Trajectories In Russia Research Articles

Educational and Career Trajectories in Russia: Introducing a New Source and Datasets with a High Granularity

Abstract Studying Russian society is challenging, especially during the period of the Russian military invasion. However, it takes on special significance during a period of economic and social transformation. Studying the career and educational trajectories of Russians in the context of East Studies offers a multifaceted perspective on the state of the job market and education sector and gives an understanding of the current situation of the country’s economy and social structure. The lack of data with a high level of granularity is critical, especially for studying people with a focus on their career and educational trajectories. In this article, the authors respond to this request and present two datasets that can be useful for studying spatial and temporal patterns associated with people’s life trajectories in the context of work and education. The authors utilised open data on cv s created or updated by employment portal users over the period 2015–2023 from the Federal Service for Labor and Employment (Rostrud) and prepared two cleaned datasets covering 83 regions of Russia. Dataset 1 is on the educational and career trajectories (N = 6,221,439) and Dataset 2 is on the activity of unemployed and job-seeking candidates (N = 7,662,089).

Decentralization, historical state capacity and public goods provision in Post-Soviet Russia

• Studies public service delivery during Russian decentralization after the mid-1990s. • Regions with a legacy of historical state formation perform better. • Fieldwork suggests state legacies create more cohesive and accountable local elites. • Democratic decentralization can increase spatial inequalities in disparate polities. • Failed decentralization risks being reversed in favor of bureaucratic centralism. Democratic decentralization has been widely adopted across the developing world with the goal of improving local accountability and the delivery of public services. However, outcomes have varied widely depending on the degree of local-level elite capture, cohesion, and governing capacity. This article draws on data from one of the most radical recent cases of fiscal and administrative decentralization: post-Soviet Russia from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s. Drawing upon detailed demographic, survey, and time-series public goods data from each of 83 districts, this article documents growing inequality in service provision over time and shows via a series of spatial regressions that a strong predictor of success in maintaining public goods delivery was the degree of historically accumulated state capacity. This effect is independent of the degree of local ethnic fractionalization, economic development, or civic association. A detailed examination of two case studies at similar levels of ethnic diversity and baseline development - Tatarstan and Buryatia – suggests that legacies of historical state formation established indigenous elites and bureaucratic capacity, resulting in stronger elite-citizen ties and accountability to local actors and concerns. The wide variation of post-decentralization trajectories in Russia, and the eventual push to recentralize control. suggests an important concern for policymakers promoting devolved governance in polities with divergent subnational legacies of historical state development. Where decentralization occurs in contexts that are not uniformly favorable to its success, both the decentralization and democracy-building aspects of devolution reforms may come under threat from bureaucratic centralism.

Regional Differences in Access to Educational Resources, Academic Results and Students’ Trajectories in Russia

Regional Differences in Access to Educational Resources, Academic Results and Students’ Trajectories in Russia

West-Central Asia: A comparative analysis of students’ trajectories in Russia (Moscow) from the 1980s and China (Yiwu) from the 2000s

Through an exploration of oral history and ethnographic material, this article makes a comparative examination of the life-trajectories of students from Yemen, Iraq, and Afghanistan who studied in Russia (Moscow) during the late 1980s, and from Tajikistan, Iran, Azerbaijan and Saudi Arabia who studied in China in the 2000s. In contrast to the cohort of students in Moscow who were mainly men from places with relatively amicable relations with the USSR, the female students of Muslim background from West and Central Asia regarded China as a place where they could pursue fulfilling forms of economic and personal autonomy. By comparing these two groups of international students, this article sheds light into the nature of historical, geographical and geopolitical connections and disconnections between West-Central Asia, Eurasia (especially Russia) and East Asia (especially China). By centring its attention to the demise of Soviet/Russian education and the emergence of China as a figure of economic prosperity, the article theorises West-Central Asia as a particular arena of interaction suitable to comprehend the networks, ‘third spaces’ or zones of interaction (e.g. Moscow and Yiwu), and forms of connection fostered by these students’ trajectories.

