post-Soviet Region Research Articles

Trade as a confidence-building measure in protracted conflicts: the cases of Georgia and Moldova compared

ABSTRACTAcademic and policy literature on the post-Soviet region’s protracted conflicts frequently assumes that trade is an effective confidence-building measure (CBM) and as such also has the potential to facilitate progress toward conflict settlement. We probe these assertions through a detailed empirical comparison of the effects that regulated and unregulated forms of trade have had in the cases of Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Transnistria. Relying on a wealth of primary and secondary sources, including 29 semi-structured interviews, as well as direct and participant observation, we find that, absent political will by authorities on the ground and their respective international partners, trade remains by-and-large unregulated and has limited and generally not sustainable confidence-building and stabilizing effects, as evidenced by the cases of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Where local and geopolitical conditions are more conducive, trade becomes more regulated and significantly contributes to confidence building and stabilization and has some positive spill-over effects into non-economic areas of confidence building, as is evident from Transnistria. This finding has potentially important implications for other cases in which governments and relevant regional and international actors are faced with difficult choices over whether and how to engage with unrecognized entities, such as in Ukraine.

Preface

These proceedings of the International Conference ‘Welding in Russia 2019: State-of-the-Art and Perspectives’, which was held from 3 to 7 September 2019 in Tomsk (Russia), are generalization of the presented and discussed achievements as well as problems in this area of science. It was the first large-scale meeting in the post-Soviet region covering all parts of welding production including international cooperation aimed at strengthening ties between leading scientists and specialists. Representatives of large corporations and industrial associations, scientific and educational institutions took part in the Conference. Many important issues were discussed: new materials and equipment for welding; repair of critical structures operated under extreme conditions, their reliability, reducing risks of man-made accidents as well as negative impact on the environment.Welding, as the main technological process for production of metal structures for various industrial purposes, is a multi-disciplinary science covering a wide range of subjects such as materials science, physics, mathematics, chemistry, electrical and computer engineering. Its development requires the results of numerous investigations because the main drawback affecting the performance of the welded structure is application of materials that do not meet operation conditions, ineffective technologies for their joining or incorrect parameters of welding modes. As a result, various micro- and macro-discontinuities, stresses and deformations are formed in welds. This contributes to different problems such as low strength and corrosion resistance, brittle fracture under load (especially at low temperatures), etc. Therefore, special attention should be paid to heat input control during welding. This may significantly improve quality of welded joints. In order to develop knowledge about the listed welding features, the following sections are presented in the proceedings:New materials for production and repair of critical structures and special-purpose equipment operated under extreme loads and low climatic temperatures of the Far North and the Arctic.Directions and trends in application of conventional heat sources (electric arc, plasma, etc.) as well as high-performance ones (laser and electron beams) significantly expanding the boundaries of physical capabilities to control processing of metals and alloys, stresses and deformations formed in complex-shaped products.Welding and technological properties of materials and equipment: registration methods, assessment of reliability, expert assessment.Reliability of critical structures, reducing risks from industrial accidents, as well as negative environmental impacts.The presented papers may be interesting to a wide range of specialists in the fields of materials science, hydrodynamics, chemistry and mechanics of solids, reliability and technogenic safety, welding control in the manufacture of structures for critical purposes.The Editor of the Proceedings,Professor, Doctor of Technical Science, Yuriy SaraevInstitute of Strength Physics and Materials Science, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of ScienceTomsk, Russialitsin@ispms.tsc.ru

Weaponization of “Colour Revolutions”

The term “colour revolutions” was coined to describe nonviolent mass protests against political elites that broke out in the post-Soviet region, a decade after the breakdown of the USSR. The most active, well-organized and successful “colour revolutions” took place in Serbia (2000), Georgia (2003), Ukraine (2004) and Kyrgyzstan (2005). The crisis in Ukraine that began in November 2013, with mass protests against the government’s decision not to sign an association agreement with the EU, again raised the issue of “colour revolutions” in Russia. The Russian political and military leadership’s views which can be determined from updated strategic documents, military concepts, speeches and media narratives provide an insight into a profound authoritarian reaction to the phenomena, which by its very nature is a form of democratic development. The article aims to reveal how “colour revolutions” are being weaponized in Russia through their interpretation as warfare.

