The thesis employs the political process approach within social movement theory (SMT) to examine in a comparative fashion two distinctly different opposition movements in southern Russia. One is the environmental movement in Krasnodar Krai and the other is the ethno-national Balkar movement in Kabardino-Balkaria. The political process approach focuses on the role and interaction of political opportunities, mobilising structures, and social movement framing for both movements, and seeks to explore their role in social movement mobilisation dynamics in Russia’s non-democratic context. The combination of the analysis of the three variables of political opportunities, mobilising structures, and social movement framing allows for fresh perspectives on both SMT and post-Soviet area studies. The thesis is particularly concerned with networks. It argues that in non-democratic contexts, the role of networks is more important than in democratic contexts.

The thesis, which is based on extensive archival materials, explores the origins of the on-going conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan by focusing on the emergence of the first Armenian Republic in 1918 and its territorial issues with Azerbaijan, in order to understand the factors which led to this conflict. It examines the background to the creation of the first Armenian Republic by researching the location of the ‘historical Armenian homeland’, the construction and reconstruction of the notion of the ‘Armenian homeland’, the aspects facilitating the way in which the ideology and strategy of the Armenian national movement developed, and the factors instrumental in the construction of the Armenian identity. The work provides a historical background to the Armenian claims to Garabagh and Nakhchyvan and analyses the ethnic, historical, economic, geographical and security arguments used by the first Armenian Republic to substantiate its vision of the territorial delimitation between Armenia and Azerbaijan with regard to these regions at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. The thesis also considers the positions of the external powers involved in the South Caucasus vis-à-vis the Garabagh and Nakhchyvan issues and assesses the impact of their stance on the settlement of these conflicts.

This thesis is a study of ordinary adult readers and their reading preferences in the USSR in the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s. Chapter One provides background information on Soviet policies towards reading and on the changes in Soviet society which have influenced reading habits over the last 30 years. This is followed by a description of the reader surveys used for the research and a discussion of some methodological problems. Chapter Two is concerned with all aspects of political control over reading, as it affects the writer, the publishing process, the book trade, libraries and ultimately the reader. Chapters Three and Four consider problems of the supply of reading matter through the retail trade and through mass (public) libraries. Chapter Five is an analysis of how various sociodemographic factors affect reading, and of the effect of television on reading. Chapter Six considers the relative importance of books, newspapers and journals, and the balance between fiction and non-fiction in readers' preferences. Chapter Seven is concerned with the reading of non-fiction, whether in books, journals or newspapers, and Chapter Eight provides an analysis of readers' preferences in novels, poetry and plays. The thesis concludes that the many, often contradictory, stereotypes of reading in the USSR all have some foundation in reality.

Tez (Yüksek Lisans) - Süleyman Demirel Üniversitesi, Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Uluslararası İlişkiler Anabilim Dalı, 2007. / Kaynakça var.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2008. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 312-338).

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xiii, 202 p. : ill. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number. / This dissertation examines the relationship between democracy and international economic ties. The effects of economic processes on domestic politics have long been a subject for debate in the literature: some authors argue that economic liberalization advances democracy, while others advocate that economic liberalization impedes democracy. I argue that both sides of the debate omitted an important factor in the analyses of trade ties and democracy. The empirical studies predominantly used the volumes of international trade, without analyzing the structural position of trade partners in the international political arena. I argue that it is not how much a country trades, but the kind of states it trades with that determines its democracy. I analyze the current theories of democracy and identify that the main weakness of these theories is the inability to incorporate international processes and globalization in the analysis of democratization. I show that World-Systems theory (WST) can improve current theories of democracy. I employ WST and a number of alternative theories to create theoretical models of democracy. I then discuss the relevance of the former Soviet states to WST and to the analysis of democracy. I further construct a panel data set and apply pooled time-series regression, using three indexes of democracy as the dependent variables and two sets of theoretically distinct control variables. I find a negative relationship between core-periphery trade and democracy, and a positive relationship between trade openness and democracy in the periphery, which supports my main argument that trade ties must be reexamined based on the structural position of the trade partners. Contrary to conventional application of WST, the structure of the core-periphery trade shows that the core uses its economic ties to politically exploit the periphery, not the other way around. Hence, international trade is identified as a major tool for the modern hegemonies to broaden their political influence. Lastly, I found that both within- and between-states sets of control variables had influential predictors, which points out that modern theories of democracy must be restructured to incorporate multiple international processes in the analysis of the domestic politics of a state. / Advisers: Vallon Burris, Robert O'Brien

Il s'agit d'étudier la tentative de la Turquie de se positionner comme une puissance sur les échiquiers eurasiens et caucasiens sous la présidence de Turgut Ozal / Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Russian entrepreneurs have long faced considerable difficulties. While much is known about what these difficulties are, less is known about how entrepreneurs respond to them, what it is like to be an entrepreneur under these circumstances and why they bother in the first place. In this thesis I address these questions by conducting a multi-sited ethnography within three small Siberian enterprises, observing the directors as they conduct their everyday business. I find that these entrepreneurs all resent their vulnerable position in the political economy but that they have developed a capacity to survive or thrive in spite of the obstacles and threats they encounter. This capacity, I argue, is less a consequence of their commercial acumen than their understanding of what can be achieved given their particular circumstances, their knowledge that business-state relations take an informal, personalised form, and their preparedness to resist predatory outsiders. This leads me to reconsider the meaning of entrepreneurship in the Russian context. Furthermore, my informants’ agency presents a challenge to the idea in predominant political economic theories that the Russian state dominates the private sector. I therefore reconceptualise business-state relations using Douglass C. North et al’s Limited Access Order theory in combination with my empirical materials. This provides a more accurate theory that accepts the pre-eminent role of the state in the political economy while accommodating the agency displayed by my informants.

This thesis examines the evolution of Russia’s internal and external security perceptions from 2000-2008. Drawing on social constructivist ontology, it argues that the Putin regime’s articulation of security priorities evolved in relation to its reconceptualisation of Russian state identity from a ‘weak’ to a ‘strong’ state. To trace this evolutionary relationship between state identity and security perceptions, official discourse on Chechnya is examined. In this way, Russian narrative constructions of the process of securitisation and desecuritisation of Chechnya, and the role that this discourse played within the articulation of state identity and security priorities are investigated. The thesis suggests that the initial securitisation and subsequent desecuritisation of Chechnya are best understood within the Putin regime’s discursive construction of state building and changing security priorities, rather than as a reflection of shifting material conditions. The thesis concludes that analysis of individual security policies should take into account that the narrative construction of these policies shape, and are shaped by, the multifaceted and evolutionary meta-narratives of Russian state and security identity. Moreover, it is argued that Russian security policy should be studied as a subject in its own right, investigating both internal and external security issues, rather than being subsumed within a broader foreign policy analysis.