Colorimetric measurements on small paint fragments using microspectrophotometry

The use of the Nanospec 10S microspectrophotometer (Nanometrics Inc.) as a colour-coding instrument for small paint fragments and individual layers within a layer structure is described.The CIE system of colour notation is discussed and numerical values for colours within the CIE system are derived from reflectance measurements made with the microspectrophotometer.     

Nomads under arrest: The nation-building and nation-destroying of Kalmyk nomads in Russia

Nomads are positioned outside of the modern conception of nations, which is based on a traditional or modern hierarchical model (Kuzio, 2001) which tends to “dehistoricize and essentialize tradition” (Chatterjee, 2010: 169). Using an analysis of the narrative construction of nomadic Kalmyk nationhood, particularly through historiography and culture, this article demonstrates that in spite of nation-destroying efforts from the Tsarist Empire and the Soviet Union, the Kalmyk nation has been flexible with reinventing cultural strategies in charting the nomadic national imaginary from Chinggis Khan to the Dalai Lama. It argues that nomadic nationhood contains a deeply imaginary response to nomads’ cultural and intellectual milieu which provided a way of freeing itself from Tsarist and Soviet modular narratives of national imagination, demonstrating how nomadic nationhood exists as a non-modular form of nationhood.     

The discrimination of small fragments of household gloss paint by microspectrophotometry

A microspectrophotometer has been used to discriminate between sets of household gloss paints of the same British Standard colours obtained from different manufacturers. Reflectance spectra were obtained, over the range 390 to 900 nm, from paint top surfaces and individual cross-sectional layers. Comparison of the reflectance spectra enabled visually similar paints to be discriminated.     

The micro-politics of norm contestation between the OSCE and Kazakhstan: square pegs in round holes

Norm contestation by local actors has emerged in recent years as an explanation for the failure of norm diffusion. This article contributes to the literature on norm contestation by analysing how norms diffused by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) pertaining to election observation and free and fair voting are re-constituted and contested by domestic actors in Kazakhstan. The study contributes to the idea of ‘constitutive localisation’ by emphasising a more fundamental level of disagreement beyond just congruence between the diffused norm and local beliefs; by demonstrating contestation can occur in the later stages in the norm diffusion cycle; by focusing on the micro-politics of contestation by local actors involved in the implementation of diffused norms; and by revealing how norm contestation is not necessarily a process of emancipatory politics, but a strategic act to serve authoritarian consolidation. Utilising a four-fold framework, the analysis illustrates how norms, while initially accepted by Kazakhstani authorities, are reconstituted through political discourse and/or practice, creating the moment of contestation. While this contestation is instrumentalised by political elites for their own advantage, it also remains an important element of agency within a normative order which they had little previous control over.     

The limited agency and life-cycles of personalized dominant parties in the post-Soviet space: the cases of United Russia and Nur Otan

Vladimir Putin's United Russia and Nursultan Nazabayev's Nur Otan represent a distinctive type of dominant party due to their personalist nature and dependence on their presidential patrons. Such personalism deprives these parties of the agency to perform key roles in authoritarian reproduction typically expected of dominant parties, such as resource distribution, policy-making and mobilizing mass support for the regime. Instead United Russia and Nur Otan have contributed to authoritarian consolidation by securing the president's legislative agenda, stabilizing elites to ensure their patron's hold on power, and assisting in perpetuating a discourse around the national leader. However, because these parties lack the agency to reproduce themselves, to entrench their position, and to play more than a supportive role in regime consolidation, the lifespan of such personalist dominant parties is likely to be significantly shorter than that of dominant parties.