Suchergebnisse

Antologin Reforming Child Welfare in the Post-Soviet Space: Institutional Change in Russia behandlar Rysslands satsning under senare år på att etablera ett fosterhemssystem i stället för de ökända institutionerna för omhändertagna barn. Den praktiska implementeringen redogörs för från olika aktörers perspektiv, myndighets- och NGO-personal såväl som fosterföräldrar och barn, med fokus både på institutionella bromsklossar och reformens mer välfungerande aspekter.
Reforming Child Welfare in the Post-Soviet Space: Institutional Change in Russia focuses on the efforts of the Russian state in recent years to replace the notorious orphanages with a system for foster care. The anthology examines the practical implementation of the reform from various perspectives: those of the local authorities and NGOs as well as foster parents and foster children, focusing both on the negative side-effects caused by institutional inertia and path dependency, and on more successful aspects of the reform.

Gjennom en bredt anlagt og kunnskapsrik framstilling av Russlands samtidshistorie analyserer Martin Kragh Vladimir Putins illiberale prosjekt.
In this broad-based, highly instructive, and fact-packed portrayal of Russia's contemporary history, Martin Kragh analyses Vladimir Putin's illiberal project.

Moderne ortodokse kirker har blivit både inaktuell och ohyggligt aktuell i och med den ryska invasionen av Ukraina 24 februari 2022, då frågor om olika ortodoxa samhörigheter kommit i fokus. Volymen består nio kapitel och behandlar nästan samtliga stora ortodoxa kyrkor i världen och många centrala frågor som nationalism, jurisdiktion, teologi och gudstjänstutövning. Boken är pålitlig när det gäller fakta, författarna är eminent kunniga, men den kan ibland bli en smula svårläst i all sin faktarikedom.
The volume has become both outdated and eerily topical after the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, as issues concerning various Eastern Orthodox affiliations have come into focus. This nine-chapter volume deals with almost all major Orthodox Churches in the world, and takes up such central questions such as nationalism, jurisdiction, theology and worship. The book is a reliable source of information, and the authors are eminently competent, but the sheer mass of facts presented can make it somewhat difficult to read.

Abstract: Post Post-Soviet, style and rebellion: Symbolism and subversive nationalism in Gosha Rubchinskiy's 'new Russia'This article explores the resonance enjoyed by streetwear designer Gosha Rubchinskiy among young Russians, and the extensive network that has emerged under his wings and refers to itself as 'the new Russia'. Analysis of Rubchinskiy's work, with Dick Hebdige's semiotic approach as the epistemological context, supplemented by insights from Simon Reynolds, Michel Foucault and Michel Maffesoli, reveals a continuous deconstruction of the Russian regime's hegemonic narrative of Russianness – so-called 'Putinism'. At the same time, Rubchinskiy constructs a countercultural form of Russian national belonging, one with room to accommodate those who feel alienated by mainstream Russian nationalism. From a social science perspective, a countercultural inclusive nation-building project is in itself a paradox – so how are we to understand Gosha Rubchinskiy's 'new Russia'?

Ett år i Belarus er ei samling av tekstar som gir skandinaviske lesarar eit innblikk i korleis belarusarane gjennomlevde og forsto det politiske opprøret som traff landet i 2020. Boka er full av sterke observasjonar og refleksjonar, og framstår difor som eit tidsbilete på ei historisk fase som no er forbi.
Ett år i Belarus (One Year in Belarus), a collection of texts written by Belarusian authors, offers Scandinavian readers an understanding of how Belarusians lived through and interpreted the political upheavals that hit the country in 2020. The book is full of observations and reflections, offering valuable insights into a turbulent historical phase which has now passed.

