Pub Date : 2021-03-01DOI: 10.1177/2336825X20984336
A. Makarychev
This essay attempts to juxtapose mass-scale protest movements that almost simultaneously erupted in summer 2020 in Belarus and Russia’s Far East. In spite of dissimilar root causes of both events, they however share a number of common characteristics, such as spontaneity, lack of wellestablished leadership, networking/horizontal structure (Paneyakh, 2020) and explicitly nonideological character. What made the symbolic connection between the two post-Soviet ‘‘hot spots’’ even more politically pronounced were explicit and unprecedented signs of solidarity expressed by protesters in Khabarovsk with the anti-Lukashenka movement. Since we can see some emerging similarities in these two cases, let us try to understand what they are, why did they emerge, and how they can be conceptualized theoretically. The protests that have been unfolding in parallel to each other in Minsk (as well as other major cities of Belarus) and Khabarovsk were driven by obviously different reasons and could have remained detached from each other. The outburst of street activity in Belarus was triggered by the fraudulent presidential election, while in Khabarovsk people went to streets as a reaction to the sudden arrest of the region’s governor by the order of the federal center. For Belarus the protests constituted a basis for national anti-authoritarian consolidation, while the anti-Moscow actions in the Far East are regarded as potentially conducive to Russia’s decentralization (Luchikhin, 2020). However, the appearance of slogans of solidarity with Belarus among protesters in Khabarovsk has created a symbolic connection between the two events (Sibir’ Realii, 2020), which looked quite unique since never before had the Russian opposition expressed any well-articulated sympathy with democratic movements in other post-Soviet countries. For example, Alexei Navalny’s attitude towards Ukrainian national discourse on retrieving the annexed Crimea was always quite
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Pub Date : 2021-03-01DOI: 10.1177/2336825X20984334
Elizaveta Gaufman
Those familiar with Soviet posters might have seen the heart-wrenching ‘‘Red Army soldier, save!’’ artwork from the Great Patriotic War that features a woman holding her child huddled in fear of the bayonet with the Nazi insignia on it. The damsel in distress trope is not unique to the Post-Soviet space: iconography of any political turmoil in the world would offer one. But what happens when the damsel is in distress but she does not need a male to rescue her? Or even more so, when she is actively fighting against the male in power? Does she have to bare her chest as the Liberty on the French barricades or wield a sword like the statue in Volgograd? This is the iconographic challenge that the protests in Belarus were faced with: apart from the confrontation between a large part of the population against an authoritarian leader, the conflict had also clear gendered lines: a leader striving to project hypermasculinity (at least, at the beginning) versus a female-led protest. How does this gender divide translate into the visual iconography of the protest? Belarus is clearly a part of the Post-Soviet cultural space (although Belarusians might take issues with their current President saying that they are Russia’s ‘‘younger brother’’) and the protest iconography is deeply imbued with the Soviet and Russian cultural artifacts. This also makes Belarusian population more receptive to other Soviet representations of women: not just damsels in distress, but armed Motherlands, muscular female Kolkhoz members and voluptuous sportswomen. At the same time, as Reid argues (Reid, 1998), even the portrayal of strong women in visual Soviet culture put them in a slightly subordinate role, where in the seemingly equal tandem of Factory worker and Kolkhoz member statue by Mukhina, the factory worker had a higher and more important position in the Soviet society, not to mention the perceived femininity of food-related occupation. Thus, even the purportedly emancipated and gender-equal Soviet society still managed to promote patriarchal values through cinema and art (Gorsuch, 1996; Haynes, 2003).
