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The amendments to the Constitution of the Russian Federation adoped after a 2020 referendum included a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. This is a recent manifestation of the turn to 'traditional values' in Russian politics and society, the best-known expression of which is the 2013 ban on 'propaganda for non-traditional sexual orientation'. This development cannot be understood as solely reflecting 'traditional' attitudes of the Russian population, nor as a backlash against LGBTQ activism. The turn to 'traditional values' must be considered in the context of a global pattern of increased pro-family mobilization, which opposes LGBTQ rights, feminism and the alleged undermining of gender as biologically determined and strictly binary – described by researchers as 'anti-gender mobilization'. Traditionalist politics in Russia should be analysed in a transnational and international perspective, but conservative mobilization is not a monolithic phenomenon. Using the concept of 'discourse coalition' developed by Maarten Hajer, I show how the identification of shared storylines enables a range of actors to act in similar ways, sometimes coordinating their actions, despite ideological, religious or strategic disagreements, on the domestic as well as the global arena.

Abstract: Security Policy and Memory Politics: Establishing the Soviet Liberation Monument in Kirkenes, 1945–1952A few kilometers from the border with Russia, in the town of Kirkenes in the easternmost corner of Northern Norway, there stands a bronze statue of a Soviet soldier looking out over the borderland. The Soviet Liberation Monument, as the statue is called, was unveiled in 1952 by the Norwegian authorities, in gratitude for the Soviet liberation of the East Finnmark area in 1944. The statue has served as a meeting place for regular commemorative ceremonies involving the Norwegian and Soviet authorities, throughout the Cold War and up until the present. This article explores the interplay between security policy and memory politics at the onset of the Cold War by examining the seven-year long process of establishing this monument. As the Iron Curtain descended over Europe, the monument and the memories attached to it became important tools with which Norway developed a critical dialogue with its great-power neighbor. The article shows how the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs learned how to use the collective memories of the Soviet liberation to ensure Norway's security-policy goal of low tension in its relations with the USSR.

Abstract: 'The Politics of Uncertainty' in Practice: The 2020 Presidential Election that Changed BelarusUp until 2020 Aleksandr Lukashenka's authoritarian regime had ruled Belarus for 26 years without major challenges. Thus, the popular mobilization that took shape in connection with the August 2020 presidential election came as a surprise. It was not the first time that elections in Belarus were not fair – but it was the first time that large sectors of the population reacted openly. Six months later, Belarusians all over the country were still contesting the falsified results. What contributed to this mobilization and politicization of a previously largely apolitical society? Why does that development represent such a serious threat to the authoritarian system? This study sees the Belarusian presidential election and its aftermath as illustrating the 'politics of uncertainty' of electoral authoritarian regimes. Because of the intrinsic insecurity of authoritarian systems, all regular elections in that context entail risks, which in theory might lead to change. In Belarus, the emergence of latent threats to the regime's legitimacy in the form of social cleavages and an economic crisis, combined with the fundamental dynamics of the 'election game', amplified this instability. The election served as the starting point for a process of transformation that became the most serious threat ever faced by the Lukashenka regime.