Statecraft strategies and housing financialization at the periphery: Post-socialist trajectories in Russia and Poland

AbstractA new literature on housing and financialization has emerged in recent years, but scholars have yet to examine how political actors shape national trajectories of housing financialization. In this article, we address this shortcoming by examining the cases of Russia and Poland in the 1990-2018 period. We argue that in both contexts political elites implemented a radical market-oriented reshaping of housing finance. However, by pursuing distinct statecraft strategies and modes of integrating the domestic economy into global markets, Russian and Polish political elites created two divergent trajectories of housing financialization. Russian political elites pursued patrimonial statecraft strategies and a mode of global economic integration based on raw material exports. The Putin administration channeled revenues from raw material exports into the securitization-based housing finance system and used this infrastructure as an instrument of hegemonic power. In doing so, the Russian government shielded homeowners from exposure to financial risk. In contrast, Polish political elites pursued liberal statecraft strategies and a mode of global economic integration based on foreign capital inflows. Polish political parties therefore enabled foreign banks to dominate the housing finance system and sell foreign currency mortgages, which exposed homeowners to considerable financial risk. In light of these findings we call for further research into the political factors that shape the process of housing financialization, both in the post-socialist space and beyond.

Contrasting cardiovascular trajectories in Russia and Estonia: are there lessons to be learnt as to how to increase life expectancy?

Contrasting cardiovascular trajectories in Russia and Estonia: are there lessons to be learnt as to how to increase life expectancy?

Contrasting cardiovascular trajectories in Russia and Estonia: are there lessons to be learnt as to how to increase life expectancy?

Contrasting cardiovascular trajectories in Russia and Estonia: are there lessons to be learnt as to how to increase life expectancy?

Russia's political economy re-conceptualized: A changing hybrid of liberalism, statism and patrimonialism

Russian political–economic development since the early 1990s has been described as one of initial liberalization and subsequent re-etatization a decade later. Our paper critically builds upon this view, systematically adding patrimonialism as third dimension and conceptualizing Russia's trajectory as varying with respect to ideal–typical liberalism, statism and patrimonialism. We argue that Russian patrimonialism hindered the rise of the economically facilitating state capacity and undermined both liberalization in the 1990s and re-etatization in the 2000s.Furthermore, we add a comparative BRICs perspective that clarifies the peculiarity of Russia's development based on statistical data from the World Bank, the OECD and Heritage Foundation. The data confirm the de-liberalization of Russia and show an increase of patrimonialism. Another finding is that Russia was the only BRIC country that de-liberalized and increased its level of patrimonialism in the period under consideration.

Post‐Soviet Pop Goes Gay: Russia's Trajectory to Eurovision Victory

Russia's participation in the Eurovision Song Contest confirms the popular music extravaganza's ability to create a Europe that bears an eccentric yet powerful relationship to the geopolitical entity that this word usually describes. Since Russia's debut in 1994 through 2008, when pop star Dima Bilan took Eurovision's Grand Prix, Russian acts leveraged the contest's appeal to an LGBT audience, camp esthetic, and ability to construct a queer European identity by incorporating Russian constructions of Western homosexuality in an increasingly evident manner. This gay trajectory to Eurovision victory produced a mixed message that struck an uneasy balance between Russia's historic homophobia and Eurovision's gay identity politics. Although Russia's gay trajectory to Eurovision victory began unintentionally, Bilan's two acts established his mastery of the contest's camp esthetic by blurring the lines between hetero‐ and homosexual romance in 2006 and expressing homoeroticism via metrosexuality in his winning performance of the ballad “Believe” in 2008. However, after reaching its zenith in 2008, this gay trajectory came to a homophobic halt in Moscow's own production of Eurovision 2009. In addition to televising a heteronormative spectacle, officials banned the first ever pan‐Slavic Pride parade timed to coincide with the contest's finals. Subsequent Eurovision acts from Russia show that Russia's gay trajectory to Eurovision victory had nothing to do with entering the Western European arena of accepting and protecting LGBT subjects and instead has resulted in new forms of camp that distance themselves from the contest's gay fan base.