Abstract: The Collapse of the Planned Economy – and Other Widespread Misconceptions of the Transitions in Russia and Eastern EuropeAccording to the prevailing view, the Soviet planned economy collapsed around 1990; it was a failure, because a planned economy cannot work. Comparing this common view, as it appears in numerous quotations from special and general sources, with basic empirical evidence reveals deep discrepancies. This also applies to other common conceptions regarding the transition in Russia and Eastern Europe e.g. environmental problems, agricultural crisis, poverty and inequality. The command economies in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union did not collapse; they were dismantled, and until then they functioned and delivered growth rates comparable to those of western countries. The transition after 1989 was driven by marketliberalistic enthusiasm as a short cut to imitation of western prosperity and entailed a refusal of economic planning in the East and in the West. A more realistic evaluation of the planned economy is important for how we politically and economically address our two great challenges, the global environment, and the global distribution.

Kapitlene i Greg Simons (red.), The Image of Islam in Russia drøfter ulike sider av forholdet mellom muslimer og staten i Russland siden 1990-årene og holder høy akademisk standard. Boken er et opptrykk av to-tre år gamle utgaver av tidsskriftet Religion, State and Society.
The chapters in Greg Simons (ed.), The Image of Islam in Russia discuss various aspects of Muslim–state relations in Putin's Russia and are of high academic quality. This collected volume is a massive reprint of 2 to 3-year-old issues of the journal Religion, State and Society.

I boken Urban Protest: A Spatial Perspective on Kyiv, Minsk, and Moscow utvecklas och testas ett teoretiskt ramverk för att kartlägga hur massprotester påverkas av den plats där de utspelar sig och den politiska kontexten. Modellen är gedigen och utan tvekan ett bra verktyg för att förstå hur en specifik plats bidrar till att möjliggöra eller begränsa protesters utveckling. Författaren borde nöjt sig med detta och inte strävat efter att modellen också ska förklara varför protester »lyckas» eller »misslyckas». En sådan kausalitet framställer, felaktigt, massprotester som någon slags demokratisk »quick fix» trots att politisk förändring i de allra flesta fall i stället är resultatet av en lång utvecklingsprocess.
Urban Protest: A Spatial Perspective on Kyiv, Minsk, and Moscow develops and tests a theoretical framework for mapping how mass protests are affected by the political context and the space in which they take place. This model provides a useful tool for understanding how a specific location contributes to facilitating or impeding a protest. However, the author should have stopped here, and not additionally tried to use the model to explain why protests 'succeed' or 'fail'. Such causality depicts mass protests as some kind of democratic 'quick fix – but, in the vast majority of cases, political change comes about as the result of a longer-term process.

Boken er en personlig beretning om Russland og russere skrevet av en pioneerene innen nordisk østforskning. Bokens hovedtese er at sovjetisk mentalitet aldri døde ut og nå i økende grad tar over, men at de autoritære tendensene tross alt møtes av et annet Russland av intellektuelle, dissidenter og bloggere hvis betydning ikke bør undervurderes.
This book is a personal tour d'horizon written by one of the pioneers and mainstays of Nordic Soviet, Russian and East European studies through the last half century. The main thesis of the book is that Soviet mindsets never died and are in the ascendant to day, but that there also exists another Russia of intellectuals, dissident and bloggers whose impirtance should not be underestimated.

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.

Boken Nationalism as an Argument in Contemporary Russia: Four Perspectives on Language in Action er Veera Laines ph.d.-avhandling som hun forsvarte ved Universitetet i Helsingfors i 2021. Den består av tre artikler, et bokkapittel og en lang og grundig innledningstekst. Alt i alt har Laine skrevet en solid, veldokumentert og teoretisk velfundert avhandling.
The book Nationalism as an Argument in Contemporary Russia: Four Perspectives on Language in Action is Vera Laine's PhD dissertation which she defended at the University of Helsinki in 2021. It contains three research articles, one book chapter and a long and thorough introductory part. All things considered, Laine has written a solid, well-documented and theoretically well-founded dissertation.

