The aim of this project is to find whether the national system of performance measurement in the Russian public sector is affected by deliberate data manipulation. Using mixed methods I demonstrate that locally generated data are more likely to be manipulated than data reported by external agencies. Instead of improving managerial decisions, performance indicators have become a tool of symbolic bureaucratic accountability not linked to real managerial activities. 25 current and former civil servants from three regional governments in Russia were interviewed (including three ministers of economic development); quantitative data were obtained from a publicly available performance dataset covering the period of 2007-2011 (with data for a unified list of over 300 indicators from 83 regional governments). Two strategies of data manipulation were identified: a “prudent bureaucrat” strategy consisted in minimizing long-term risks by reporting “more-normal-than-real” figures; a more ambitions “reckless bureaucrat” strategy aimed at inflating figures to maximise credit. Systematic application of these two strategies has produced a detectable bias in the overall performance data with “prudent bureaucrat” strategy dominating. Performance reporting creates a “bureaucratic panopticon” and resulting behaviour may be understood using Michel Foucault’s notion of normalisation.

Syftet med arbetet är att undersöka hur föräldrar från postsovjetiska länder som har flyttat till Sverige uppfattar begreppet jämställdhet, hur uppdelningen av deras vardagssysslor ser ut, hur deras medvetenhet kring det jämställdhetsarbete som förskolan enligt läroplanen ska utföra ser ut samt om deras uppfattning om begreppet är likadan med vad Läroplanen för förskolan säger. I studien intervjuades fyra föräldrar från två postsovjetiska länder, resultatet analyserades med hjälp av fenomenografisk ansats. I resultatet framkom det att föräldrarnas uppfattning om begreppet jämställdhet kan vara helt annan än den som står i Läroplanen för förskolan. De föräldrar vars uppfattning om jämställdhet skiljde sig från den svenska uppfattningen menade att jämställdhet är ett påhittat problem eftersom kvinnor och män har lika rättigheter i ett modernt samhälle, dock skyldigheterna är olika och det är biologiska skillnader som ligger till grund för det. Främst syns det i hushållsysslornas fördelning där den traditionella arbetsfördelningen finns kvar. Alla informanter var välmedvetna om att det är en stor skillnad mellan hur jämställdhetsarbetet ser ut i Sverige och hur det var i deras respektive länder. Ingen av de intervjuade föräldrarna visste vilka jämställdhetsmål som finns i Läroplanen för förskolan, inte ens alla visste att det finns ett dokument som styr förskolans verksamhet. Man kan dra slutsats att föräldrar från postsovjetiska länder med en annan uppfattning om jämställdhet, utan intresse för jämställdhetsfrågor samt bristande samverkan mellan förskola och hem, istället för att stödja och komplettera förskolans uppdrag kan motverka förskolans jämställdhetsarbete. / The aim of this study is to find out how parents from former soviet republics who emigrated to Sweden understand the concept of gender equality, how their distribution of daily chores looks like, how their awareness about gender equality work, which the pre-school should be carrying  out according to the curriculum, looks like and if their understanding of gender equality concept is the same with the pre-school curriculum. In this study there were interviewed four parents from two former soviet republics. The result was analyzed by phenomenographic approach. The result  showed that the parents’ understanding of gender equality concept could be completely different from what the pre-school curriculum means. Those parents who didn’t  agree with the pre-school curriculum description of gender equality meant that the concept of gender equality was a made-up problem, because men and women have the same rights in a modern society, but their obligations are different and that depends on biological differences. It is foremost visible in distribution of daily chores where the traditional chores distribution hasn’t changed. All the parents were aware of the huge difference between the work being done in Sweden in matter of gender equality and how it was in their countries of origin. None of the parents knew what gender equality aims are in the curriculum for the pre-school. Not even every one of them knew about the existence of such document. The conclusion is that parents from the former soviet republics, with a different understanding of gender equality and insufficient cooperation between the pre-school and the families, instead of supporting and supplementing the pre-school’s mission are counteracting the pre-school’s gender equality work.

This thesis seeks to explore the Soviet territorial claims on Turkey during the period between 1939-1946. The main argument of this thesis is that the Soviet demands from Turkey during the World War II were expansionist in nature, as opposed to the view that they were defensive. The Soviet leadership formulated these demands before the German invasion of the Soviet territories when the Soviet Union did not have significant security concerns and maintained superiority during the war. This thesis is composed of six chapters. The first chapter is the introduction and the second chapter looks at the historical context of Turkish-Soviet relations. Chapter Three examines the Soviet demands for military bases and territorial concessions from Turkey immediately after the Second World War. The fourth chapter discusses planning of settling Armenians in Turkish territories. This chapter also examines the initial US response to the Soviet demands. Chapter Five analyzes the United States&#039 / adoption of a hard-line attitude towards the Soviet Union with respect to these demands and also how the US reaction led to the Soviet withdrawal of demands. The last chapter is the conclusion.

