| 1. |
- Andermo, Erik, et al.
(författare)
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Sanctions and dollar dependency in Russia : resilience, vulnerability, and financial integration
- 2021
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Ingår i: Post-Soviet Affairs. - : Taylor & Francis. - 1060-586X .- 1938-2855. ; 37:3, s. 276-301
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- What are the long-term effects of the financial sanctions against Russia? We provide a time-sensitive analysis of the sanctions impact on certain Russian financial markets and highlight how Russia has responded strategically. Our analysis also captures the effect of the threat of sanctions and informs the debate on sanctions effectiveness. Thus, our study indicates how financial sanctions can be incorporated into theories of deterrence and conflict resolution. We also provide some policy implications that can be generalized and reinforce previous research. Russia's banking system is highly dependent on dollar transactions, and in response to sanctions, Russia has systematically undertaken measures to promote its economic sovereignty under conditions of continued financial integration. We argue that sanctions put some pressure on the Russian budget, and that this effect has been exacerbated by the Covid-19 crisis, but also that Russia has used debt placements strategically in order to deter sanctions escalation.
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| 2. |
- Andermo, Erik, et al.
(författare)
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Secrecy and Military Expenditures in the Russian Budget
- 2020
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Ingår i: Post-Soviet Affairs. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1060-586X .- 1938-2855. ; 36:4, s. 297-322
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article proposes a transparent method for collecting, structuring, and analyzing Russian budget data on defense and security-related expenditures. A precise answer to the question of how big Russia’s defense expenditures are is impossible because of issues concerning secrecy and accounting principles. We circumvent this challenge by constructing lower and upper bounds for Russia’s military expenditure, showing that depending on the chosen measure these have increased from the range of 10.3–31.2% of federal expenditures in 2011 to 12.9–35.4% in 2018. The analysis also yields additional insights into the concept of secrecy in the Russian budget; we show that 39 out of 96 subchapters in the Russian budget contain secret expenditures, many of which are not nominally related to defense or security, and that secret expenditures increased as a share of total expenditures from 12% to 17% between 2011 and 2019.
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| 3. |
- Billingsley, Sunnee, et al.
(författare)
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Putting the pieces together : 40 years of fertility trends across 19 post-socialist countries
- 2017
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Ingår i: Post-Soviet Affairs. - : Routledge. - 1060-586X .- 1938-2855. ; 33:5, s. 389-410
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Demographic change has been a key consequence of transition, but few studies trace fertility trends across countries over time. We describe fertility trends immediately before and after the fall of state socialism across 19 Central and Eastern European and Central Asian countries. We found a few common patterns that may reflect economic and political developments. The countries that experienced the most successful transitions and integration into the EU experienced marked postponement of parenthood and a moderate decline in second and third births. Little economic change in the poorest transition countries was accompanied by less dramatic changes in childbearing behavior. In western post-Soviet contexts, and somewhat in Bulgaria and Romania, women became more likely to only have one child but parenthood was not substantially postponed. This unique demographic pattern seems to reflect an unwavering commitment to parenthood but economic conditions and opportunities that did not support having more than one child. In addition, we identify countries that would provide fruitful case studies because they do not fit general patterns.
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| 4. |
- Blackburn, Matthew, Dr., et al.
(författare)
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Parade, plebiscite, pandemic : legitimation efforts in Putin’s fourth term
- 2022
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Ingår i: Post-Soviet Affairs. - : Taylor & Francis Group. - 1060-586X .- 1938-2855. ; 38:4, s. 293-311
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Putin’s fourth term as president (2018–2024) has involved new challenges for Russia’s hybrid regime. COVID-19 hit the Kremlin at a sensitive time, when the old institutional forces had been demounted and new arrangements, including extensive constitutional changes, had yet to become cemented. There is an emerging gulf between state rhetoric, PR events, and patriotic performances, on the one hand, and economic chaos, social disorder and dysfunctional state capacity, on the other, which is likely to reduce system legitimacy and cause increased reliance on repressive methods. This article examines Kremlin legitimation efforts across Beetham’s three dimensions: rules, beliefs, and actions. We argue that the regime’s legitimation efforts in 2020–21 have failed to reverse emerging cleavages in public opinion since 2018. Increased reliance on repression and manipulation in this period, combined with the contrast between regime promises and observable realities on the ground, speak not of strength, but of the Kremlin’s increased weakness and embattlement.
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| 5. |
- Engvall, Johan
(författare)
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Why are public offices sold in Kyrgyzstan?
- 2014
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Ingår i: Post-Soviet Affairs. - 1060-586X .- 1938-2855. ; 30:1, s. 67-85
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Why are public offices for sale in Kyrgyzstan? To address this question, this article attempts to set out a new logic for understanding the motives, nature, and consequences of corruption in the country. Rather than securing access to a single favor through bribery, officials invest in political and administrative posts in order to obtain access to stream of rents associated with an office. Political and administrative corruption is organically linked in this system, and corruption stems not so much from weak monitoring as from being a franchise-like arrangement, where officials are required to pay continuous fees to their bosses. The key is to be the public official influencing the redistribution of rents as well as participating in the informal market where public goods are privatized and exchanged for informal payments. Thus, instead of control over the pure economic assets of the state, influence over the state's institutional and organizational framework is the dominant strategy for earning and investing in the country.
