Managing Dissent in Post-Soviet Authoritarianism. New Censorship of Protest Music in Belarus and Russia, 2000–2018

Abstract

Drawing on the example of constraints on protest music in Belarus and Russia, the article discusses the political economy of censorship in the everyday functioning of contemporary authoritarianism. Combining the ‘new censorship’ paradigm of critical sociology and studies of post-Soviet authoritarian regimes, this study identifies and discusses structural, invisible or constitutive censorship. While the visible, formal and openly repressive mechanisms of political censorship are formally prohibited and play a minor role, actual constraints on the expression of protest take different shapes.