Islam in the Gold Heart of Russia: Ingush Islamic Communities in Kolyma

This article analyzes evolving patterns of migration between traditionally Muslim parts of the post-Soviet region and the Russian Far East, with an emphasis on the migration of Ingush between rural Ingushetia and urban areas of Magadan Oblast. It shows how the initial isolation of Ingush migrants from their homeland has been overcome with the aid of more affordable travel and new communications technologies. It describes the emergence of new Islamic communities among migrants in the Far East, the relations between these communities and municipal authorities, the rivalry between Sufi brotherhoods, and the recent split between Sufi and Salafi Muslims.

Language Policies as an Instrument of Shaping and Rhetoricizing Mutual Relations in the Post-Soviet Region

Obszar postradziecki zamieszkują wspólnoty posługujące się wielką liczbą języków i dialektów. Mozaika językowa regionu kształtowała się przez tysiąclecia. Częstokroć stanowiła czynnik poważnie oddziałujący na rozwój sytuacji geopolitycznej w tejże części globu. Obszar postradziecki pozostaje przestrzenią, w której kwestie językowe nadal jawią się jako wyzwanie. W sporym stopniu tradycyjne problemy uległy komplikacji w okresie regionalnej ekspansji ruszczyzny w wiekach XIX oraz XX. Aktualnie państwa regionu starają się prowadzić bardziej lub mniej autonomiczne polityki językowe, niekiedy obliczone na łagodzenie, niekiedy na zaostrzanie miejscowych konfliktów socjopolitycznych. Polityki te nierzadko okazują się instrumentem, przy pomocy którego gracze regionalni usiłują niwelować tudzież zwiększać rozdźwięki w stosunkach wzajemnych. Co więcej, rozwiązania polityczne w kwestiach językowych często służą jako argumenty w rywalizacji aksjologicznej pomiędzy wspólnotami zamieszkującymi przestrzeń byłego ZSRR. Celem tekstu jest analiza wybranych aspektów wspomnianych polityk. Stanowi on także próbę ogólnej charakterystyki ich właściwości retorycznych oraz potencjału argumentacyjnego.

A gender-focused analysis of structural and social precipitators to child institutionalization in Azerbaijan: A qualitative study

Deinstitutionalization reforms in the post-Soviet region—the region with the highest rate of institutional care worldwide—are aimed at reducing the number of children in institutions. To develop context-specific gatekeeping strategies and prevent new cohorts of children from entering institutions, it is crucial to understand the local factors that contribute to institutional placement. Using a phenomenological approach, this qualitative study explores the contexts of institutional placement of children in Azerbaijan from their caregivers' perspectives. We conducted semi-structured qualitative interviews of the parents and primary caregivers (N = 26) of children placed in the institutional care system in Azerbaijan. Using systematic thematic analysis with inductive coding, we identified caregivers' reasons for placing children in the system, and inferred the life circumstances that led parents—women in particular—to be more likely to place their children in institutions. Our findings reveal multiple, gendered pathways that contribute to such placement. The majority of caregivers were single mothers, many of whom had divorced their husbands in response to domestic violence (often attributed to the husband's substance addiction). The strong stigma against divorce led women to be ostracized by close family members, often leaving them without economic and social support. Because of the limitations of public benefits available in the region, publicly-funded child institutions are often the only remaining way to provide education and care for their children. This qualitative study shows the importance of addressing the social and economic needs of parents, single mothers in particular, to prevent child institutional placement in the post-Soviet Caucasus region.

Changing Fertility Patterns in Two North Caucasian Republics: Is it Only Social Policy that Matters?.

The paper deals with fertility levels in some republics of the North Caucasus (Dagestan and Karachay-Cherkessia) where, as in other post-Soviet regions, there has been a serious intensification of religiosity and at the same time weakening of the traditional family unit in recent decades. The goal of the paper is to ascertain whether these trends affect fertility, whose decrease is apparently stalling in the North Caucasus over the last decade. One reason to turn to this question is that in some regions of the North Caucasus the fertility level has been considerably higher since the pronatalist state policy was implemented in 2007 than in Russia as a whole. This raises the question as to whether higher fertility in the North Caucasus is mainly related to a higher demand for the state financial support granted to parents following the birth of the second (or a subsequent) child or if it can be rather accounted for by the specific cultural characteristics of that part of Russia. Our field survey held in the two republics of the North Caucasus in 2016 showed that the religiosity of respondents is related to higher fertility regardless of family policy issues. The relation between religiosity and higher fertility is arguably independent from the observance of traditional family norms which imposegender hierarchies. This suggests that an Islamic revival within a given society can support fertility whether or not traditional norms of familyorganization are preserved there. The conclusion for state pronatalist policy is that its outcome may be related to the cultural characteristics of the population among which such measures are implemented, apart from economic parameters that drive the demand among some families for financial support after childbirth.

