yes / P5. The evaluation was undertaken by Bradford University, Channel Research Ltd, the PARC & Associated Consultants. The GCPP Russia and Former Soviet Union (FSU) Case study was carried out by Dr Greg Austin with Mr Paul Bergne. Work was conducted in three phases. The first was London-based, and considered the Russia and FSU Strategy¿s activities in the context of UK approaches to conflict prevention in the region and the overall policy framework of the GCPP. The second phase involved fieldwork in Georgia, Russia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, whilst the third phase involved consultations in London. P7. The Russia and FSU Case Study is one of six studies undertaken within the framework of the evaluation of the Conflict Prevention Pools. In accordance with the Terms of Reference (ToRs) and the Inception Report, the Evaluation placed maximum emphasis on the macro level: the policy processes in Whitehall by which decisions on allocations are made and implemented by the CPPs. Considerable attention has also been placed on the meso level: the degree to which CPP policies and activities in a given conflict form part of a coherent package of direct interventions by the international community and local actors to the problems of particular large scale deadly conflicts or potential conflicts. The microlevel of analysis (review of specific projects) confines itself largely to the way in which projects impact on the meso and macro levels. The Evaluation has not analysed systematically whether specific projects funded by the CPPs have been well managed and whether they have achieved their specific project goals. Single projects have been analysed to the extent that they reflect on the macro and meso levels. P8. The main findings of the evaluation, reflected in this Synthesis Report, are that the CPPs are doing significant work funding worthwhile activities that make positive contributions to effective conflict prevention, although it is far too early in the day to assess impact. The progress achieved through the CPP mechanisms is significant enough to justify their continuation.

The urban landscape of Yerevan has experienced tremendous changes since the collapse of the Soviet Union and Armenia’s independence in 1991. Domestic and foreign investments have poured into Yerevan’s building sector, converting many downtown neighborhoods into sleek modern districts that now cater to foreign investors, tourists, and the newly rich Armenian nationals. Large portions of the city’s green parks and other public spaces have been commercialized for private and exclusive use, creating zones that are accessible only to the affluent. In this dissertation I explore the rapidly transforming landscape of Yerevan and its connections to the development of contemporary Armenian national identity. This research was guided by principles of ethnographic inquiry, and I employed diverse methods, including document and archival research, structured and semi-structured interviews and content analysis of news media. I also used geographic information systems (GIS) and satellite images to represent and visualize the stark transformations of spaces in Yerevan. Informed by and contributing to three literatures—on the relationship between landscape and identity formation, on the construction of national identity, and on Soviet and post-Soviet cities—this dissertation investigates how messages about contemporary Armenian national identity are being expressed via the transforming landscape of Armenia’s national capital. In it I describe the ways in which abrupt transformations have resulted in the physical and symbolic eviction of residents, introducing fierce public debates about belonging and exclusion within the changing urban context. I demonstrate that the new additions to Yerevan’s landscape and the symbolic messages that they carry are hotly contested by many long-time residents, who struggle for inclusion of their opinions and interests in the process of re-imagining their national capital. This dissertation illustrates many of the trends that are apparent in post-Soviet and post-Socialist space, while at the same time exposing some unique characteristics of the Armenian case.

