A tale of two independence movements: how do citizens encounter issues of international law and democratic theory?

Foreign policy events, including secessionism and independence movements, become objectified for most citizens through media coverage. Accordingly, I look at the coverage of Kosovo’s and Scotland’s bids for independence in the two top national newspapers, The New York Times and The Washington Post. Scholarship in international law, democratic theory, and comparative politics might have valuable insights on independence processes, but it is the media frames inspired by these strands of theoretical literature that shape public opinion and/or reflect policy-makers’ preferences (and biases) in the foreign policy arena. I find that print media can engage in theoretically sophisticated coverage of secessionist movements, which often echoes scholarly insights derived from the relevant academic literature. The two European case studies show consistent application of tropes and frames that one would find in the academic publications on the subject. Yet these cases also illustrate profound differences in media framing not reducible to objective legal and political differences between the two events. US foreign policy considerations also appear to play a role in explaining variance in media frames.     

Engines of learning? Policy instruments,cities and climate governance

Policy Sciences - This contribution investigates how combinations of instruments, often called policy mixes, enhance policy learning processes at different levels. It analyzes the European...     

Duma-2014 Report

Why do hybrid regimes imitate democratic institutions? Do they serve exclusively as a showy formality for the external, mainly Western, audiences or do they perform some substantive functions within the framework of a political system? Within the broader context of diffusion of ideas across countries, the author of this paper explains the nature of the Russian State Duma, which, over the last 10 years, has become a kind of administrative stock exchange for the Russian political elites, and challenges the common simplistic view of the current Russian legislative process as “rubber-stamping” orchestrated by the executive branch.     

Motives Driving the Creation of Professional and Business Associations: Evidence from Russia

ABSTRACT

Our knowledge of associations is scarce, requiring a multidisciplinary approach that has been rarely used to investigate this multifaceted phenomenon that cuts across the confines of a single discipline. This study investigates the motives that drive the founding of associations in the Russian context, analyzing original data and applying a mixed-methods research design. An empirical typology of motives is developed to obtain a more accurate range of time- and value-driven motives beyond what is currently understood. The findings shed light on the complexity and multidimensionality of the motivational factors driving the establishment of associations in a transitional context.     

Past imperfect: The construction of history in the school curriculum and mass media in post-communist Russia and Ukraine

This introduction to the special section on the history education in contemporary Russia and Ukraine discusses selected articles in the context of comparative scholarship. It isolates important implications for the burgeoning field of political socialization in the post-communist societies.     

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.     

Schools,Subcultural Values,and the Risk of Youth Violence: The Influence of the Code of the Street among Students in Three U.S. Cities

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Little is known about the role of subcultural values in the development of violence in schools and among school-aged children. Drawing on the “code of the...