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Pub Date : 2020-12-01DOI: 10.1177/2336825X20972896
Nicholas Michelsen
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Pub Date : 2020-09-16DOI: 10.1177/2336825X20954758
S. Afontsev, I. Kobrinskaya, G. Machavariany, A. Zagorski, V. Zhuravleva, I. Zviagelskaya, K. Voda, N. Kozhanov, A. Davydov, O. Davydov, S. Dmitriev, A. Lomanov, S. Lukonin, D. Malysheva, V. Mikheev, N. Rabotiazhev, I. Svistunova, I. Ibragimov, S. Kislitsin, E. Solovyev, E. Kuzmina, N. Surkov, N. Toganova, S. Utkin, A. Fedorovsky, B. Frumkin, V. Shvydko, YE Kanaev, L. Samarskaya
The editors had to make significant adjustments to this abridged version of IMEMO’s annual ‘Russia and the World’ forecast published in early January 2020. However, none of the numerous forecasts published until March 2020 had been anywhere close to considering, among the potential ‘black swan’ factors, the global scenario caused by COVID-19. No one had anticipated the scale of the pandemic and its consequences for the world economy and trade, including the fall in oil prices and the reaction of financial markets.
{"title":"Russia and the world: 2020 IMEMO forecast","authors":"S. Afontsev, I. Kobrinskaya, G. Machavariany, A. Zagorski, V. Zhuravleva, I. Zviagelskaya, K. Voda, N. Kozhanov, A. Davydov, O. Davydov, S. Dmitriev, A. Lomanov, S. Lukonin, D. Malysheva, V. Mikheev, N. Rabotiazhev, I. Svistunova, I. Ibragimov, S. Kislitsin, E. Solovyev, E. Kuzmina, N. Surkov, N. Toganova, S. Utkin, A. Fedorovsky, B. Frumkin, V. Shvydko, YE Kanaev, L. Samarskaya","doi":"10.1177/2336825X20954758","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2336825X20954758","url":null,"abstract":"The editors had to make significant adjustments to this abridged version of IMEMO’s annual ‘Russia and the World’ forecast published in early January 2020. However, none of the numerous forecasts published until March 2020 had been anywhere close to considering, among the potential ‘black swan’ factors, the global scenario caused by COVID-19. No one had anticipated the scale of the pandemic and its consequences for the world economy and trade, including the fall in oil prices and the reaction of financial markets.","PeriodicalId":42556,"journal":{"name":"New Perspectives","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2020-09-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89821353","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-09-15DOI: 10.1177/2336825X20954442
R. Sakwa
The annual reports published by Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO) on Russia and the state of world affairs act like the rings on a tree, measuring changes over time by offering a snapshot of a particular instant. This report is no different but comes at a time that could scarcely be more unlike earlier years. The Covid-19 pandemic has acted like a savage beam of light, illuminating processes that were apparent yet not fully revealed. The pandemic has also intensified many of these processes, accentuating what had already been observed to be ‘the great acceleration’, the speeding up of historical processes in recent years. Drawing on the analysis presented in the IMEMO report, this comment identifies three key interrelated issues that are now subject to accelerated change: first, the broader retreat of the post-1945 ‘Yalta’ international system established at the end of the Second World War, focused above all on the United Nations (UN); second, the decay of the post-1989 settlement, which turned out not to be a settlement in any meaningful sense; and third, the return of a certain type of great power relations in the Covid era. The emergence of the rudiments of bipolarity signals the onset of a new era of confrontation, with few of the guardrails of the First Cold War and none of the clear ideological markers of the earlier era, rendering this period more dangerous than that of the post-war conflict and more akin to the period leading up to the First World War.
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Pub Date : 2020-09-15DOI: 10.1177/2336825X20954754
Lucie Kadlecová, T. Weiss
This article is an exploratory study of the Czech response to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). It employs the perspective of the small state literature to analyse the activities of a small European Union (EU) member state’s government that had to face a mismatch between its policy priorities and policy framing at the EU and domestic level. The article focuses on the arguably common situation of a small state’s government failing to shape a policy internationally and facing a backlash at home. On the basis of a qualitative study of primary and secondary sources as well as semi-structured interviews, the article explores how the Czech debate on GDPR prioritised the bureaucratic burden and costs resulting from the GDPR implementation over the need for privacy as an integral part of human dignity highlighted at the EU level. The article identifies two crucial factors as the basis of the popular backlash against GDPR in Czechia, the lack of prioritisation and the insufficient bureaucratic capacity. These two factors, widely identified in the literature as factors influencing small states’ performance, contributed to the Czech inability to shape GDPR at the European level, as well as the lacking information campaign and implementation domestically.
