Pussy Riot as agent provocateur: conspiracy theories and the media construction of nation in Putin's Russia

This article studies the impact of conspiracy theories on post-Soviet Russian nation-building through the analysis of how the Pussy Riot trial was constructed by the Russian media. Conspiracy theory as a phenomenon is defined as a populist tool for relocation of power among different political actors, which creates identities and boosts social cohesion. This interpretation of conspiracy theories helps investigate how the media constructed the image of Pussy Riot and their supporters as a conspiring subversive minority, which threatened the Russian nation. The ability of conspiracy theory for swift social mobilization helped the authorities to strengthen the public support of its policies and model the Russian nation as ethnically and religiously homogeneous.     

Russkii Obraz and the politics of “managed nationalism”

This article examines the rise of Russkii Obraz, a Russian ultranationalist organization whose leaders cultivated a neo-fascist ideology and collaborated with skinhead gangs. Despite its extremism, Russkii Obraz played an important role in the Kremlin's “managed nationalism,” a set of measures to manipulate the nationalist sector of the political arena. During 2008–2009, Russkii Obraz collaborated closely with pro-Kremlin youth organizations and enjoyed privileged access to Russia's tightly controlled public sphere. This article argues that the key to Russkii Obraz’s brief ascendancy was its duality, its capacity to project moderation in public and extremism in private. For several years, this duality enabled Russkii Obraz to participate in public life while building a support base in the skinhead subculture. But the two projects collided when the security organs exposed Russkii Obraz’s links to an ultranationalist death-squad. Nevertheless, official indulgence of Russkii Obraz cannot be attributed merely to ignorance of its violent potential. This indulgence also reflected the fact that it was precisely those at the neo-fascist limits of the political spectrum who were most willing to collaborate in the regime's efforts to suppress demands for democratization.     

Continuity and change in Russia's policy toward Central and Eastern Europe

The accession of the CEE states to NATO and the European Union has put an end to the geopolitical ambiguity and implicit insecurity in the region between Russia and the so-called ‘Old Europe’. Instead of being an area of great powers' rivalry, elements of ‘buffer belts’ lacking meaningful strategic options, objects of raw Nazi-Soviet deals, or zones under Russian occupation and domination, the three Baltic States and the Visegrad group countries became full-fledged members of the European Union and were given NATO's security guarantees. By the middle of the 2000s, one would conclude that traditional geopolitics had ended in this region.However, the changes in the strategic situation in CEE have not changed the deep rooted moving forces and long-term strategic goals of the Russian policy toward the region. Moscow seeks to have the position, as its official rhetoric says, of an ‘influential centre of a multipolar world’ that would be nearly equal to the USA, China, or the EU. With this in view Moscow seeks for the establishment of its domination over the new independent states of the former USSR and for the formation of a sphere of influence for itself in Central Eastern Europe. If it achieves these goals, then Europe may return once again to traditional geopolitics fraught with great power rivalries and permanent instabilities radiating far beyond CEE borders.Yet a few questions remain. Has Russia come to the conclusion that attempting to restore its privileged position of influence in Central-Eastern Europe is wrong? Has Russia enough power to threaten the CEE countries? How credible are NATO's security guarantees? How may Russian behavior in CEE affect a wider European geopolitical context? These questions are appropriate in the light of Russia's ‘resurgence’ as a revanchist power and because Russia is, and most probably will remain in the next five to ten years, a weighty economic and strategic factor in areas along the Western borders of the former USSR.     

Cao Yu’s Peking Man and Literary Evocations of the Family in Republican China

Abstract

Shanghai in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was home to communities and musicians from all parts of the world. Among the over 20,000 Russians living there, a significant population of musicians contributed to the musical life of the city, particularly the Conservatory of Music founded in November 1927. This article reveals an overlooked phase of musical exchange between China and the West by 1) tracing the context and early development of the Conservatory; 2) identifying and discussing the activities of the Russian pedagogues (including Boris Zakharov, Vladimir Shushlin, and Sergei Aksakov amongst others) and their more notable Chinese students’ (including Li Delun, Ding Shande, Wu Leyi, and Yi Kaiji amongst others) reaction to them; 3) assessing the role that Russians played in the affairs of the Conservatory; and 4) demonstrating how Russian pedagogues influenced the development of Western classical music in China through their students’ notable achievements.     

