Queer Coalitions: An Examination of Political Resistance to the Russian Migration Law

Abstract

Migration policy in Russia is implemented by a variety of actors, such as state officials, market actors, and social activists. In the implementation of migration policy, they inevitably interact with one another. Having examined the categories used by the people involved in the implementation of migration policy, I explore the potential of coalition-building in this process. In order to scrutinise these fluid political forms, I make use of the concept of ‘queer coalitions’. This concept draws on literature in queer theory, which I argue is also productive for the analysis of current political actions in the migration domain.     

What autocracies say (and what citizens hear): proposing four mechanisms of autocratic legitimation

ABSTRACT

Autocratic governments make claims about why they are entitled to rule. Some autocracies are more talkative than others, but all regimes say something about why they deserve power. This article takes seriously these efforts by introducing and interrogating the concept of autocratic legitimation. After engaging in a definitional discussion, it traces the development of autocratic legitimation in modern political science by identifying major turning points, key concepts, and patterns of inquiry over time. Ultimately, this introductory article aims to not only argue that studying autocratic legitimation is important, but also to propose contexts, concepts, and distinctions for doing so productively. To this end, the article proposes four mechanisms of autocratic legitimation that can facilitate comparative analysis: indoctrination, passivity, performance, and democratic-procedural. Finally, the essay briefly introduces the five original articles that comprise the remainder of this special issue on autocratic legitimation. The article identifies avenues for further research and identifies how each article in the issue advances down productive pathways of inquiry.     

Pitirim Sorokin’s contribution to rural sociology: Russian,European and American milestones of a scientific career

ABSTRACT

The whole of Pitirim Sorokin’s fascinating and difficult scientific life led to his fundamental works on urban–rural relationships being expressed in the terms ‘rural–urban continuum’ and ‘rurbanism’. However, only a few special studies have been devoted to different aspects of his biography and scientific interests. The legacy of Sorokin as a rural sociologist has not yet become a subject of special studies in Russian social science. This contribution considers the key stages of Sorokin’s scientific career as contributing to the development and institutionalization of rural sociology as a discipline closely connected with urban sociology.     

North Korea’s Shadow Economy: A Force for Authoritarian Resilience or Corrosion?

An unofficial or ‘shadow’ economy like that in contemporary North Korea generates countervailing pressures for a socialist regime. It can buttress the regime by facilitating the cynical use of anti-market laws, alleviating shortages, helping the official economy to function, and creating vested interests in the status quo. On the other hand, the shadow economy can corrode the regime’s power by diminishing its control over society, encouraging scepticism about collective ideologies, and providing networks and material that can be used for opposition to the state. This article analyses these tensions in the DPRK, by drawing on 35 semi-structured interviews with North Korean defectors.     

Freedom of Speech as an Expressive Mode of Existence

This paper adopts Deleuze’s reading of Spinoza’s expressionism and pure semiotics to argue that Spinoza’s Ethics offers an alternative notion of freedom of speech that is based on the potentia of the individual. Its aim is to show how freedom of thought is connected to the problem of individuation that connects our mode of being with our power to speak and think. Rather than treating freedom of speech as an enlightened idea that is in opposition to, for example, religious authority, or the suppression of human rights, this paper argues that freedom of speech should be understood by what Spinoza calls ‘an adequate idea’: an idea that explains the cause of its own production. What is to be considered is: who wants this freedom, in what situation, why, what is at stake? No freedom in itself is ever given. This paper argues for speech as an assembled body that is always in connection with other bodies. It is argued that to understand the power and value of the freedom of speech, we should study the praxis of the utterance as an assembled body, its causal dimensions, and its affective immanent relations with other bodies, and other modes of speaking.     

Editor's note

This study applies Elisabeth Noelle‐Neumann's spiral of silence theory to the controversial issue of whether children with AIDS should be allowed to attend public school. The study tests the theory's hypotheses in light of two content analyses of the media's treatment of the issue. The findings offer tentative and qualified support for Noelle‐Neumann's theoretical propositions about the relationship between individuals' perceptions of the issue and the media's tenor of the issue; particularly that of television. The findings suggest the need to address the role of other agents of influence, including reference groups, and to use time‐based data to unravel the causal order of the relationships.