ПОСТСОВЕТСКИЕ ГОСУДАРСТВА ЦЕНТРАЛЬНОЙ АЗИИ В ПОЛИТИКЕ КИТАЯ

Основные направления взаимодействия с КНР постсоветских государств Центральной Азии (ЦА) проанализированы в контексте становления Китая как мировой державы, завязавшей тесные контакты с другими странами и регионами мира в рамках своих глобальных проектов. Показано взаимодействие Китая с рядом государств Южной и Юго-Восточной Азии при реализации инициативы “Один пояс, один путь”. Определены интересы Китая в Центрально-Азиатском регионе, выявлены основные сферы взаимного сотрудничества Китая и центральноазиатских государств. Рассмотрены риски, возникающие в ЦА вследствие активной экономической экспансии Китая в сочетании с предоставляемой им помощью развитию. Проанализировано в связи с этим восприятие в ЦА китайского фактора.

The Russian Federation’s neo-imperial expansionist strategy for the Post-Soviet region discussed using the example of the Russo-Georgian conflict of 2008

The Russian Federation’s neo-imperial expansionist strategy for the Post-Soviet region discussed using the example of the Russo-Georgian conflict of 2008

Dutch Disease in Post-Soviet Oil Exporting Countries: Impact of Real Appreciation on De-industrialization

With the recent economic slowdown, there has been a growing concern that de-industrialization might result from resource abundance in the post-Soviet region. By using a comparative panel analysis of three countries of the post-Soviet region and 14 countries of selected oil exporters, this paper investigates whether real appreciation for the oil exporters contributed to de-industrialization in the region. We fail to find any evidence to support the claim that real appreciation caused de-industrialization in the region.

Manufacturing and Migration in Eurasia

This article investigates the social foundations of apparel manufacturing in Kyrgyzstan. Drawing upon interviews and a survey of Bishkek-based workshop owners, a bottom-up analysis finds that many are family businesses that started producing clothing after the country’s independence in 1991. I discuss here how they acquired the capital and knowledge necessary for this business, and how they mobilised a variety of migration-related experiences and relationships—often related to bazaar work—to compete in the sector. The findings contribute to a growing literature on how migration can facilitate family-based manufacturing in the post-Soviet region, although not without significant costs and challenges.

Between Russia and a Hard Place: Great Power Grievances and Central Asian Ambivalence

This essay asks how Central Asian states have responded to Russia’s intervention in Ukraine and salvos against the West, as a means to assess how Russia and the Central Asian states understand their national interests and exercise state power. It argues that the post-Soviet region shares a cynical and geopolitically driven view of the exercise of global power. Yet Russia has sometimes deployed its resources to advance short-term ideological objectives, whereas Central Asian foreign policy is pragmatic and opportunistic. The Ukraine crisis threatened to coerce the Central Asian states into conformity with Russia’s interests; ironically, their dependence on Russia has enabled their freedom of action in foreign policy, within limits. The essay highlights the ways that geography enables and constrains the execution of foreign policy, and considers the ambiguous role ideology plays in the formulation of national interests and the prospects for international cooperation.

EU-Russia political and security cooperation: major research trends

ABSTRACT The Russia-Georgia conflict in August 2008 and Ukraine’s crisis have dramatic consequences for the security environment on the EU Eastern periphery and undermined ‘strategic partnership’ with Russia. The Western literature on security has been dominated since by Russia’s confrontation with Europe, the use of sanctions by the EU as an instrument of statecraft to ‘contain’ Russia, and the promotion by Moscow of ‘hybrid warfare’ tactics. The Russian literature has mainly concentrated on rivalry between Russia and the EU in the post-Soviet region, reciprocal sanctions and ‘Cold War 2.0’. In fact, much of the previous extensive literature reflected commonalities as well as divergences in Russian and European scholars’ perceptions of their security relationship. We identify the key conceptual and empirical concerns reflected in the scholarly literature: (1) legal-institutional issues; (2) EU–Russia bilateral cooperation in security governance; (3) EU–Russia cooperation at the international level to address common security problems and (4) EU–Russia relations in terms of ideational/identity issues. We have used these four themes as the basis of our analytical framework enabling us to compare approaches of Russian and European scholars. The conclusions focus on the commonalities and differences in European and Russian scholarship and identify epistemological and practical consequences.