The present work analyses the fiction of the post-Soviet Russian writers, Vladimir Sorokin, Vladimir Tuchkov and Aleksandr Khurgin against the background of the notion of post-Soviet Russian postmodernism. In doing so, it investigates the usefulness and accuracy of this very notion, proposing that of ‘post-Soviet neo-modernism’ instead. Common critical approaches to post-Soviet Russian literature as being postmodern are questioned through an examination of the concept of postmodernism in its interrelated historical, social, and philosophical dimensions, and of its utility and adequacy in the Russian cultural context. In addition, it is proposed that the humorous and grotesque nature of certain post-Soviet works can be viewed as a creatively critical engagement with both the past, i.e. Soviet ideology, and the present, the socially tumultuous post-Soviet years. Russian modernism, while sharing typologically and literary-historically a number of key characteristics with Western modernism, was particularly motivated by a turning to the cultural repository of Russia’s past, and a metaphysical yearning for universal meaning transcending the perceived fragmentation of the tangible modern world. Continuing the older Russian tradition of resisting rationalism, and impressed by the sense of realist aesthetics failing the writer in the task of representing a world that eluded rational comprehension, modernists tended to subordinate artistic concerns to their esoteric convictions. Without appreciation of this spiritual dimension, semantic intention in Russian modernist fiction may escape a reader used to the conventions of realist fiction. It is suggested that contemporary Russian fiction as embodied in certain works by Sorokin, Tuchkov and Khurgin, while stylistically exhibiting a number of features commonly regarded as postmodern, such as parody, pastiche, playfulness, carnivalisation, the grotesque, intertextuality and self-consciousness, seems to resume modernism’s tendency to seek meaning and value for human existence in the transcendent realm, as well as in the cultural, in particular literary, treasures of the past. The closeness of such segments of post-Soviet fiction and modernism in this regard is, it is argued, ultimately contrary to the spirit of postmodernism and its relativistic and particularistic worldview. Hence the suggested conceptualisation of post-Soviet Russian fiction as ‘neo-modernist’.

Master of Arts / Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work / Nadezda Shapkina / With the collapse of the socialist model in the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1991 which was followed by Civil War (1992-1997), Tajikistan has undergone profound social, economic, and political transformation. Persistent impoverishment, political and economic instability, and discrimination of ethnic minorities have resulted in out-migration of Tajik population to Russia. In this study, labor migration (survival driven, seasonal, and chain) is discussed. Even though Tajik migrants face challenges such as segregation, xenophobia, sexism, and intolerance working abroad, they continue to migrate to Russia in order to seek a better quality of life. This is closely linked to migration policy and regulations that have been implemented by the governments of these countries which allow free movement across the borders. Although these migration policies promote legal migration, they create favorable conditions for inequality (such as structural, social, and global) as well as illegal migratory flows. However, little scholarly work has been focused on how migration policy contributes to structural inequality and leads to illegal migration in the former Soviet Republics. In my study, I seek to add to the limited existing literature about these phenomena. I examine the social context of Tajik labor migration, legal framework, migration policy and regulations, and its implications. Specifically, I analyze the case of Tajikistan and Russia’s migration policies and regulations as they are proposed and implemented by governmental agencies in collaboration and consultation with civil society organizations (local and international) including the Tajik diasporas.

Between 1987 and 1991, Soviet filmmakers and journalists utilized Gorbachev’s glasnost reform policy to depict or discuss sexuality in cinema and the popular press. I argue that Soviet film and popular press discourses on sex in this period reveal a continuity of conservative sexual mores, which were interwoven with social and moral conservatism regarding the centerpiece of Soviet society, the Soviet family. Furthermore, these discourses take on a fundamentally misogynistic tone, in that women are tasked with defending sexual purity, and thus familial integrity, while simultaneously being cast as those most susceptible to the power of sexual enticement. Thus, the comparatively permissive discourse about sex and sexuality in the 1980s can be interpreted not as a “sexual revolution,” but as an explosion in social and moral anxieties, that were unique to the glasnost period, about the Soviet way of life. Additionally, this study challenges the concept of the totalitarian Soviet system by highlighting intellectuals’ persevering conservatism during a period where the state did not expressly govern or censor discourses on sex and sexuality.

