Organizing the Voice of Women: A Study of the Polish and Swedish Women's Movements' Adaptation to International Structures, by Eva Karlberg, is reviewed by Kirsti Stuvøy, Associate Professor, Faculty of Landscape and Society, International Environment and Development Studies (Noragric), Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU).
Abstract: Security and Vulnerability After Armenia's Velvet Revolution: Elite Perceptions on Gender Equality, Human Rights and Conflict ResolutionThe Velvet Revolution in spring 2018 and the snap elections that followed in December 2018 shook Armenia. This article examines the country's new political elite and other central social elites, and their affective and evaluative beliefs with respect to human security, drawing on an elite survey conducted in 2017 and 2019, complemented by in-depth interviews. The aim is to shed light on whether Armenia's elite-level political culture is headed for progressive change concerning the rights of disadvantaged groups, primarily women and sexual minorities – an expectation among the young and educated in Yerevan. This study finds that, as regards reducing vulnerability and increasing the security and freedom of choice for those traditionally disadvantaged in Armenian society, the values and judgments of the new elites have remained basically traditional.
Dahlia Lenairte's Family and the State in Soviet Lithuania: Gender, Law and Society (2021) offers an account of the changing role and position of women in the family and in society under the Communist reign in Lithuania. Beginning with the first Soviet occupation before the Second World War, Lenairte details the massive changes from Catholicism to Communism with respect to gender policy, family, divorce, childcare, maternity leave, and finally housing, up until the 1980s. Importantly, she shows that, contrary to common belief about Communist policy, gender equality was in fact never achieved in Soviet Lithuania.
Dahlia Lenairtes bog Familie og stat i Sovjet Litauen: Køn, lov og samfund (2021) er en gennemgang af kvinders ændrede roller og position i samfundet og familien under det kommunistisk styre i Litauen. Med et afsæt fra den første sovjetiske besættelse før 2. Verdenskrig viser Lenairte de enorme ændringer der skete fra katolicisme til kommunisme med hensyn til ligestilling, familie, skilsmisse, børnepasning og barselsorlov, og endelig boligsituationen op til begyndelsen af 1980'erne. I modsætning til den almindelige forståelse af kommunistisk ligestillingspolitik bliver det tydeligt, at kvinder aldrig opnåede at blive ligestillet med mænd.
Per Anders Rudling, Wallenberg Academy Fellow at Lund University, reviews Between Lenin and Bandera: Decommunisation and Multivocality in (post)Euromaidan Ukraine written by Anna Kutina.
Mens journalister har lett for å ty til adjektiver for å beskrive et økologisk katastrofeområde, er det vanskeligere å se og formidle årsakssammenhenger. Hvorfor fikk ikke sovjetiske, senere russiske, myndigheter i samarbeid med sine nordiske naboland stanset de grenseoverskridende svovelskyene fra østsiden av Pasvikelven? Det er disse spørsmålene Lars Rowe på en systematisk og beundringsverdig godt dokumentert måte gir svar på i boken Pollution and Atmosphere in Post-Soviet Russia: The Arctic and the Environment.
Journalists easily find adjectives to describe environmental catastrophes; it is more difficult, however, to ascertain and convey their causes. Why, for example, didn't Soviet, and later Russian, authorities collaborate with Nordic neighbors and manage to put a stop to the sulphur clouds emanating from the eastern side of the Pasvik River? Lars Rowe looks at this question in a systematic and admirably well-documented way and provides answers in his book, Pollution and Atmosphere in Post-Soviet Russia: The Arctic and the Environment.
Niels Bo Poulsen, director of the Department of Military History and War Studies at the Royal Danish Defence College, reviews Industry, War and Stalin's Battle for Resources: The Arctic and the Environment by Lars Rowe.
Abstract: Armenia and Europe: Foreign Aid and Environmental Politics in the Post-Soviet Caucasus Lene Wetteland (Norwegian Helsinki Committee) reviews Armenia and Europe: Foreign Aid and Environmental Politics in the Post-Soviet Caucasus by Dr. Pål Wilter Skedsmo. The book is a revised version of his 2017 PhD thesis in Social Anthropology. Skedsmo uses his personal experience from a project on environmental rights in Armenia in the early 2010s and Armenian civil society's application of the Aarhus Convention as case studies to discuss the issue of Europeanization of Armenia in this context.
Abstract: Religion, Expression, and Patriotism in Russia: Essays on Post-Soviet Society and the StateYuliya Yurchuk (postdoctoral researcher, Historical and Contemporary Studies, Södertörn University) reviews Religion, Expression, and Patriotism in Russia: Essays on Post-Soviet Society and the State, edited by Sanna Turoma, Kaarina Aitamurto and Slobodanka Vladiv-Glover.
Helge Blakkisrud (Norwegian Institute of International Affairs) reviews the anthology Nationhood and Politization of History in School Textbooks: Identity, the Curriculum and Educational Media, edited by Gorana Ognjenović and Jasna Joselić.
Abstract: Narrating Otherness in Poland and Sweden – European Heritage as a Discourse of Inclusion and ExclusionJørn Holm-Hansen reviews the anthology Narrating Otherness in Poland and Sweden – European Heritage as a Discourse of Inclusion and Exclusion edited by Krzysztof Kowalski, Łucja Piekarska-Duraj & Barbara Törnquist-Plewa.
Svein Mønnesland, professor emeritus at the University of Oslo, reviews Yugoslavia and Political Assassinations: The History and Legacy of Tito's Campaign against the Émigrés, by Christian Axboe Nielsen, published in 2020 by I.B. Tauris.
Abstract: Democratic Innovations in Central and Eastern EuropeAccording to Elisabeth Bakke's (University of Olso) review of Democratic Innovations in Central and Eastern Europe, Sergiu Gherghina, Joakim Ekman and Olena Podolian have edited a book on 'democratic innovations' in more or less democratic countries in Central and Eastern Europe. Bakke finds that, while several of the contributions are well written and interesting, 'democratic' may not be a particularly precise label in a context where, as it turns out, the 'innovations' do not contribute much to increasing either participation or democracy.
Contemporary Russian Conservativism consists of 15 chapters by diverse hands but nevertheless has a high degree of coherence. The volume rightly highlights the role of the Russian Orthodox Church in the promotion of conservativism and "traditional values". Many of the participants in the media debates around this issue no doubt hold sincere views while, as the editors argue, Putin and his entourage most likely adopted this new ideology for pragmatic reasons.