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The thesis is concerned with the British perception of Soviet foreign policy between 1951 and 1956. In particular it examines the understanding that British diplomats, politicians and civil servants had of the process of change which the death of Stalin stimulated in the Kremlin's relations with the outside world. The core of the study centres around 1955, as this was the pivotal point for the British. With the ascendancy of Khruschev there was perceived not only a new emphasis in Moscow on the necessity of avoiding global war between East and West, but also a new interest in economic competition. By 1956 Whitehall had concluded that there were a number of factors informing the Soviet re-evaluation of foreign policy. Among which were: the stabilisation of the Western alliance culminating with West German rearmament in 1955; the cost of defence expenditure both in armaments and in supporting the satellite regimes and China; the development of American and Soviet thermonuclear potentials. The latter was thought by the British to be the most profound in its implications on the Soviet approach to the future of international relations. The Soviet leadership certainly appeared eager to be friendly and particularly to communicate an awareness of the grotesque futility of a war employing the latest weaponry. To this end they agreed to the Geneva Summit of 1955. Anthony Eden and Harold Macmillan were convinced by this meeting that, in Macmillan's words, "there ain't gonna be no war". For a few brief, golden months, it seemed in London as if the Cold War might even be negotiated into history. However, by the end of 1955 it was apparent to the British that Geneva did not mean the Kremlin had given up aspirations to global supremacy, rather that the means to this end were now to be different.

This thesis examines the influence of Russian political emigrés on the British labour movement, 1884-1920, with particular reference to the career of Theodore Rothstein. It takes as its starting point Sergius Stepniak's comments on the impact of a small group of socialists on a Liberal- Radical demonstration in Hyde Park in 1884, and closes with the formation of the Communist Party of Great Britain in 1920 and the refusal to allow Th. Rothstein re-entry into Britain in August 1920. It takes issue with those historians who have argued that the Russian political emigré influence was essentially harmful, serving only to undermine natural developments already in evidence on the British Left and imposing new perspectives, which later made the CPGB subservient to the needs of Soviet foreign policy. This thesis, on the contrary, argues that the Russian political emigré community in Britain, predominantly Jewish, had become an integral part of the Left-wing of the British labour movement by the time of the formation of the CPGB, and as such formed part of the British socialist tradition that favoured Marxism. It looks specifically at the history of the Social-Democratic Federation, (SDF) which between 1884 and 1920 adopted the titles Social-Democratic Party and British Socialist Party before it merged itself with the CPGB in 1920. The SDF appealed particularly to the Russian political emigrés, as opposed to other groupings, because it saw itself as a Social-Democratic body and part of an international movement, to which the Russian Social- Democratic Labour Party was affiliated. The emigrés, therefore, felt that their activity within the British socialist movement was not something imposed upon a reluctant nativist body; but an integral part of that movement's development.

Western-origin women’s lifestyle magazines have enjoyed great success in post-Soviet Russia, and represent part of the globalisation of the post-Soviet media landscape. Existing studies of post-Soviet Russian women’s magazines have tended to focus on either magazine content or reader interpretations, their role in the media marketplace, or representations of themes such as glamour culture or conspicuous consumption. Based on a discourse analysis of the three Russian women’s lifestyle magazines Elle, Liza and Cosmopolitan, and interviews with 39 Russian women, the thesis interrogates femininity norms in contemporary Russia. This thesis addresses a gap in the literature in foregrounding a feminist approach to a combined analysis of both the content of the magazines, and how readers decode the magazines. Portrayals of embodied femininity in women’s magazines are a chief focus, in addition to reader decodings of these portrayals. The thesis shows how certain forms of aesthetic and cultural capital are linked to femininity, and how women’s magazines discursively construct normative femininity via portraying these forms of cultural capital as necessary for women. It also relates particular ways of performing femininity, such as conspicuous consumption and beauty labour, to wider patriarchal discourses in Russian society. Furthermore, the thesis engages with pertinent debates around cultural globalisation in relation to post-Soviet media and culture, and addresses both change and continuity in post-Soviet gender norms; not only from the Soviet era into the present, but across an oft-perceived East/West axis via the horizontalization and glocalisation of culture. The thesis discusses two main aspects of change: 1) the role now played by conspicuous consumption in social constructions of normative femininity; and 2) the expectation of ever increasing resources women are now expected to devote to beauty labour as part of performing normative femininity. However, I also argue that it is appropriate from a gender studies perspective to highlight Russian society as patriarchal as well as post-socialist. As such, I highlight the cross-cultural experiences women in contemporary Russia women share with women in other parts of the world. Accordingly, the research suggests that women’s lifestyle magazines in the post-Soviet era have drawn on more established gender discourses in Soviet-Russian society as a means of facilitating the introduction of relatively new norms and practices, particularly linked to a culture of conspicuous consumption.

