Let's have more Russian babies. How anti-immigrant sentiment shapes family leave policy in Russia

This paper builds on scholarship of welfare chauvinism in Europe to present evidence of the relationship between xenophobia and family leave policies in contemporary Russia. I argue that popular anti-immigrant moods pressure government into providing more generous family benefits to Russian families while proposing restrictions to migrants. Findings are based on elite interviews, as well as content analysis of mass media, policy documents, public speeches, and party manifestos. I show that xenophobia is widespread in Russia among the public and policymakers alike, and find that xenophobia is embraced by policymakers to guide decisions regarding the allocation of social benefits.     

Historical origins of the party-army relations in the Soviet Union and China

It is established that Party-army relation followed a "separated" pattern in the Soviet Union as opposed to an "infused" pattern in China. This article explores the historical origin of this difference in the revolutionary periods. By analyzing the biographies of communist military elites, it argues that this discrepancy took shape before the revolutionary takeover and resulted from the differentiated intensities of warfare across Russia and China. In China, the numerous civil wars and military defeats, radicalized the old military structure and boosted societal militarization; thus, eroding the mutual exclusion between the military and revolutionaries. The effect was lesser in Tsarist Russia than in prerevolutionary China, making the old military a conservative and professional corporate that the Bolsheviks could not completely subordinate to Party control.     

A Pivotal Year for Afghanistan

正The Central Asian nation faces a critical transition in 2014 as NATO forces prepare to pull out With the impending large-scale withdrawal of NATO forces led by the United States in 2014,Afghanistan will usher in a vital turning point for its transition.The U.S.-Afghanistan Bilateral Security Agreement,the upcoming Afghan general election as well as the national reconciliation of Afghanistan will have a heavy influence on the country’s future     

History and Culture in Russia and Ukraine: How to Complicate a Crisis of European Security

Russia’s annexation of Crimea was a major blow to the post-World War II security order in Europe and could well be the start of a new Cold War. This is especially the case since it was followed by the initiation of a proxy war in eastern Ukraine. The two works reviewed here deal the current crisis and provide historical background. Although there are actual concrete “national interests” involved in the Russian-Ukrainian relationship, the differences in how history is remembered complicates any attempt at resolving the issues.     

Status and emotions in Russian foreign policy

The importance of status concerns on Russia's foreign policy agenda has been increasingly observed. This preoccupation with status is particularly visible in Russia's relations with the West. Although strong claims about status in Russian foreign policy are frequently made in public and private by researchers, journalists, politicians, diplomats and other commentators, such claims often lack any closer theoretical or empirical justification. The aim of this introductory article is, therefore, to outline the basic components that form the research agenda on status. Status, if properly examined, helps us understand not only Russian foreign policy, put also present-day international politics and its transformation in a broader sense.In a first part, we identify the theoretical voids concerning the study of international status. In a second part we outline the drivers and logic of status concerns, considering in particular identity theories, psychological approaches and existing research regarding emotions. The presented research agenda on status, derived from International Relations and related theories, provides a well-structured tool-box for investigating the link between status, identity and emotions in Russian foreign policy vis-à-vis the West. In a third part we present the key questions rose by the contributors to this Special Issue and summarize their main findings.     

俄罗斯东正教媒体发展状况探析

东正教媒体在俄罗斯的兴起和繁荣发展既是时代的产物,同时也是俄罗斯本土化的产物。东正教媒体是东正教团体意识的再现,是认知东正教的良好渠道。俄罗斯的东正教媒体在发展过程中逐渐形成一个拥有相当规模的完整体系,包括报纸、杂志、广播、电视、门户网站等所有纸质媒介和电子媒介。俄罗斯东正教媒体既有宗教媒体世俗化的普遍特点,又兼有俄罗斯本土化的特征,虽不是主流媒体,却是俄罗斯主流媒体最为重要的合作者。     

Examining Development of E-Government in Russia and China: A Comparative Approach

E-government has been an emerging trend in recent decades, inviting interest from policy makers, bureaucrats, citizens, and public administration researchers. The purpose of this article is to track and analyze inception and evolution of e-government systems in Russia and China. Authors utilized the UN e-government survey to compare various dimensions of e-government over eleven years. The findings indicate that although both countries achieved high levels of e-government development, marked by a high level of availability and integration of e-government services, both Russia and China came short of reaching e-democracy, the highest level of e-government, which inherently promotes e-participation.     

CHANGE AND DISCONTINUITY: WAR AND AFGHANISTAN, 1904–1924

In the imaginations of many, war in British India had its focus on the North-West Frontier and was fought against the tribes of that region. However, British thinking about Indian defence involving Afghanistan underwent tremendous change over the period under consideration. British plans to meet a Russian invasion on the Kabul-Kandahar Line in 1904 resembled those of any other Nineteenth Century Imperial campaign, with numbers of infantry and cavalry still being thought of and referred to as bayonets and sabres. Twenty years later, heavily influenced by the experiences of the Great War in the region and the Third Afghan War and associated operations, the calculus was different with logistics changed by motor vehicles and the introduction of what today are referred to as force multipliers, such as aeroplanes and machine guns. It was over this period that warfare as fought and conceptualised by men like Napoleon gave way to modern practices familiar to us today.     

Ethnicity and electoral manipulation in Russia

To what extent does electoral manipulation follow ethnic lines in Russia? Using an original dataset based on raion-level data, we find that the “ethnic component” of electoral manipulation is more nuanced than previous studies have suggested. Electoral manipulation was most prevalent in majority-minority raions across ethnic and non-ethnic as well as richer and poorer regions. We argue that concentrations of ethnic minorities provide: (1) greater incentives for electoral manipulation by the central state and regional elites in order to signal political dominance and (2) greater capacity to carry out electoral manipulation through networks of local co-ethnic elites. However, multilevel analyses suggest that the extent of electoral manipulation was also strongly contingent on regional context. Electoral manipulation was significantly higher in the more politically volatile Muslim regions, while socioeconomic differences among regions, by contrast, had no discernible effect.     

A Shared Path While all concerned countries hope to benefit from the Silk Road Economic Belt,China needs to take on the role of coordinator

正Though trains have replaced camels as the primary mode of transport,and oil and gas have supplanted silk as the major commodity,the Silk Road has risen once again after Chinese President Xi Jinping first put forth the strategic conception of the Silk Road Economic Belt during his visit to four Central Asian countries in September 2013.The proposed belt traverses 18countries in the Eurasian region and has a population of about 3 billion.