Media and Power in Post-Soviet Russia by Ivan s> Zassoursky (review)

REVIEWS 359 on the political process without the aid of the mass media' (p. I83). This is a good point with regard to Russia where Internet use remains low but somewhat misleading when applied to the US. Nevertheless, he sees an importantrole for the Internetin Russia:'Combining the role of samizdat with a social communications industry, the Net is perhaps required by a vocal minority than by a silent majority.But in some cases (thewar in Chechnya), this is already very important, since it leaves a window of freedom in the communications system'(p. I84). The book's only serious shortcoming is the failure to discuss in any detail the main pieces of primary and secondary media legislation, which were enacted throughout the I99os: h7he Mass MediaLaw (I992); TheSecrecy Law (I993); TheReporting Law(I994); TheInformation Law(I995); TheCommunications Law (I995); 7The Law of Information Exchange (I996). Some knowledge of this legislationis criticalto understandingwhat tookplace in the Russianmedia in the I990s. The authormakesa couple of referencesto TheMassMediaLawbut this is inadequate given the book's theme, especially as interpreting TheMass MediaLaw was one of the main problems in media disputes in the i990s. Indeed, one reason why the image of a more competent Russia in the second Chechen war was possible was because information flows were far more tightlycontrolledby the variousministries.What does thismean forpressand media freedoms generally? Nor is there any discussion of the Judicial Chamber, an early attempt to deal with complaints and grievances arising frompresscoverage. Overall, however, this is a usefulstudyof the Russianmedia which coversa critical period and explains many of the problems confronting journalists, legislators, politicians and, indeed, academics, as they try to adapt to the frustrationsand hopes of post-Soviet Russia. Department ofRussian andSlavonic Studies FRANK ELLIS University ofLeeds Smith, Simon (ed.).LocalCommunities andPost-Communist Transformation. Czechoslovakia , theCzech Republic andSlovakia. BASEES RoutledgeCurzon Series on Russian and East European Studies, 3. RoutledgeCurzon, London and New York,2003. Tables. Notes. Index. xxiv + 223 pp. ?6o.oo. As thisnew collection highlights,extricationfrom Communist rulein Central and Eastern Europe encompassed not merely national 'modes of transition', but a myriad of local transitions. This is particularly true in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, where patterns of settlement, pre-Communist traditions of public administration and Communist ultra-centralism made the restoration of the self-governing commune/community (obec) one of the key ideals of the November I989 'VelvetRevolution'. With the exception of MartinMyant's chapter,which surveysthe nationallevel relationshipbetween partiesand civil society in the Czech Republic, the book's contributors all examine this neglected dimension of transformation through detailed local case studies. Simon Smith explores the legacies of the civic movements of I989, studying Public Against Violence across the 360 SEER, 83, 2, 2005 Humenne districtof EastSlovakiaand Civic Forumin fiveCzech communities in West Bohemia. Similarly, Mikulas Huba examines the transformationof the Slovak Union of Nature and Landscape Conservationists(SZOPK) from an island of alternative thinking within official structuresbefore I989 to a diverse set of successor NGOs in the post-Meciar era. Like many of the sociallyengaged Czech and Slovaksociologistsin late Communist Czechoslovakia whose work he explores in the introduction, Smith sees local civic mobilization as pre-figuring radical forms of community self-determination outside the reach of bureaucraticstate administrationand conventional party politics. In practice, however, as his and others' contributions make clear, factional infighting, the dominance of networksof local notables, small scale clientelism and passive, disengaged local populations have been more common outcomes. However, there are local success stories. The conditions facilitating these more positive patterns of civic engagement, he suggests, includecollaborationbetween 'old'(Communist-era)and 'new'organizations; strong local identities, which enable the 'narrativization'of post-Communist transformationat grassrootslevel; and the presence of clear external threats to the community. Such factors are formalized in Martin Slosiarnik'snotion of 'civic potential' developed in a comparative analysis of two Slovak communities which, although similar in terms of demographics and socioeconomic structure, have had contrasting success in local transformation. Elsewhere, Zdenka Vajdova's review of ten years of local transformationin the Czech Republic presentsthesefactorsin more familiartermsof social and human capital. As Imrich Vasickaemphasizes in a study of localities in East Slovakia, 'external threats' to community life are generated not just by residual centralism in state...