This thesis challenges the customary approach of studying the latent ethnic conflict in Latvia exclusively through the prism of post-Soviet studies, looking for the causes of societal disaccord in Latvia’s recent past as a Soviet Socialist Republic, when numerous traumas were induced on the eponymous nation, from the deportations of 1940 which robbed the nation of its intelligentsia, to Russification policies that threatened the very existence of the Latvian language and culture, and to mass labour immigration that radically changed the country’s demography and ethnic composition. While recognising that this approach has its own merits, this thesis focuses on another important factor contributing to the present ethnic discord, namely the historical development of the idea of the Latvian nation, especially vis-à-vis ethnic minorities, who have always been present in significant numbers on Latvian territory through the course of modern history. More often than not, the interwar period of Latvian independence and nation-building is discarded by political scientists as bearing purely symbolic meaning and having no real impact on the present. This thesis challenges this widespread assumption and argues that, on the contrary, both the genesis of the idea of the Latvian nation and its interwar experience of statehood are vital to understanding the present-day dynamics. My thesis encompasses the period of Latvian history from the mid-19th century, when Latvians’ national awakening began, to 1940, when the country lost its independence as a result of Soviet annexation. The aim of this thesis is three-fold: first, to challenge the widespread (and historically inaccurate) assumption prevalent in modern Latvia that the idea of the civic nation is something intrinsically alien and unsuitable, imposed on Latvia from above; secondly, to examine the long-forgotten original contributions made to the concept of civic nationalism, and to the whole universalist-particularist dilemma, by Latvian thinkers at the beginning of the 20th century, and to place them in the wider framework of European interwar history and nationalism studies; thirdly, to identify the key issues in majority-minority relations that contributed to the eventual deterioration of minority rights in Latvia prior to World War Two, and, to a certain extent, to the demise of parliamentarian democracy in 1934. These issues (divided into three principal clusters: citizenship, language, and education) are then compared to the remarkably similar challenges faced by Latvian society since 1991.

In both Soviet and Western historiography, Russian populism (narodnichestvo) has been studied more or less in isolation from the broader socialist movement in Europe. The aim of this thesis is to show that although it undoubtedly possessed characteristics peculiar to Russia, the populist movement should be understood as part of the Europe-wide revolutionary movement. To accomplish this, the thesis is structured around chapters discussing individuals who were involved in both the Russian revolutionary movement and the European anarchist movement, with which populism shared many ideas, ideologies tactics and internal disputes. These individuals are Mikhail Bakunin, Zemfirii Ralli and Petr Kropotkin. Around these chapters are studies of groups or movements connected with those individuals in Russia or Europe. Central themes include consistency, or the social groups which the revolutionaries hoped to address; organisational forms adopted by anarchists and populists; tactics to be used to rouse their constituencies to action and to organise and achieve revolution; relations of the revolutionaries to the masses; the differing concepts of political and social/economic revolution; and the rise of terrorism in both movements.

The thesis is devoted to an examination of the creation and development of the Soviet machine tool industry in the inter-War years. It opens with a brief review of the low level of machine tool building: before the October Revolution, and then considers the revival and changing priorities of the industry during the 1920s. After a review of the intensive development of the branch during the first three Five-year Plans, particular aspects are considered in detail. The overall, strategy of the industry, involving decisions relating to production specialisation and technology , is analysed, together with a study of the role of process and parts specialisation. A major problem facing the industry was that of the choice of machine tool technology; this question is examined in detail, and followed by a consideration of the influence of technical progress and the creation of a research and development system in the branch. The limited role of foreign technical assistance and the much greater role of imports are discussed. Further chapters are devoted to the problems of developing a skilled labour force and of building new enterprises. It is concluded that the development of the Soviet machine tool industry was on the whole a successful achievement, offering some lessons for present-day developing countries.