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Russian Foreign Policy Towards the “Near Abroad”


This special section deals with Russia’s post-Maidan foreign policy towards the so-called “near abroad,” or the former Soviet states. This is an important and timely topic, as Russia’s policy perspectives have changed dramatically since 2013/2014, as have those of its neighbors. The Kremlin today is paradoxically following an aggressive “realist” agenda that seeks to clearly delineate its sphere of influence in Europe and Eurasia while simultaneously attempting to promote “soft-power” and a historical-civilizational justification for its recent actions in Ukraine (and elsewhere). The result is an often perplexing amalgam of policy positions that are difficult to disentangle. The contributors to this special issue are all regional specialists based either in Europe or the United States.


This issue also features special sections on Multilingualism in Ukraine; and Russia’s Annexation of the Crimea

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The 2010s saw an introduction of legislative acts about religion, sexuality, and culture in Russia, which caused an uproar of protests. They politicized areas of life commonly perceived as private and expected to be free of the state's control. As a result, political activism and radical grassroots movements engaged many Russians in controversies about religion and culture and polarized popular opinion in the capitals and regions alike.
This volume presents seven case studies which probe into the politics of religion and culture in today's Russia. The contributions highlight the diversity of Russia's religious communities and cultural practices by analyzing Hasidic Jewish identities, popular culture sponsored by the Orthodox Church, literary mobilization of the National Bolshevik Party, cinematic narratives of the Chechen wars, militarization of political Orthodoxy, and moral debates caused by opera as well as film productions. The authors draw on a variety of theoretical approaches and methodologies, including opinion surveys, ethnological fieldwork, narrative analysis, Foucault's conceptualization of biopower, catachrestic politics, and sociological theories of desecularization. 
The volume’s contributors are Sanna Turoma, Kaarina Aitamurto, Tomi Huttunen, Susan Ikonen, Boris Knorre, Irina Kotkina, Jussi Lassila, Andrey Makarychev, Elena Ostrovskaya, and Mikhail Suslov.

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The book series „European Studies in the Caucasus” offers innovative perspectives on regional studies of the Caucasus. By embracing the South Caucasus as well as Turkey and Russia as the major regional powers, it moves away from a traditional viewpoint of European Studies that considers the countries of the region as objects of Europeanization.
This first volume emphasizes the movements of ideas in both directions—from Europe to the Caucasus and from the Caucasus to Europe. This double-track frame illuminates new aspects of a variety of issues requiring reciprocity and intersubjectivity, including rivalries between different integration systems in the southern and eastern fringes of Europe, various dimensions of interaction between countries of the South Caucasus and the European Union in a situation of the ongoing conflict with Russia, and different ways of using European experiences for the sake of domestic reforms in the South Caucasus. Topics range from identities to foreign policies, and from memory politics to religion.

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Reformers had high hopes that the end of communism in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union would lead to significant improvements in legal institutions and the role of law in public administration. However, the cumulative experience of 25 years of legal change since communism has been mixed, marked by achievements and failures, advances and moves backward. This book—written by a team of socio-legal scholars—probes the nuances of this process and starts the process to explain them. It covers developments across the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, and it deals with both legal institutions (courts and police) and accountability to law in public administration, including anti-corruption activities. In explaining their findings, the authors probe the impact of such factors as the type of political regime (democratic to authoritarian), international influences (such as the European Union), and culture (legal and political).
The volume’s contributors are: Mihaela Serban, Kim Lane Scheppele, Kriszta Kovacs, Alexei Trochev, Peter Solomon, Olga Semukhina, Maria Popova, Vincent Post. Marina Zaloznaya, William Reisinger, Vicki Hesli Claypool, Kaja Gadowska, and Elena Bogdanova.

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In Statu Nascendi is a new peer-reviewed journal that investigates specific issues through a socio-cultural, philosophical, and anthropological approach to raise a new type of civic awareness about the complexity of the contemporary crisis, instability, and warfare situations, where the “stage of becoming” plays a vital role.
Issue 2019:1 comprises, amongst others, the following articles:
– An Interview with Marcin Grabowski on the Political Situation in Asia in General and North Korea in Particular
– The EU and the Migration Crisis: ‘The EU-Turkey Deal’: Policy Effectiveness and Challenges of Implementation
– The Syrian Conflict (2011–2017): How a Perfectly Winnable Uprising has been Transformed into a Civil War, Only to End up as a Ferocious Proxy War
– Interview with Prof. Maria Dimitrova on Continental Philosophy in General and Emmanuel Levinas’ Philosophy in Particular
– Patristic Tradition, Criterialism, and Levinasian Quasi-Theological Conditions of the Self
– Reconsidering the Notion of the Creative Genius in Postmodern Philosophy and Art

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\viewkind4\uc1\pard\ltrpar\hyphpar0\sl276\slmult1\lang2057\f0\fs22 The Western Balkan countries have been both a popular subject matter for diachronic analysis and a 1990s favorite. The significant changes that followed the most recent times of conflict in the region mostly evolve around the process of Europeanization. Despite the plethora of analyses, most approaches to the Western Balkans suffer from theoretical stagnancy, ex parte political practice, and detachment of politics from societal needs.
\par This volume is the work of a team of theorists and practitioners who attempt a multidisciplinary approach to Western Balkans reality. \i An Agenda for the Western Balkans \i0 offers a critical view on issues that have been over-analyzed in mainstream terms and opens a discussion that will occupy researchers and practitioners for years to come. It addresses novel topics and engages in innovative approaches that cut across disciplines of social sciences (political science, international relations, sociology, historiography, geography, political economy) and levels of analysis (local, national, regional, European, global). This collection is a pioneer theoretical and practical guide towards a sustainable future for the Western Balkans.\lang1031\f1\fs17
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Antiziganism is a widespread phenomenon in all European societies. Poor or rich, 'postcommunist' or 'traditional', North or South, with 'lean' or 'thick' welfare systems – all European societies demonstrate antiziganist prejudice.
All across Europe Romanis are among the poorest, most destitute, and most excluded communities. Widespread prejudice and stereotypical representations of Romani individuals limit their chances for participation in democratic decision making processes and their access to services. Unable to counteract majority stereotypes systematically, more often than not they remain on the fringes of society. This edited volume asks where these stereotypes and prejudices come from, why they are ubiquitous to all societies, and how pertinent their impact on antiziganist attitudes found in European societies really is.

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"Critical Reflections on Audience and Narrativity—New connections, New perspectives" offers an interdisciplinary and multicultural approach to fiction, reality, and narrativity applied to television series from all over the world. Dissecting the almost invisible barrier between fiction and reality in TV series from various perspectives, the chapters cover a wide range of contemporary classics from the post-network age. From «The X-Files» and «Desperate Housewives» to «The Wire» and «Breaking Bad», the chapters sketch TV series' development from the lowest form of mass entertainment to the sophisticated vehicle of highbrow intertextuality on a global scale.
Also covering many international cases from Brazil, Serbia, Romania, and Turkey and locating them in the global web of puzzle narratives, the unique contributions draw connections between the most diverse audiences and the way they receive modern storytelling in a culturally globalized world. This timely volume is a great resource for anyone interested in contemporary mass culture.