RusNet on the Offensive

ABSTRACTThe EU’s character as a regulatory state is widely accepted, yet more research is needed to shed light on the relationship between primary and secondary legislation, as well as other types of rule specification. Applying these concepts to EU rulemaking is insightful since rules adopted through the ordinary legislative procedure (primary legislation) usually only set a broad framework. Yet prior to implementation at the national level, many policies are subject to rule specification through executive decisions (secondary legislation), or through private actors (private regulation). Nevertheless, analysis of the growth of European regulation has mostly focused on primary legislation. By contrast, the question how secondary legislation and private regulation relate to primary legislation has attracted far less attention. I argue in this paper that a focus on primary legislation risks leaving us with a biased account of the power balance in European policymaking. The paper follows a case-oriented strategy with the aim to develop a workable operationalisation of the core concepts. It compares two fields of legislation, namely European product and energy policy. It first retraces the evolution of primary and secondary legislation, but also voluntary agreements as an implementing instrument and the role of private actors’ expertise in these fields, and then assesses the relationship between these regulatory tools based on document analysis and expert interviews. The goal is to work out discrepancies between the formal allocation of competencies and the actual locus of power. The findings show that solely looking at primary legislation leads to several misperceptions, such as overstating the relative importance of certain policy instruments, or the achieved degree of administrative centralisation.

Much has been written since the early 1980s about the costs of regulation and the various ways to curb them, but thus far no one has examined empirically the rise or decline of other forms of legislation, mainly primary legislation, in the context of the “war on regulation.” This article examines the extent to which the decline in the rate of production of secondary legislation in Israel since 1985 has been driven by changes in the rate of production of primary legislation. Using an original longitudinal data set, we count, codify various dimensions, and compare the type and length of primary and secondary legislations and the number of delegated provisions that primary legislations contain. We find that the relationship between primary and secondary legislation is not hierarchic, as one might have expected, but has become partially substitutive. The decline in the rate of production of secondary legislation in Israel is, perhaps paradoxically, associated with the rise of primary legislation. This opens a new research agenda on the relationships between primary and secondary legislation that goes well beyond the Israeli case.

This article is dedicated to studying the consumption of Internet in Russia. The author analyzes the dynamics of consumption of global network by regions of the Russian Federation. Special attention is paid to the use of Internet by population of the Republic of Bashkortostan. Comparative analysis is conducted to the situation in Bashkortostan overall, as well as urban and rural areas in particular. Attention is also focused on the correlation between two indicators: “Use of the Internet” and “Assessment by households of their financial situation”. The conclusions are structured on the analysis of relevant Russian and foreign publications covering the topic of the use of Internet, as well as statistical data for the period from 2010 to 2018 (based on the materials of the Russian Federal State Statistics Service and Bashkortostan Regional Statistics Service). The conducted research allowed determining the connection between the use of Internet and assessment by the households of their financial wellbeing. The acquired data can be used in forecasting of economic situation in the region, as well as carry applied relevance for commercial organizations, for the more efficient interaction with the consumers and improvement of goods and services.

Journal Article The age of anxiety: security and politics in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia Get access The age of anxiety: security and politics in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia. By Mark Galeotti. London: Longman. 1995. 219pp. Index. Pb.: £10.99. ISBN 0 582 21852 7. Eric Herring Eric Herring 1University of Bristol Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Affairs, Volume 71, Issue 4, October 1995, Pages 889–890, https://doi.org/10.2307/2625183 Published: 01 October 1995

A geographer specializing in the emerging information-technology sector of the Russian economy presents an exploratory overview of the "widening" and "deepening" of Internet use in Russia during the 1990s and early years of the 21st century. Separate sections of the paper examine the main stages of Internet development in the country to date, explore regional differences in Internet access and use, and outline progress in the installation of surface telecommunications (including fiber optic) trunklines and intra-city networks. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: L86, L96, O32. 3 tables, 17 references.