建立农村社会保障制度的路径选择

建立我国农村社会保障制度首先是要以政府财政投入为主体,以省为单位,建立农村最低生活保障制度。然后,从经济发达地区起步,在全新的基础上开展农村社会养老保险工作,并以大病统筹为重点,建立不同类型的农村合作医疗制度。同时,还应把失地农民和进城农民工纳入城镇社保的范围。     

吗啡依赖戒断大鼠部分脑区PSD-95免疫组化观察

目的观察不同时程吗啡依赖戒断大鼠部分脑区PSD-95的免疫组化染色,探讨其在吗啡依赖戒断中的作用。方法采用腹腔递增注射盐酸吗啡的方法建立吗啡依赖1周、2周和4周模型,自然戒断后,观察海马、纹状体、杏仁核、额叶皮质、腹侧背盖区PSD-95的免疫组织化学反应,用图像分析系统对免疫组化结果进行分析。结果模型组与生理盐水对照组相比,差异具有统计学意义（P〈0．01）。海马、纹状体PSD-95的含量随依赖时间的延长表现为先降后升再降,而在杏仁核、额叶皮质、腹侧背盖区,则随依赖时间的延长,表现为先升高再逐渐降低。各组问两两比较,结果均具有高度显著性差异（P〈0．01）。结论在不同脑区不同戒断时间PSD-95免疫组化变化不同,提示部分脑区可能参与了吗啡的戒断记忆。     

论科技进步与西部地区产业升级

产业结构的优化和升级是区域经济协调发展的核心 ,也是西部地区经济发展必须解决的问题。本文讨论了科技进步对于产业升级的驱动作用 ,分析了西部企业技术进步的动力障碍 ,在此基础上提出了促进西部企业技术进步的对策。提出西部地区调整优化产业结构 ,促进产业结构升级 ,关键是要靠大力推动企业的科技进步 ,以技术优势促进产业优势 ,进而实现西部地区经济的持续快速发展。     

Trust,regulation, and redistribution why some governments overregulate and under-redistribute

For many social scientists, government intervention is linked to low levels of social trust and corruption, while others associate it with high trust and low corruption. We aim to reconcile these contrasting views by distinguishing the opposing effects of trust on two alternative types of government intervention: regulation and redistribution. We argue that distrusting individuals demand more governmental regulation (H1) but less government redistribution (H2), and this could be one of the mechanisms explaining why countries with low levels of trust tend to both overregulate and under-redistribute. And the effects of trust on policy preferences are conditional on the quality of institutions. The higher the level of quality of government in a particular region, the more high-trusting individuals will like government redistribution and dislike government regulation that restricts the operations of free markets (H3). We test these hypotheses with data from the latest round of the European Quality of Government Index (EQI) survey, which covers 77,000 individuals from 185 regions of 21 EU member states.     

西部大开发中民族民间文化的法律保护

实施西部大开发战略,为西部地区经济、文化事业的繁荣发展带来了难得的历史机遇。对蕴藏着丰富的民族文化遗产的西部地区来说,保护好民族民间文化是西部开发中的一项重要课题。从民族民间文化的界定入手,分析民族民间文化的保护在西部大开发中的意义,在了解国内外关于民族民间文化的立法现状的基础上,对民族民间文化的法律保护提出建议。     

‘They do not help,only demoralize’: peasant nachalniks and the last imperial Russian reform on the Kazakh Steppe, 1902–1917

ABSTRACT

This article studies an early-twentieth-century reform in local administration on the Kazakh Steppe. It was catalyzed by the massive in-migration of peasant settlers from European Russia, which required fundamentally new administrative forms and institutional decisions from the state. In 1902 the Russian Empire extended the Temporary Regulation on Peasant Nachalniks, which was previously law only in Siberia, to the steppe oblasts of Akmola, Turgai, Semipalatinsk and Uralsk. In examining discussions surrounding the implementation of the new law, this article uncovers the complexity and ambiguities of the decisions that were made, the problems the new law faced, and the wide array of participants in enacting it. The article also compiles a socio-cultural portrait of the peasant nachalniks and the activities they undertook. Finally, it addresses how the Kazakh population perceived these new officials, and how they interacted with representatives of the Kazakh administration, which was crucial to their effectiveness.