The Ukrainian-Russian Virtual Flashmob against Sexual Assault

Feruza Aripova – PhD Candidate in World History, Northeastern University; Center Associate, Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University; Visiting Scholar, Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia, New York University, USA. Email: aripova.f@husky.neu.edu
 Janet Elise Johnson – Professor of Political Science and Women’s & Gender Studies, Brooklyn College, City University of New York; Visiting Scholar, Center for European and Mediterranean Studies at New York University, New York, USA. Email: Johnson@brooklyn.cuny.edu
 This article examines the 2016 Ukrainian-Russian virtual flashmob that took on the issues of sexual assault, including childhood sexual abuse, sexual harassment, and rape. Begun by a Ukrainian activist on Facebook, the flashmob resulted in more than ten thousand original posts and led to a broader discussion on violence against women in Ukrainian and Russian. Many women (and some men) for the first time publicly disclosed excruciating details of physical and psychological coercion and the lasting trauma they suffered. The commonalities across the posts and the public visibility of the flashmob directly confronted the stigma attached to the topic of sexual violence. The media reactions to the flashmob ranged from empathy toward the victims and condemnation of the perpetrators to criticism of female promiscuity and victim blaming. The flashmob had concrete results: criminal cases were opened against teachers at one of Moscow’s prominent public schools and a series of initiatives were directed against sexual violence in Ukraine. This article provides the first systematic documentation and analysis of these posts as well as their reception in mass media and the impact so far of the flashmob, situating this flashmob as the same kind of activism that was seen in the bigger 2017 #MeToo campaign. In these ways, we contribute to what little social scientists know about violence against women in the post-Soviet region and assess this new tactic of feminist activism. Unsurprisingly, such activism does not change societies in one fell swoop, but the Ukrainian-Russian flashmob shows how virtual activism can nudge towards progressive change.

Wizja Europy Środkowowschodniej w projektach geopolitycznych ideologa eurazjatyzmu, Aleksandra Dugina

The article is an attempt to present the views of the Russian thinker on the political situation in the post-Soviet region. In his conception Aleksandr Dugin focuses on geopolitics, international relations and the position ofRussiain the new globalised world. Dugin attempts to undermine the principles of the new world order. He creates ideological foundations which may serve as a justification for regaining the imperial position ofRussia. The foundation of Dugin’s views is Eurasianism combined with the elements of geopolitics. The philosopher creates a blueprint for the Great Eurasian Empire which would compriseEast-Central Europe. According to Dugin, significant political and territorial changes will be conducted in this region on the basis of the religious faith of its inhabitants. The protestant countries will be federalized. Both the Protestant and Catholic countries will become theGermany’s sphere of influence. The Balkan states will have a somewhat different status as they will be federalized into one political subject connected withEurasia.GermanyandRussia, whose position is dominant in this region ofEurope, will become a part of the Great Eurasian Empire. There will be no room left for independentPolandandUkrainein the structure of the Eurasian Empire. Dugin does not take into account economic factors which would convince European states to integrate withEurasia. As for the present day, it is impossible to put the Eurasian project into realization.

Quantifying urban growth in 10 post-Soviet cities using Landsat data and machine learning

ABSTRACTUrbanization is one of the most irreversible anthropogenic forms of land use. Unplanned and rapid urban growth can result in environmental degradation, sprawl, and unsustainable production and consumption practices. The unique challenges facing the post-Soviet countries throughout the transition period highlight the critical need for a quantitative assessment of urban dynamics. Total of 32 Level-1 precision terrain corrected (L1T) Landsat scenes with 30 m resolution and auxiliary population and economic data were utilized to quantify the urban expansion dynamics in 10 cities across nine post-Soviet republics. Land cover was classified by using Support Vector Machine (SVM) learning algorithm with overall accuracies ranging from 87% to 97% for 29 classification maps over three time steps. The initial time step was the year 1989 ± 2, the middle time step was the year 2000 ± 2, and the final time step was the year 2015 ± 2. The results demonstrated several spatial and temporal urban expansion patterns across the post-Soviet region. The urban land area in several cities increased significantly over the study period. The average annual urban expansion rate was 1.6 ± 0.7 % per year for 10 cities over the study period and the average area of land converted to new urban environment was 227 ± 224 km2 with a corresponding average per cent increase of 54.5 ± 26.7%. Furthermore, the results demonstrated significant decrease in overall population densities across the 10 cities with an average decrease of −26.9 ± 14.8% over the study period. The urban expansion rates considerably outpaced the urban population growth rates in all 10 cities during the last quarter of a century, indicating more expansive urban growth patterns.