546 SEER, 83, 3, 2005 importantpoliticalcomplexion to what could riskotherwiseto be a very sterile analysis. Of course, one cannot know what might have transpiredhad the norm of justice figured more prominently in international efforts to resolve the Yugoslav crisis. While Williams and Scharf provide evidence of the norm's effectivenessin the laterphases of the crisis,notablywith respectto the use of force, the apprehensionofwarcriminalsand the use of economic inducements (conditionality),one can only speculateas to how effectivesome of these same instrumentsmight have been at earlierphases of the crisis.Yet if one cannot rerunhistory, reasoned conjecture of the kind that Williams and Scharfoffer here is the best substitute. Department ofPolitics&International Relations RICHARD CAPLAN University ofOxford Tishkov, Valery. Chechnya.Life in a WarTom Society.With a foreword by Mikhail S. Gorbachev. University of CaliforniaPress,Berkeleyand Los Angeles, CA and London, 2004. xvii + 284 pp. Map. Notes. Appendices. Bibliography. Index.$19.95: [I2.95 (paperback). NOTWITHSTANDING several noteworthy scholarly accounts of the Chechen war(s)-John Dunlop'sRussiaConfronts Chechnya (Cambridge, I998), Matthew Evangelista's TheChechen Wars(Washington,D.C., 2002), and more recently, Dmitri V. Trenin and Aleksei V. Malashenko's Russia'sRestlessFrontier (Washington,D.C., 2004) much of the literatureon the topic consists of (generallywell meaning)journalists'deeply moving accounts of the Chechen people's sufferingand the war'simpact on young Russianssent to fightin the Caucasian republic. ValeryTishkov certainlymaintains a sense of pathos for both Chechens and Russiansin Chechnya: Lifeina War-Tom Society. Moreover, his credentialsand approach make his studyfar more balanced and rigorous than thejournalists'.It is an outstandingcontributionto the literature. Tishkov is a 'scholarpolitician'. In addition to being regarded as one of Russia's leading ethnographers, Tishkov served as the Russian Federation's Minister for Nationalities during El'tsin'sfirstterm. In his officialcapacities Tishkov would naturally have had a strong role in affairs relating to the conflict. He was also a member of the peace negotiation process and the delegation involved in the Khasavyurt Agreements which ended the first Chechen war. Such experience and 'investment'in historicalprocesseswould perhaps cast some shadows on the amount of balance and detachment with which an authorcan approachhis or her topic. It is to Tishkov'screditthat he does not use this book as a summaryof his achievements and participationin Russian government or during the first Chechen War. Rather, he utilizes materials from interviews conducted by Chechen anthropologists with the Chechen people to 'empower [sic] through expression those individuals whose voices, whose visions, are least of all heard in the course of a conflict,who are least of all responsiblefor it, but who sufferthe most from it' (p. 2I5, original emphasis). Tishkov's presence in the book is largely through his synthesisof REVIEWS 547 ethnographic material with broader literatureson social theory and political processes. Indeed, one of the book's main strengths is its emphasis on process, in particularhow individualsturned to violence in this conflict. Tishkov rightly acknowledges that there have been long-term difficultiesbetween Russians (andotherformerSoviet nations)and Chechensthroughoutthepastcenturies. However, he draws attention to the fact that before the war Chechens were veryhappy to considerthemselvescitizenswithin a broadermulti-ethnicstate. Tishkov's study'sparticipants overwhelminglydemonstrate that when those Chechens who decided to take up armsmade their choices, they did so when theywere threateneddirectly.Historywas of lesserimportance.Therefore,he establishesa credible challenge to scholarsand activistswho contend that the conflict has long-standing roots which will make establishingpeace between Russians and Chechens nearly impossible. Additionally, Tishkov presents detailed informationon the processesof radicalIslamism'semergence within Chechnya. These forms are largely alien to traditional Chechen Islamic practices, generally grounded in milder forms of Sufism. The participants suggest that the difficultiesof war, poverty, social discrimination, and other factors like Wahhabist monetary incentives to convert contributed to (particularly)young Chechens'seeminglyparadoxicaladoptionof some harsh practicesof Sharia.Most importantly,Tishkovpresentsvivid accounts of how people attempted to survive. What is significant about Tishkov's account is that he humanizes the Chechens, without fawning over their struggle or demonizing them. There are, naturally, some lacunae in a study of this type. For instance, Tishkov has a few instanceswhere he generalizeswithout providingevidence to support his claims. On p. I83 he does not mention specificallyany of the internationalaid organizationsthathe allegesdid not co-operatewith Russian and official Chechen authorities, and instead...