The aim of this thesis is to shed light on Post-Soviet urban renewal and people’s perceptions of changes that recently occurred in both the city of Riga and Latvian society more generally since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. More specifically, this study examines how these perceptions are manifest in Riga’s ongoing renewal. Through applying aspects of continuity and discontinuity, I illustrate how the urban renewal of Post-Soviet Riga uncovers imaginary and emotional aspects of the city and how these are interpreted in relation to the past, present and the future. This study introduces the concept “urban postperestroika” and one important difference between this concept and the more common concepts post-socialist, post-communist or post-Soviet is that the former highlights a process while the latter ones largely highlight the state. The starting point is how urban phantasmagorias – contemporary dreams of the future of the city – elucidate urban renewal processes in general and urban postperestroika in particular. In Riga’s ongoing renewal processes I identify three main trajectories in relation to aspects of the past, present and the future: de-Sovietization, globalization and Lettification. Together, these three trajectories constitute an engine that produces urban phantasmagorias. The dissolution of the Soviet Union has given rise to notions that everything is “back to normal” again, and these notions of normalcy have influenced urban renewal processes. The dilemmas, as shown in this thesis, concern the Soviet period and its remaining psychical structure which give the impression of being too conspicuous to eliminate and too contradictory to assimilate. The study illustrates the difficulties of building new urban and societal structures on the remains of pre-existing orders. Such difficulties of course lead to contradictory and ambiguous world views and to new dysfunctional situations that have to be managed in the future.

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the root causes of Russia’s recent aggressive regionalism. Russia’s revival and corresponding military, political, and informational offensives have shaken European security in a way few thought it was capable of following the USSR’s dissolution and Russia’s subsequent fall into ineptitude. At first glance, this shift in Russia’s posture appears to come as a result of an uptick in nationalism driven by the chauvinistic revanchism of its leader, Vladimir Putin. However, this thesis finds that the eastward expansion of NATO’s membership and transition to a more offensive force posture, augmented by the placement of missile defense infrastructure in Europe, has contributed to a Russian impression of besiegement and corresponding sense that its security and sovereignty are threatened. Russia’s perception that NATO is acting to replace Russia in its perceived sphere of influence has been shaped by the fall of the Soviet Union and Soviet security considerations. This thesis recommends that, to prevent the further deterioration of the relationship between Russia and the West, the following policies should be enacted. First, NATO should reestablish relations with Russia and partner with it on the European ballistic missile defense shield as a confidence building measure. Second, NATO should halt the eastward expansion of its traditional collective security membership and instead rely on NATO’s Partnership for Peace program to support democratization efforts in the former Eastern Bloc. While these policies cannot eliminate the historical context that the NATO-Russia relationship is shaped by, they can serve as the beginning of a shift away from mutual antagonism by defusing tensions between NATO and Russia.

This thesis provides analysis of the networks of power and authority, which interconnect commonly referenced sources of knowledge about Tuvan throat singing. These sources–books, websites, performances, a documentary film, CD liner notes, and the individuals involved in their production–comprise a substantial portion of contemporary public discourse that represents Tuva and its musical practices to the English speaking world and serve to produce “experts” and “expert knowledge” of throat singing. This work also shows how public discourse of Tuva forms an “authentic”, homogenous, romanticized and spiritualized pan-Asian identity centered on the practices of throat singing, shamanism, and nomadism. The conclusion offers an explanation as to why the public discourse focused on Tuvan throat singing locates the “authentic” in rural Tuva, why throat singing is so often aligned with the spiritual, the healing, and the eternal, and why such conceptions serve to benefit the careers of those involved with the production of such an image. This chapter also explores whether or not representing Tuva with an idealized and romanticized image places Tuvans and related ethnic groups at a disadvantage socially, politically, and economically. / text