Autocracies and regional integration: the Eurasian case

The establishment of the Customs Union of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan in 2010, succeeded by the Eurasian Economic Union in 2015, constituted an important discontinuity in the development of post-Soviet regionalism: while the preceding organisations remained cases of ‘ink-on-paper’ regional integration, in the case of the Customs Union the members actually implemented their commitments. This creates an important theoretical challenge: the literature (which the previous experience of Eurasian regionalism was very much in line with) conjectures that authoritarian states are unable to successfully implement an economic regional integration agreement (RIA). The aim of the article is to explore the conditions under which implementation of economic RIAs by autocracies happens. We argue that the implementation is influenced by the extent of economic, social and political ties between member states, and suggest that, unlike democratic states, which are more likely to implement a RIA where there are strong economic ties, non-democracies are more likely to do so in the case of intermediate economic dependence.

Beyond Spheres of Influence: The Myth of the State and Russia’s Seductive Power in Kyrgyzstan

ABSTRACTThis article questions the analytical value of “spheres of influence” for understanding power and the state in the post-Soviet region and beyond, based on a critical deconstruction of the ontological and epistemological assumptions inherent in the concept. It proposes an alternative reading of power and the state, drawing on the concept of “seductive power” at a distance and Timothy Mitchell’s “state effect.” Rather than the concept of a sphere of influence, a highly politicized concept that conveys an ontology that flattens and divides space, essentializes the state, and relies on an intentionalist account of power, we need an analytical framework that can help us make sense of the multiple, varied spatialities and historical legacies that produce the state and power. I demonstrate this through an extended discussion of Russian power in Kyrgyzstan, a country often described as a Russian client state. Mobilizing recent re-conceptualizations of state and power in anthropology and political geography, I present an analysis of Russia’s seductive power in Kyrgyzstan and the way it contributes to producing Kyrgyz state-ness. I also show how Russia’s Great Power myth is itself evolving and conclude that the differentiated, relational production of space and power in either Kyrgyz or Russian myths of the state is not captured by a the concept of a return to spheres of influence.

Former Soviet cities in globalization: an intraregional perspective on interurban relations through networks of global service firms

ABSTRACTThis paper presents an empirical study of the globalizing urban landscape in the post-Soviet region. In order to understand the position of cities in relation to each other in the context of economic globalization, the study considers the transnational city network in the post-Soviet region. At the center of analysis are the locational strategies of global service firms operating in the former Soviet cities. We adapt the interlocking network model proposed by the Globalization and World Cities research (GaWC) network to the regional level to uncover the interurban relations. Unlike the classical studies of the GaWC, this study focuses on the analysis of intraregional spatial patterns of globalization. The research shows that the globalizing regional city system is in the midst of substantial restructuring and that the state of former Soviet Union (FSU) cities in relation to Moscow is altering. The integration of FSU cities into the global economy mostly occurs through capital cities. However, under the current political and economic circumstances, the position of each capital city within the region has become diversified. The analysis indicates that the globalization of cities within a particular region reproduces similar processes on a world scale, which are characterized by spatial concentration and hierarchical relations. However, our research has shown that patterns of urban globalization at the regional level significantly depend on the historical context and national economic and political tendencies, thus creating conditions for the penetration of the world economy into cities.

Language, Ethnicity and Separatism: Survey Results from Two Post-Soviet Regions

Scholars often use language to proxy ethnic identity in studies of conflict and separatism. This conflation of language and ethnicity can be misleading: language can cut across ethnic divides, and has a strong link to identity and social mobility. Center-periphery linguistic dynamics—contexts in which residents of a peripheral region speak a language distinct from that of the metropole—can thus influence individual preferences over separatist outcomes independently of ethnic identity. Results from a survey of two post-Soviet regions support this claim. Analyses demonstrate that individuals fluent in a peripheral lingua franca are more likely to support separatism than those who are not, while individuals fluent in the metropolitan language are less likely to support separatist outcomes. Moreover, an individual's linguistic abilities show a stronger relationship with support for separatism than her ethnic identification.