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- Bedford, Sofie, 1975-
(författare)
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"Everybody knows who will win" : Presidential Election in Azerbaijan
- 2013
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Ingår i: Baltic Worlds. - Stockholm : Södertörns Högskola, Centrum för Östersjö- och Östeuropaforskning. - 2000-2955 .- 2001-7308.
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Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- On October 9 presidential elections were held in Azerbaijan. As a result of the criticized 2009 amendment to the constitution the two-term limit for the presidency was removedand the incumbent, President Ilham Aliyev, could stand as candidate fora third time. Nobody was surprised when he won again. To the contrary it seemed the well-documented ‘political apathy’ of the Azerbaijani people had spread outside the country as well as.All through the election period foreign and national analysts alike were very careful to point out that everybody already knew who would win. This caution is of course a natural reactiontothe electoral authoritarianism that characterizes the Azerbaijani regime. Under electoral authoritarianism the state provides an ”illusion of multi-party democracy at the local and national levels while effectively stripping elections of efficacy. The result known in advance, elections can be held frequently”. Nevertheless,such an approach to the election is not only depressing; it also tends to relegate the efforts of the often very harshly critiqued democratic opposition in Azerbaijan. This time a coalition, the National Council for Democratic Forces (Milli Şura), managed to nominate one mutual candidate to represent the ‘oppositionists’, something that is basically unprecedented in this context. Sure, their efforts could be seen as too little too late and IlhamAliyev still won a landslide victory getting 85% of the votes. Nevertheless, short of a color revolution, the determination of the opposition forces did contribute to making this election as exciting as it getsunder electoral authoritarianism.
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- Bedford, Sofie, 1975-
(författare)
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Introduction to the Special Section : Political Mobilization in Azerbaijan — The January 2013 Protests and Beyond
- 2014
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Ingår i: Demokratizatsiya: Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization. - Philadelphia : Heldref Publications. - 1074-6846. ; 22:1, s. 2-14
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Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- A wave of public protests rocked Azerbaijan at the beginning of 2013. The first protest event of the year was inspired by the disputed death of a young conscript in the Azerbaijani army. While the official cause of death was heart attack, the family insisted he was beaten to death. The result was a fierce debate about the difficulties facing newly recruited soldiers and the conditions under which they serve. Some activists initiated a Facebook group and called for a demonstration in Baku on January 12. Twenty thousand people joined the group, an impressive number by Azerbaijani standards, given that support for anti-establishment manifestations can be dangerous. Later as many as 1,000 protesters, also a large number for Azerbaijan, joined the actual event in support of the dead soldiers’ family, demanding the defense minister's resignation. Just a week later shopkeepers at Baku's largest shopping mall, Bina, protested against increased rents. The demonstrators blocked a major highway and 5,000 shopkeepers kept their businesses closed in support of the protest. This was shortly followed by another spontaneous outbreak of dissent in Ismayili, 150 km northwest of Baku, where community members set fire to cars and buildings and called for the governor's resignation after a controversial car accident. Riot police finally managed to disperse the protesters, many of whom were injured and/or imprisoned. The harsh treatment brought about another rally in the capital in support of the Ismayili protesters. The outbreak of civic unrest in Ismayili can be seen as particularly important since it indicates discontent with the government, not only in Baku, but outside the capital as well.
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- Bedford, Sofie, 1975-
(författare)
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Nagorno-Karabach med kriget runt hörnet?
- 2013
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Ingår i: Utan röst och status. - Stockholm : Utrikespolitiska institutet. - 9789175072272 ; , s. 31-39
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)
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- Bedford, Sofie, 1975-
(författare)
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Oppositional Islam in Azerbaijan
- 2012
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Ingår i: Caucasus Analytical Digest. - : Resource Security Institute (RSI), Arlington, United States. ; :44, s. 9-11
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Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The article explains how some mosque communities function as a political opposition in the authoritarian Azerbaijani context.
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