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.     

Internal Migration Trends in Soviet and Post-Soviet European Russia

This article compares Soviet with post-Soviet migration trends. It uses a livelihood studies approach to explore what types of Russians migrate and their motivations for so doing. It concludes that today labour migration is the most significant type of internal migration. The norm is temporary migration by individuals, which may be either short-term or long-term, but in either case it is characterised by frequent visits home and often, it seems, by failure and permanent return.     

Female Land Ownership and Fertility in Nepal

This paper examines the association between female land ownership and fertility in Nepal using propensity score methods. A female land owner is found to have an average of 0.26–0.47 fewer children than her non-owner counterpart. Such negative female land-fertility trends are observed for women in different age groups. Evidence indicates that female land ownership promotes women’s wealth and decision-making authority, which could be the pathways through which their fertility is influenced. These findings imply that female land ownership could have substantial welfare benefits for women and population implications for countries.     

Law enforcement and civil society in Russia

Many Russian civil society organisations are directly engaging with state law enforcement agencies, particularly the police, in joint efforts to improve the performance and change the norms and values of state officials involved in administering justice. These activities are based upon a model of state–society relations that stresses the possibility of a positive relationship of mutual assistance and partnership between the state and civil society. Such assistance is often described by these organisations as helping low-level bureaucrats better perform their core organisational tasks. This model is contrasted with two alternative models of the role of civil society, which depict civil society either as teaching citizens the norms and values associated with liberal democracy, or as a potential counter-weight to an over-reaching state. Three cases studies of cooperation between NGOs and law enforcement agencies demonstrate the utility of such an approach. Although these projects suffer from some common pathologies of civil society work in Russia, they remain important, not least because of the presence of ‘uncivil society’ extremist groups who also are trying to influence the norms and beliefs of state law enforcement officials. The civil society activities profiled here suggest that direct, cooperative engagement with the state is one important component of long-term efforts to transform the Russian state in a more liberal, ‘civil’ direction.     

Post-Soviet Civil Society Development in the Russian Federation: The Impact of the NGO Law

The passing of the Russian NGO Law in mid-2006 set clear parameters for Russian NGO activity and civil society development. In this paper we assess the impact of the NGO Law on both NGOs and Russian civil society. Our findings illustrate that the NGO Law has led to a reduction in NGO activity and curtailment of civil society development. We conclude that Russian civil society appears to be dominated by groups funded and thus controlled by the state. This has implications for Russia's on-going democratic development.     

Situating Property in Transformation: Beyond the Private and the Collective

In most parts of the post-socialist world high expectations regarding privatisation were quickly disappointed when it became obvious that property practices did not follow the ideal type predicted by market models. The article addresses this divergence and emphasises the necessity of overcoming the dualism of an ideal type of property rights on the one hand and the way property is handled in everyday life on the other. It argues that concrete situations as well as the necessary justifications of practices have hitherto both been widely neglected as empirical foci in studies on property relations. Five brief episodes from the privatisation of collective farms in rural Russia serve as examples to illustrate how situations and justifications are reflexively linked by drawing on and negotiating about differing ‘orders of worth’.