority population depends on the coalition potential of minority parties and voters. In Latvia, the non-participation of minority parties in governing coalitions means that the distribution of spoils among coalition partners does not benefit the regions in which Russian speakers live. In Ukraine, on the other hand, voters and parties in western Ukraine have been sought out by Russian-speaking politicians from eastern Ukraine, and the districts of western Ukraine received preferential treatment as a result.     

Narratives of Translocation,Dislocation and Location: Armenian Youth Cultural Identities in Southern Russia

The findings presented here are based on ethnographic research and are concerned with subjective definitions of ethnic belonging of young Armenians in Krasnodar krai. It is demonstrated that Armenian ethnic identifications are not ‘fixed’ but rather entwined within a complex web of diverse cultural attachments, involving many ‘routes’ of translocation, dislocation and location. It was found that most of the research participants saw themselves as Armenian while drawing occasionally on cosmopolitanism as an identity resource. This enabled them to construct a sense of belonging both in terms of ethnicity and of multicultural location.     

Post-Liberation Politics and Political Space in Eritrea: Interrogating Aspirations among Educated Youth

This article discusses post-liberation politics in Eritrea through the lens of political space, making use of empirical data collected between 1996 and 2006 among youth in higher education. Political space is defined as a relational space whose boundaries are being created in constant balancing acts between enforced citizenship obligations and personal aspirations. This definition allows for an analysis of the contradictions between national development objectives and personal aspirations in the lives of research-protagonists, and through this provides important insights into the nature of the Eritrean state. Main findings demonstrate how closures of political space ultimately undermine important state objectives.     

Strengthening Friendship and Fraternal Solidarity: Soviet Youth Tourism to Eastern Europe under Khrushchev and Brezhnev

Abstract

The three decades following Stalin’s death in 1953 witnessed a dramatic expansion in Soviet tourism to the other countries of the European socialist bloc. Youth tourism in particular was an important feature of efforts to build friendlier and more durable links with the satellite states at the grassroots level. However, the prospects for long-term success in this endeavour were continually hampered by Soviet concerns about the dangers of interaction, and as the years passed, the economic benefits of tourist travel rather than the initial goal of building solidarity were accorded priority.     

对全球化悖论的反思:中国寻求新的文化认同

一些西方理论家指出,全球化已经产生了重大的文化影响.他们认为,在像中国这样的发展中国家,由于在以往数十年中受到发达资本主义国家的经济、政治和文化的影响日益增加,其生活和生产方式已经发生了深刻的变化.     

Systems of Partial Control: Ethnic Dynamics in Post-Soviet Estonia and Latvia

This article offers a theory to capture ethnic dynamics in post-Soviet Estonia and Latvia. It also explores a research question of great interest to political scientists, historians, sociologists, and economists: what accounts for stability in deeply divided societies? Drawing on Ian Lustick’s formulation of control, the author suggests that stability in deeply divided societies is a result of conscious efforts made by elites to construct what she calls “systems of partial control.” In such systems, the majority ethnic group controls the political sector, but shares control of the economic sector with minority ethnic groups. Economic prosperity derived from dispersed economic control accounts for stability in Estonia and Latvia. The article identifies two conditions that must be satisfied for elites to tolerate partial control. First, elites must reach a threshold of political hegemony at which point they dominate the political sector and second, the respective state must have a flourishing private sector. The article concludes with an assessment of whether or not systems of partial control are likely to be stable, and a reflection on implications of these systems beyond the post-Soviet region.     

Leaving Europe,Aspiring Access: Racial Capital and Its Spatial Discontents among the Euro-Maghrebi Minority

Abstract

This article explores the emigration of tertiary-educated EU citizens with North African heritage to Dubai. Longitudinal ethnographic data suggests that leaving Europe was a mobility strategy for dealing with a sense of ‘racial stuckedness’ at home, a status concern undergirding their stagnant socio-economic position. By ‘transnationalizing’ Bourdieu’s seminal conceptual tool kit of the ‘forms of capital’, it contrasts the conversion yields of timely achieved educational credentials, marked by racial friction at home but significantly higher returns after transgressing into more favorable status zones overseas. This differently structured outcome suggests the analytical productivity of an altogether distinct value form, ‘racial capital.’     

Securing the Only Game in Town: The EU's Political Conditionality and Democratic Consolidation in Post-Soviet Latvia

The state of democracy in post-communist Europe has been subject to some debate in recent years; but it needs to take account of longer-term trends. The focus here is on how far the EU's political conditionality has contributed to democratic consolidation using an in-depth case study of post-Soviet Latvia. The record of the impacts of conditionality up to EU entry is examined and then attention turns to whether post-accession tendencies have demonstrated any significant changes after the end of Brussels' monitoring. Using a comparative framework, this article shows that the outcome after four years of EU membership is mixed with both positive and negative results. It is concluded that there is no automatic locking-in effect of European integration; and that conditionality assists democratic consolidation more in structural than in attitudinal or behavioural terms.     

Congregational Aid: North American Protestant Engagement in International Relief and Development

A review of large North American Protestant congregations (n = 423) engaging in global relief and development, or ‘holistic mission’ (HM), suggests that half engage in HM activities per year, with the majority of those activities focused on human and physical sectors. Most activities are led by religious NGOs or missionaries and about half are short-term. A mix of proximity, poverty, population, and policy variables direct short- and long-term aid. Findings provide a benchmark for enhancing learning and partnerships among churches, NGOs, and development scholars, ultimately enhancing the efficacy of Protestant aid.