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| 6. |
- Gamkrelidze, Natia
(författare)
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From failing state to strategic partner : analyzing US and NATO political elite images of Georgia and policy implications from 1991 to 2020
- 2021
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Ingår i: Post-Soviet Affairs. - : Taylor & Francis. - 1060-586X .- 1938-2855. ; 37:6, s. 578-599
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article investigates U.S. and NATO political elite images of Georgia and policy implications from 1991 to 2020. The analysis relies on the author’s 44 original interviews with U.S. and NATO political elites, including U.S. Secretaries and Assistant Secretaries of States, U.S. Generals, Secretaries-General and Deputy Secretaries of NATO, and others in power in the different periods from 1991 to 2020. The study shows that three main images of Georgia have emerged over the 30-year historical period in the eyes of U.S. and NATO political elites. In the first two decades, leadership and personal connections have increased the likelihood of certain policies together with material determinants and ideational factors. In the third decade, personal ties had disappeared, but structural incentives were acknowledged by U.S. and NATO elites which impacted their policies. Moreover, results show that the U.S. relationship with Georgia has been chiefly personalized rather than institutionalized.
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| 7. |
- Gentile, Michael, et al.
(författare)
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Housing allocation under socialism : the Soviet case revisited
- 2013
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Ingår i: Post-Soviet Affairs. - : Taylor & Francis (Routledge): SSH Titles. - 1060-586X .- 1938-2855. ; 29:2, s. 173-195
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Social or public housing is an important component of the housing supply in most European countries. Nowhere, however, has the notion of social housing been taken as far as in the countries that formerly were ruled by socialist regimes, most notably the Soviet Union. For this reason, it may be argued that the development of theorizations on housing has much to learn from this large but inconclusively studied example. One of the avowed virtues of socialism was that the system, in theory, guaranteed its subjects equal rights to housing. That this was not quite the case is well known in the literature, but in fact no robust evidence to support this view (or the contrary) has been presented so far. Therefore, this paper's aim is to investigate the functioning of the Soviet system of housing allocation, assessing its claims to social equity and justice. Based on a detailed case study of about 3500 Soviet-era housing allocation decisions made in Daugavpils, Latvia, at five points in time covering various stages in the development of Soviet power (full coverage of decisions made in 1953, 1960, 1970, 1980, and January-April 1990), we illustrate how much living space was allocated to whom. In addition, we detail the characteristics of the waiting times involved. We apply both descriptive and regression methods on our data-set, making a significant contribution to what is known about the outcome of housing allocation under socialism and, at a more general level, under strictly supply-constrained conditions.
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| 8. |
- Gentile, Michael
(författare)
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West oriented in the East-oriented Donbas : a political stratigraphy of geopolitical identity in Luhansk, Ukraine
- 2015
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Ingår i: Post-Soviet Affairs. - 1060-586X .- 1938-2855. ; 31:3, s. 201-223
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Building on data from a survey (n = 4000) conducted in the eastern Ukrainian city of Luhansk in late 2013, this article explores the link between national identity and foreign policy preferences in the Donbas, suggesting that they are increasingly conflated in distinct geopolitical identities. Descriptive statistics and multinomial logistic regression are used to compare the characteristics of pro-West and uncertain individuals with those of the pro-Russian/Soviet individuals, with preferences on North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and European Union (EU) accession underlying this distinction. The results show that geopolitical identities in Luhansk have a complex political stratigraphy that includes demographic, socioeconomic, cultural, and attitudinal components. The pro-West constituency is younger, not Russian but often including members of other ethnic groups, well educated, more tolerant toward sexual minorities, generally more satisfied with life, and it also speaks better English. Conversely, those with pro-Russia/Soviet geopolitical identities are older, Russian, low educated, less fluent in English, intolerant, and unsatisfied with their lives. Uncertainty is more randomly distributed among social groups, indicating different underlying causes related to the source of the respondents’ uncertainty.
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| 9. |
- Hoyle, Aiden, et al.
(författare)
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Life through grey-tinted glasses : how do audiences in Latvia psychologically respond to Sputnik Latvia’s destruction narratives of a failed Latvia?
- 2024
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Ingår i: Post-Soviet Affairs. - 1060-586X .- 1938-2855. ; 40:1, s. 1-18
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Although concern about the effects of international audiences consuming Russian state-sponsored media has been expressed, little empirical research examines this. The current study asks how audiences in Latvia respond to narratives projected by Sputnik Latvia – a Kremlin-financed news outlet. We begin a tripartite methodological approach with an analysis of the types of narratives the outlet projects. We then test how ethnic Latvian and Russian-speaking participants in Latvia respond to destruction narratives that portray Latvia as “failing,” the most prominent type in our analysis. We use two survey experiments that test an existing hypothetical mediation model predicting an array of affective and trust responses. We find evidence that exposure to destruction narratives triggered largely similar responses in both groups; however, exploratory analyses and post-survey focus groups are used to show that their motivations may be different. We conclude by discussing potential reasons for these differences, and the ramifications of these results.
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| 10. |
- Kragh, Martin, et al.
(författare)
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Putinism beyond Putin : the political ideas of Nikolai Patrushev and Sergei Naryshkin in 2006-20
- 2023
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Ingår i: Post-Soviet Affairs. - : Routledge. - 1060-586X .- 1938-2855. ; 39:5, s. 366-389
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This essay adds to previous research of Putinism an investigation of the political thought and foreign outlooks of Russia's Secretary of the Security Council Nikolai Patrushev and Head of the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) Sergei Naryshkin, with a focus on their statements between 2006 to 2020. The paper outlines Patrushev's and Naryshkin's thoughts regarding the United States, Ukraine, and the idea of multipolarity/polycentrism. We then introduce Patrushev's critique of liberal values and color revolutions, and Naryshkin's statements on the memory of World War II and Western institutions. The salience of these altogether seven topics is interpreted with reference to three classical topoi in Russian political thought: the Slavophile vs. Westerners controversy, the single-stream theory, and the civilizational paradigm. Our conclusions inform the ongoing debate on whether to conceptualize Putinism as either an ideology or a mentality.
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