reviews 775 very first,he challenges the accuracy and utility of the term 'oligarchs' as the businesspeople in question have made no efforts to gain formal political power. At the same time, he has to accept that ithas become impossible to avoid, however much itneeds to be treatedwith caution. Beyond this, he explores whether they are canny entrepreneurs or corrupt asset-strippers, how they firstgot theirmoney, what they have done with it, and whether they are as much of a malign force inpolitics and the economy as their detractors suggest. His overall conclusions are that while their origins are varied (and certainly in some cases shadowy) they are 'clever, adaptable people who have at the very least restored to health and atmost transformed the sectors they are involved in' (p. 174). Although he clearly tries to be even-handed, Fortescue ultimately sees the oligarchs in a positive light.To him, the greater danger is that Putin or his successor swings either towards effective renationalization or the Latin American-style populist politics of dispossession. Instead, he argues that the government and people must 'recognize the rightof the oligarchs to exist and evolve' (p. 179) and wait for these personalized business empires to become 'normal' corporations over time and generations. This sounds perhaps a little optimistic, and given theYukos affair ? which Fortescue painstakingly dis sects inwhat is probably themost effective chapter in thisbook ? it seems equally unlikely that the oligarchs who rose under El'tsin's free-for-allwill be granted this license. In the final analysis, though, there is something a littleunsatisfying about this book. It is hard to fault the research, and Fortescue has a sure grip on the big picture as well as the finedetail (although his treatment on the siloviki, who emerge as the bad guys of this account, is a little lacking in nuance, too quickly dismissing them as opportunists and authoritarians to a man). Perhaps it is that this is also a strangely agnostic work ? too often rival theories are detailed in parallel but in the final analysis the author fails clearly to back one or the other. The writing is also often quite opaque, and the minutiae of taxation schemes and shareholder politics can become arcane and hard to follow. This is a shame, because the book tackles important issues and in a way and to a depth that few others have tried. OrganisedRussian & Eurasian CrimeResearchUnit Mark Galeotti Keele University Webber, Stephen L. and Mathers, Jennifer G. (eds).Military and Society in Post-Soviet Russia. Manchester University Press, Manchester and New York, 2006. xviii + 277 pp. Figures. Tables. Notes. Glossary. Select bibliography. Index. ?60.00. Published in 2006, thisbook was actually written and compiled in 2004. On the whole, it examines a range of issues concerning the interaction of the Russian Armed Forces with Russian society since the demise of theUSSR in 1991.Thus, thebook covers such diverse topics as theportrayal of themilitary inpost-USSR Russian war films to the regional dimension inRussian military 776 SEER, 86, 4, OCTOBER 2008 reform. Unfortunately, of the eleven listed contributors to the volume, only one was based inRussia (Lev Gudkov, analysing the contemporary general image of theRussian Armed Forces in society), so thisbook isverymuch from aWestern perspective. This reviewer certainly is of the opinion that the book would have been more useful had the editors been able to track down a couple of other Russian specialists, either from the academic or political elite, able to supply us with theirviews on how contemporary Russian society views the country's Armed Forces or how the political /social role of the Armed Forces has changed since the collapse of Communism now over a decade ago. The compilation does provide useful material examining the public's attitude towards both Chechen wars (Mikhail Alekseyev); the economic dimension in the civil-military relationship over the past fifteen years (Julian Cooper); and the portrayal of the Russian Armed Forces in contemporary Russian film (David Gillespie). These chapters are both well-written and particularly illuminating, asking, as well as answering, a number of questions which should encourage others to pursue the issues raised in greater detail. Pavel Baev's contribution, analysing the regional dimension in the...

