The Politics of Poverty in Contemporary Russia, by Ann-Mari Sätre, 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: Russia as Civilization: Ideological Discourses in Politics, Media, and AcademiaPål Kolstø (University of Oslo, Department of Literature, Area Studies and European Languages) reviews Russia as Civilization: Ideological Discourses in Politics, Media, and Academia, edited by Kåre Johan Mjør and Sanna Turoma (Routledge, 2020).
The Cultural Is Political. Intersections of Russian Art and State Politics, edited by Irina Anisimova and Ingunn Lunde, is an edited volume dealing with various political ideologies and the ambiguous nature of cultural practices in contemporary Russia. The volume is a good introduction to a range of topics in the field of Russian studies.
The Cultural Is Political. Intersections of Russian Art and State Politics redigeret av Irina Anisimova og Ingunn Lunde er en artikelsamling, der fokuserer på diverse politiske ideologier og de tvetydige kulturelle former og praksisser i nutidens Rusland. Artikelsamlingen er en god introduktion til russiskstudieområdet.
Denne bokomtalen dreier seg om Hilma Salonens studie av overgangen til fornybar energi i Russlands arktiske strøk: Russian Renewable Energy Politics in the Arctic: National Priorities and Local Realities. Hun viser at det er mulig å realisere fornybar-prosjekter i fossilavhengige land som Russland. Selv om aktørene som fremmer slike prosjekter ikke synes å være fremtredende i Russland, viser studien at de har et visst handlingsrom som de lykkes med å utnytte.
In Russian Renewable Energy Politics in the Arctic: National Priorities and Local Realities, Hilma Salonen examines the renewable energy transition in the Russian Arctic. She documents how, even in a heavily fossil-fuel dominated country like Russia, renewable energy players can achieve their goals. Hidden at first glance, these actors exhibit features of agency and can act successfully to develop renewable energy projects.
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.
Fabian Heffermehl, researcher at the University of Oslo, reviews The Post-Soviet Politics of Utopia: Language, Fiction and Fantasy in Modern Russia edited by Mikhail Suslov and Per Arne Bodin.
"Drawing on the debate on mediatization of politics this study identifies cultural meanings, institutional practices and styles of argumentation as three theoretical dimensions that illuminate both the construction of journalistic publicity and its potential uses in political action. Based on the theoretical model, environmental politics is identified as a specific context for mediatization. In environmental politics, the interplay of cultural meanings, institutional practices and styles of argumentation define the construction and use of journalistic publicity in a way that differs from other fields of politics.
The empirical part of this study analyzes the newspaper coverage of three Finnish environmental conflicts from 1971, 1994 and 2012. The theoretical model is transformed into an analytical framework that focuses on discursive construction of the conflicts (cultural meanings), journalistic frames, narration and opinion-giving in the coverage of the conflicts and the publicity practices adopted by actors during the conflicts (institutional practices) and legitimation of arguments (styles of argumentation).
According to this study, the relation between media and politics in the field of environmental politics is defined by the increasing cultural significance of environmental protection from the 1970s to the present. In the newspaper coverage of the three environmental conflicts studied, changes on the frames, narration and opinion-giving of journalism resonated with this cultural change. However, the significance of environmental protection in the framing, narration and opinion-giving of journalism was greater in the national newspaper studied compared to the local newspapers selected based on their proximity to the conflict sites. Styles of argumentation appeared to be more case dependent. The increasing cultural significance of environmental protection did not have a clear effect on how arguments were legitimated. "
Engl. Abstract u.d.T.: "Politics is in the church" : The formation of aims in the church politics of the Finnish Centre Party 1966 - 1978. - Dt. Zsfassung u.d.T.: "Politik ist in der Kirche" : Die Ausformulierung der kirchenpolitischen Ziele der finnischen Zentrumspartei in den Jahren 1966 - 1978