Pateikiamoje disertacijoje nagrinėjamas posovietinių režimų transformacijos procesas ir siekiama atsakyti į klausimą, kodėl „spalvotąsias revoliucijas“ patyrusios šalys – Gruzija ir Ukraina – nedemonstruoja tos pažangos demokratijos, įstatymo viršenybės ir žmogaus teisių srityse, kokios iš jų buvo tikimasi. Nagrinėjant šią problemą pasitelkiama struktūrinė teorinė prieiga, kuri leidžia įtraukti tiek vidinių ir išorinių, tiek idėjinių ir materialių veiksnių analizę. Disertacijoje ginamas teiginys, kad pagrindinė posovietinių režimų transformacijos kliūtis yra persidengiantis išorinių veikėjų skatinamos struktūrinės aplinkos poveikis. Disertacijoje teigiama, kad veikdami skirtingoje struktūrinėje aplinkoje, kurią sudaro skirtingo turinio tapatybinė, institucinė ir materialinė dimensijos, Rusijos ir Europos veikėjai posovietinėje erdvėje sukuria „struktūrų persidengimo“ fenomeną. Dėl to neįmanoma įtvirtinti stabilios ir vidujai suderintos „tvarkos“, o tai lemia nuolatinį neapibrėžtumą, stabdantį politinių režimų stabilizaciją posovietinėje erdvėje. Ukraina ir Gruzija materialine prasme (ekonomiškai, energetiškai) yra stipriai priklausomos tiek nuo Rusijos, tiek nuo Europos. Jos abi taip pat veikia pagal rusiškai struktūrinei aplinkai būdingus elgesio modelius, tačiau susiduria su kolektyvinės tapatybės (bendros su Rusija) įtvirtinimo problemomis. Visų trijų veiksnių santykis (prieštaravimas) apriboja režimo transformacijos, kuris prasidėjo su „spalvotosiomis revoliucijomis“... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / The problem of post-soviet political regimes’ transformation is analysed in the present dissertation. Ukraine and Georgia are chosen as the case studies. Structural theoretical approach, developed in the dissertation allows the inclusion of material and ideational as well as internal and external factors into the analysis if regime transformation. It as argued that the main obstacle in the process is the intersecting influence of structural milieu promoted by different external actors. The argument is based on the presumption that Russian and European actors, which operate in different structural milieu, comprised of identity, institutions and material basis, create the phenomenon of intersecting structures. It is the main reason and obstacle for the establishment of consistent and stable “order” in post-soviet space. Ukraine and Georgia, being materially dependent both on Russia and Ukraine at the same time do not have stable collective identities and clearly institutionalized and compatible formal and informal “rules of the game”. Meanwhile, Russian and European actors promote different structural patterns of interaction therefore promoting instability and hampering regime transformation. The dissertation provides with a comprehensive analysis of Russia’s and Europe’s structural features and their impact on agents’ behaviour. Georgian and Ukrainian structural milieu of operation is also conducted. Finally, prospects for establishment of Russian and European structural... [to full text]

Using the findings of a five-year ethnographic study, this thesis examines the contractual relationships that prevail in low-technology moderately competitive industries characteristic of the contemporary Ukrainian economy. The research reports on how contracts are enforced and how the stability of business relationships is ensured in Ukraine. The established view of many scholars that business efficiency is held back in most post-Soviet economies by frequent contractual violations and dysfunctional courts is not entirely supported by the research underpinning this thesis: in Ukraine, contract enforcement is generally effective enough to allow stability in day-to-day transactions, and the commercial courts do provide adequate backing. Although the mechanisms used to enforce contracts in Ukraine are generally similar to those found in developed countries, there are distinctive features within the overall pattern. In particular, firms rely extensively on repeated interactions and self-enforcing devices while signing short-term formal contracts and avoiding interdependency between trading partners. They do not rely on their reputation or business association memberships and they make no use of private arbitration. Instead, a few legal institutions dating back to the Soviet period proved adaptable and viable in a market economy. When transactions involve either state-owned companies or the exercise of administrative resources, contract enforcement becomes problematic. Illegal kickbacks from suppliers and the coercive use of state machinery come into play, and asking a court to enforce a contract is more costly and less effective than in other cases. However, the author shows that in the typical everyday transactions of Ukrainian private firms, the state and its administrative resources are involved in the minority of cases, and that they do not undermine the dominant pattern of orderly contractual dealings. The thesis concludes that the contractual pattern prevalent in Ukraine effectively serves straightforward traditional buyer-seller transactions but it is ill-suited to meet the requirements of globalized trade, production diversification and technological progress. Adaptations of the existing system to meet these requirements are likely to depend upon changes in the wider business environment, namely upon institutions constraining the coercive power of the state.