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Pub Date : 2020-09-13DOI: 10.1177/2336825X20954733
A. Reshetnikov
I would like to start this reply to the latest forecast by the Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO) with a small literary digression. Besides its poetic beauty, Y. B. Yeats’ ‘Sailing to Byzantium’ became one of the poet’s most lauded works for managing to express his acute reflexivity about the problem of aging. Observing the world around him, Yeats’ character understood with astounding clarity that it no longer belonged to him. Moved by this realization, he decided to set off to a different realm, a metaphysical world of immortal culture and spirituality, poetically represented as Byzantium. This critical reflexivity about the fragility and finitude of one’s earthly life indeed secured Yeats a place among his fellow literary classics in ‘the artifice of eternity’ (Yeats, 2004 [1928]: 2). In the IMEMO forecast, Dynkin et al., unlike Yeats, but like many pro-Kremlin spokespeople, tend to reproduce a somewhat fossilized and unreflective paradigm of political prognosis that hampers critical perception. Arguably, this analytical stance is a poor fit for the contemporary world, a reality that the authors dub ‘negative certainty’. The main reason for this misfit is that IMEMO adopts a discursive position of a ‘stereotypical old-timer’ who is attempting to talk to and educate a ‘stereotypical youth’. While trying to do so, however, the old-timer steps into territory
对于世界经济与国际关系研究所(IMEMO)的最新预测，我想先说点离题的话。叶芝(Y. B. Yeats)的《航行到拜占庭》(Sailing to Byzantium)除了诗情画意之外，还因为成功地表达了他对衰老问题的敏锐反思，成为这位诗人最受赞誉的作品之一。通过观察他周围的世界，叶芝的角色清楚地意识到这个世界已经不再属于他了。受到这一认识的感动，他决定出发去一个不同的领域，一个不朽的文化和精神的形而上学世界，诗意地代表了拜占庭。这种关于人的尘世生活的脆弱性和有限性的批判性反思确实使叶芝在他的文学经典同行中获得了“永恒的技巧”的地位(叶芝，2004[1928]:2)。在IMEMO的预测中，Dynkin等人，不像叶芝，但像许多亲克里姆林宫的发言人一样，倾向于复制一种有点僵化和不反思的政治预测范式，阻碍了批判性的感知。可以说，这种分析立场不太适合当代世界，作者称之为“消极确定性”的现实。这种不适应的主要原因是IMEMO采用了一种“刻板的老前辈”的话语立场，试图与“刻板的年轻人”交谈并教育他们。然而，就在试图这么做的时候，这位老前辈进入了自己的领地
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Pub Date : 2020-09-10DOI: 10.1177/2336825X20955132
D. Sagramoso
As the contours of the ‘living-with-COVID’ world define themselves, it is becoming increasingly clear that several of the trends predicted by the IMEMO 2020 report are actually materialising. In their work, IMEMO scholars highlight a variety of tendencies in the realm of international relations and domestic affairs, which first appeared in previous years but are now reinforcing themselves in 2020, due in part to the COVID-19 pandemic. These include uncertain socio-economic futures, political upheavals, increased societal tensions and a rise in global protest movements. In the specific sphere of international relations, the IMEMO report correctly highlights the rising geopolitical tensions, the heightened competition between powerful states, the growing pressures on international institutions, as well as a ‘general trend towards re-nationalisation’ of politics. Reference is also made in the report to the loss of appeal of the liberal-internationalist and globalist paradigm, both in international affairs and in the realm of domestic governance. The current article takes a closer look at these various trends, within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, in order better to understand their global implications and assess their impact on developments in Russia. To examine the topic more effectively, the article clusters the trends identified by the IMEMO report into three specific areas of analysis – firstly, the post-COVID-19 global economic outlook and its social implications, both globally and inside Russia; secondly, the future of the international trade and strategic security regimes; and lastly, the new geostrategic confrontation between the United States and China, and Russia’s place in it. It concludes, as do IMEMO scholars, that the global outlook for international cooperation and multilateralism remains rather bleak. Yet, it nevertheless argues that certain positive developments can be discerned, which could provide some basis for hope.