Putin, Popular Protests, and Political Trajectories in Russia: A Comparative Perspective

During December 2011, large-scale, anti-regime protests erupted across Russia. What do the Russian uprisings reveal about popular challenges to authoritarian rule and the political trajectory of contemporary Russian authoritarianism? This study identifies two models of citizen mobilization against authoritarian leaders, one focusing on street-based protests and the other using elections as the key arena for launching popular challenges. Three factors encouraging both models are analyzed: declining public support for the regime; growing evidence that leaders are no longer invincible; and changing political opportunities for the opposition. The extent to which these conditions are present in Russia and what this ledger suggests about plausible political trajectories there are evaluated.

Alcohol and fatal life trajectories in Russia: understanding narrative accounts of premature male death in the family

BackgroundIn the post-Soviet period, Russian working-age men have suffered unusually high mortality rates. Earlier quantitative work found that part of this is attributable to hazardous and harmful patterns of alcohol consumption, which increased in the period of transition at a time of massive social and economic disruption and uncertainty. However, there has been very little work done to document and understand in detail the downward life trajectories of individual men who died prematurely from alcohol-related conditions. Building on an earlier case-control study, this unique qualitative study investigates the perceived interplay between men's drinking careers, their employment and family history, health and eventual death.MethodsIn-depth interviews were conducted with close relatives (most often the widow) of 19 men who died between 2003 and 2005 aged 25-54 years whose close relatives reported that alcohol contributed to their death. The study was conducted in a typical medium-sized Russian city. The relative's accounts were analysed using thematic content analysis.ResultsThe accounts describe how hazardous drinking both contributed to serious employment, family and health problems, and was simultaneously used as a coping mechanism to deal with life crises and a decline in social status. The interviews highlighted the importance of the workplace and employment status for shaping men's drinking patterns. Common themes emerged around a culture of drinking in the workplace, peer pressure from colleagues to drink, use of alcohol as remuneration, consuming non-beverage alcohols, Russian-specific drinking patterns, attitudes to treatment, and passive attitudes towards health and drinking.ConclusionsThe study provides a unique insight into the personal decline that lies behind the extremely high working-age mortality due to heavy drinking in Russia, and highlights how health status and hazardous drinking are often closely intertwined with economic and social functioning. Descriptions of the development of drinking careers, hazardous drinking patterns and treatment experiences can be used to plan effective interventions relevant in the Russian context.

Russia--lost in transition: the Yeltsin and Putin legacies

Russian history is first and foremost a history of personalized power. As Russia startles the international community with its assertiveness and faces both parliamentary and presidential elections, Lilia Shevtsova searches the histories of the Yeltsin and Putin regimes. She explores within them conventional truths and myths about Russia, paradoxes of Russian political development, and Russia's role in the world. Russia --Lost in Transition discovers a logic of government in Russia --a political regime and the type of capitalism that were formulated during the Yeltsin and Putin presidencies and will continue to dominate Russia's trajectory in the near term. Looking forward as well as back, Shevtsova speculates about the upcoming elections as well as the self-perpetuating system in place --the legacies of Yeltsin and Putin --and how it will dictate the immediate political future. She also explores several scenarios for Russia's future over the next decade.

Trotskyism in Shanghai, 1929–1932: The politics of iconoclasm

Russian political–economic development since the early 1990s has been described as one of initial liberalization and subsequent re-etatization a decade later. Our paper critically builds upon this view, systematically adding patrimonialism as third dimension and conceptualizing Russia's trajectory as varying with respect to ideal–typical liberalism, statism and patrimonialism. We argue that Russian patrimonialism hindered the rise of the economically facilitating state capacity and undermined both liberalization in the 1990s and re-etatization in the 2000s.Furthermore, we add a comparative BRICs perspective that clarifies the peculiarity of Russia's development based on statistical data from the World Bank, the OECD and Heritage Foundation. The data confirm the de-liberalization of Russia and show an increase of patrimonialism. Another finding is that Russia was the only BRIC country that de-liberalized and increased its level of patrimonialism in the period under consideration.