Denna bok lyfter frågan om hur vilka planer som finns i Ryssland för tiden efter Putin som president. Huvudargumentet är att de strategier för att bygga politisk legitimitet nästan helt har fokuserats på Putin som Rysslands räddare och beskyddare. Därmed har också möjliga efterträdare svårt att bygga upp en egen plattform. Den nya konstitutionen som möjliggör för Putin att sitta kvar fram till 2036 visar att man inte har någon lösning på detta dilemma. Kvar finns en åldrande president och ett politiskt system som i övrigt hyser lågt förtroende hos befolkningen.
This book raises the question of Russia's plans for the time after Putin as Russia's president. The main argument is that the strategies for political legitimacy in Russia has focused almost entirely on Putin himself as the saviour and protector of the Russian nation. Consequently, any potential successor has a difficult task in building up his/her own platform. The new constitution, which makes it possible for Putin to continue as president until 2036 demonstrates that this dilemma has yet no solution. What remains is an aging president and a political system with a very low level of popular trust.

Abstract: 'Have we ever been European?' Everyday reflections from Russia on the gender and sexuality 'culture wars'Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in European Russia, Jeremy Morris examines everyday attitudes to homosexuality in Russia, and the linkage to an understanding of terpimost (or 'tolerantnost') – 'tolerance' – as an insincere 'Euro-American' attitude. In this companion-piece to work focusing on male homophobia and conservative attitudes to childrearing (Morris & Garibyan, 2021), the focus is on how women describe their experience of same-sex relations and their heteronormative attitudes towards what they understand as 'non-normative' sexuality. Whereas the influence of Russia's state-led policy of conservatism is reflected in everyday talk – especially in relation to the idea that Euro-American values of permissiveness and 'tolerance' are misplaced – the findings reveal more nuanced ideas 'from below' about cultural differences between Russia and the putatively 'other' Europe. The article further notes the volatility and variance in survey methods that seek to measure 'intolerance' and cultural difference. They can exacerbate what, as Katherina Wiedlack and others have pointed out, is a colonial and orientalizing discourse that features an 'enlightened' West and a 'passive, backward' East. This article shows how 'intolerance' and acceptance of non-normative sexuality in Russia do not differ greatly from the situation in comparable societies of the global North.

I Mina ryska vänner skriver den svenske journalisten Johanna Melén godt og innsiktsfullt om egne opplevelser i Russland fra Putins maktovertakelse. Likevel støter hun på et kjent problem: Hvor mye mer kan en bok om Russlands nære historie bli enn en nok en Putin-biografi?
Mina ryska vänner (My Russian Friends) is a well-written and insightful book by the Swedish journalist Johanna Melén about her experiences in Russia after Putin's ascent to power. However, she encounters a common problem: How much more can a book on Russia's recent history be than yet another Putin biography?

Den ortodokse kirke er forholdsvist ukendt blandt den brede befolkning i de nordiske lande, selvom antallet af ortodokse kristne i disse år er stærkt stigende grundet øget migration fra ortodokse majoritetslande. Derfor er Caroline Serck-Hanssens bog Den ortodokse kirke: Historie – lære – trosliv et relevant og velkomment bidrag. Bogen formidler den ortodokse kirkes historie, lære og aktuelle situation med særligt fokus på den norske og russiske kontekst. Den er skrevet i et klart og letlæseligt sprog, og er primært henvendt til den alment interesserede læser.
The Orthodox Church has remained relatively unknown among the general population in the Nordic countries, even though the number of Orthodox Christians in the region has been rising, due to increased in-migration from Orthodox-majority countries. Caroline Serck-Hanssen's Den ortodokse kirke: Historie – lære – trosliv (The Orthodox Church: History – Doctrine – Religious Life) is a welcome and relevant contribution. It relates the history, doctrines and current situation of the eastern Orthodox churches, with particular attention to the Norwegian and Russian contexts. It is written in clear and concise prose and is primarily addressed to the interested general reader.