Internet use in Russia has been growing steadily. In the last four years the number of Russian Internet users grew from a few hundred thousand to over one million. Russian websites are diverse, and range from educational-informative to purely entertaining. This paper discusses several interesting and controversial Russian websites and possible implications associated with their use. It aims to understand and analyze a typical Internet user in Russia, by answering questions about their interests and demographics. The paper also discusses several other studies that were conducted in Russia on Internet use and looks at the currently available psychological resources on the Russian Internet.

A state's ability to maintain mandatory conscription and wage war rests on the idea that a real man is one who has served in the military. Yet masculinity has no inherent ties to militarism. The link between men and the military, argues Maya Eichler, must be produced and reproduced in order to fill the ranks, engage in combat, and mobilize the population behind war. In the context of Russia's post-communist transition and the Chechen wars, men's militarization has been challenged and reinforced. Eichler uncovers the challenges by exploring widespread draft evasion and desertion, anti-draft and anti-war activism led by soldiers' mothers, and the general lack of popular support for the Chechen wars. However, the book also identifies channels through which gender identities have been reproduced. Eichler's empirical and theoretical study of masculinities in international relations applies for the first time the concept of militarized masculinity, developed by feminist IR scholars, to the case of Russia.

The third edition of this acclaimed book offers a systematic analysis of Putin’s three wars, placing the Second Chechen War, the war with Georgia of 2008, and the current war with Ukraine in their broader historical context. Drawing on extensive original Russian sources, Marcel H. Van Herpen analyzes in detail how Putin’s wars have been prepared and conducted, and why they have led to allegations of war crimes and genocide. He shows how the conflicts have attempted to consolidate and legitimate Putin’s regime and explores how they are connected to a fourth, hidden, “internal war” waged by the Kremlin against the opposition. The author convincingly argues that the Kremlin—relying on the secret services, the Orthodox Church, the Kremlin youth “Nashi,” and the rehabilitated Cossacks—is preparing for an imperial revival, most recently in the form of a “Eurasian Union.” An essential book for understanding the dynamics of Putin’s regime, this study digs deep into the Kremlin’s secret long-term strategies. Readable and clearly argued, it makes a compelling case that Putin’s regime emulates an established Russian paradigm in which empire building and despotic rule are mutually reinforcing. As the first comprehensive exploration of the historical antecedents and political continuity of the Kremlin’s contemporary policies, Van Herpen’s work will make a valuable contribution to the literature on post-Soviet Russia, and his arguments will stimulate a fascinating and vigorous debate.

ATTACK ON KASYANOV: CHECHEN INTERNAL AFFAIRS MINISTRY WADES INTO FEDERAL POLICY

War is not an exhausted topic in contemporary Russian literature. World War II, Afghan War and, of course, the Chechen Wars have continued to inspire young and less young writers in post-Soviet Russia. Whether in longer fiction, as in the novels of Andrey Gelasimov—Thirst, recounting the difficult return from Chechnya of a badly disfigured soldier, and The Gods of the Steppe, focusing on the friendship between a Japanese prisoner and a Russian boy during World War II; or narratives close to d...

The article considers the modern trends in promoting goods and services by using digital marketing technologies. There have been given the statistical data from the state program Digital Economy and the assumptions on its further development. The attention is focused on the fact of availability of the Internet in the country, which is the basis for digitalization of the economy, there are provided the statistical data on availability of the Internet in Russia and in the world. It is noted that in Russia the rate of Internet use is lower than in Western countries. The aspects of using digital technologies in business are defined in terms of applying various sensors collected in a single system for analyzing large and continuous data, integrating self-learning systems into production, developing the Internet of Things, which can transfer the enterprise to a new level of profitability, contribute to the modernization of goods following the changing needs of customers. A relatively new concept of revenue-management is considered as based on forecasting demand and developing an enterprise's pricing policy. The most effective digital marketing technologies (wireless communication technologies, neuro technologies, block chain, artificial intelligence, big data, revenue-management, etc.) that ensure the promotion of goods and services in the markets and the corresponding marketing tools that allow the enterprise to optimize production costs, form new sources of income, and build up from competitors by more carefully studying the needs of customers are highlighted.