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Pub Date : 2020-09-10DOI: 10.1177/2336825x20955129
M. Kimmage
Written in the shadow of the COVID crisis that began late in 2019 and has transformed international politics in 2020, the IMEMO’s 2020 Forecast furnishes valuable insight into global affairs and into the strategic agenda as it is being set in Moscow. It does an admirable job of integrating a global pandemic, which is wreaking havoc in real time, into longer term projections about global order. Where it concerns issues of public health and political upheaval, the Forecast is persuasive: it alleges a widening gap between political elites (in many countries) and the populations they are trying to govern. The Forecast misses a few important political trends, however. Of these, the most important is an accelerating consolidation of the post-Brexit European Union (EU). Should this continue, transatlantic relations could deepen, whereas Russia and China might find themselves confronting new challenges. If anything, the IMEMO Forecast does not stray far enough—intellectually—from the pre-COVID status quo. The Forecast assumes little change in Russia-EU relations, almost no change in US-Russian relations and closer linking together of Russia and China. It does not emphasize Russian agency in any of these three areas but instead roots the international situation in slow-moving structural processes: the alignment of interests between Russia and China, the possibility of an incipient ‘‘pragmatism’’ in the Kremlin’s relationship with Europe (broadly construed), and an intractable parting of the ways between the United States and Russia. The COVID crisis is understood, in this Forecast, as an impetus to trends that were apparent in 2019 and before. Some speculation is offered about ‘‘black swans’’—in particular those that might arise from global warming—and the stress these would put on the political order around the globe. In many different regions, the Forecast envisions elites struggling to hang on and a restless, younger generation eager to make its claim on political power.
{"title":"Pandemic projections from Moscow: The status quo reinvisioned (but not quite enough)","authors":"M. Kimmage","doi":"10.1177/2336825x20955129","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2336825x20955129","url":null,"abstract":"Written in the shadow of the COVID crisis that began late in 2019 and has transformed international politics in 2020, the IMEMO’s 2020 Forecast furnishes valuable insight into global affairs and into the strategic agenda as it is being set in Moscow. It does an admirable job of integrating a global pandemic, which is wreaking havoc in real time, into longer term projections about global order. Where it concerns issues of public health and political upheaval, the Forecast is persuasive: it alleges a widening gap between political elites (in many countries) and the populations they are trying to govern. The Forecast misses a few important political trends, however. Of these, the most important is an accelerating consolidation of the post-Brexit European Union (EU). Should this continue, transatlantic relations could deepen, whereas Russia and China might find themselves confronting new challenges. If anything, the IMEMO Forecast does not stray far enough—intellectually—from the pre-COVID status quo. The Forecast assumes little change in Russia-EU relations, almost no change in US-Russian relations and closer linking together of Russia and China. It does not emphasize Russian agency in any of these three areas but instead roots the international situation in slow-moving structural processes: the alignment of interests between Russia and China, the possibility of an incipient ‘‘pragmatism’’ in the Kremlin’s relationship with Europe (broadly construed), and an intractable parting of the ways between the United States and Russia. The COVID crisis is understood, in this Forecast, as an impetus to trends that were apparent in 2019 and before. Some speculation is offered about ‘‘black swans’’—in particular those that might arise from global warming—and the stress these would put on the political order around the globe. In many different regions, the Forecast envisions elites struggling to hang on and a restless, younger generation eager to make its claim on political power.","PeriodicalId":42556,"journal":{"name":"New Perspectives","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2020-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88218648","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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