Between Multitude and Pueblo: Venezuela's Bolivarian Revolution and the Government of Un-governability

Venezuela's Bolivarian Revolution uses officially sponsored commemorations, festivals, and publications to underscore its relation to and dependence on unrest and un-governability. In this way, it founds a basis and legitimacy not through a historical link to a people or territory, juridical recognition of sovereignty, nor to bureaucratic and institutional continuity, but rather to a direct link to constituent power. However, as opposed to other cases in the Republican tradition that celebrate the revolutionary origins of modern nation states, this article contends that this discursive practice highlights the way in which the Bolivarian Revolution shuttles between poles of un-governability and representation, reflected at a subjective level in the figures of the multitude and the pueblo. I suggest a reading of official discourses that celebrate the autonomous and collective subjects of the caracazo—an anti-neoliberal uprising and massacre in 1989—and the April 2002 coup and counter-coup as valorizations of un-governability. The article contends that these dynamics illustrate a desired and novel—but as yet not fully realized—democratic praxis that breaks with forms of constituted (state) power more familiar to the Western and North Atlantic political traditions.     

Pussy Riot: a feminist band lost in history and translation

The Pussy Riot story is clearly a story the West wanted to hear. Western journalists, politicians, and celebrities were unanimously inspired by the youthfulness and rebellion of courageous Russian feminists. Their life experience perfectly resonates with the core of these young women's messages. For Russians, however, even for those who share the most liberal values, it is not so simple. Public polls and several months of heated debates have shown that virtually everyone in this deeply conservative country has struggled to make sense of the Pussy Riot performance. So, what do Westerners not understand about Russia and what are the problems of translating feminism(s) into different cultural contexts? How does feminist protest deprived of its roots function here, and why do women in Russia not understand that Pussy Riot's story personally concerns all of them? This essay outlines the difference between Russian and Western readings of the Pussy Riot performance and, using the case of public response in Russia, contemplates the reasons for the failure of feminism in this part of the world.     

Russian Legal Culture: An Analysis of Adaptive Response to an Institutional Transplant

This article is an inquiry into Russian legal culture and is based on the assumption that any institution transplanted from one social environment to another will be reinterpreted and reshaped, so that it can be accepted into the receiving society. The process of adaptation creates an opportunity to examine the receiving society's established practices and way of thinking. To demonstrate their effects, this article explores the author's research findings carried out in two Russian towns where institutions of media self-regulation were set up. The findings are analyzed comparatively in order to identify how the key players in the two towns interpreted the initial ideas, established procedures and rules for the newly set up institutions, and defined the roles that were attributed to them. The results of the two-city case study are then used to interpret some specifics of the internal logic of the local legal culture.