There is a consistent thread throughout Russian history of governmental management of culture. Tsars and Communist bureaucrats alike have sought to variously promote, censor, or exploit writers, filmmakers, and musicians to control and define the country's cultural content. Often, these measures were intended not necessarily to cultivate Russia's aesthetic spirit, but to accomplish specific policy goals. The promotion of a State ideology and other efforts to stave of social unrest were chief among them. With the fall of Soviet power and the loss of an official ideology promoted by the state, the concept of cultural politics fell to the wayside. It has remained largely ignored ever since. Despite numerous high-profile incidents of persecution of the creative class, analysts have not linked them together as part of an overarching cultural policy. However, the Russian government under Vladimir Putin has faced consistent policy challenges since the beginning of the 2000s that could be mitigated through the implementation of such a policy. In some ways, the breadth and character of State involvement in the cultural sphere follows the pattern of the country’s autocratic past. In others, it demonstrates that it has adapted these policies to function in the hybrid regime that Putin has created, as opposed to the totalitarian ones that preceded it. A recent case that exemplifies this new breed of cultural policy is the persecution of the radical feminist punk band Pussy Riot. While largely unknown to many Russian citizens, the group’s overt opposition to the patriarchal model of rule established by Putin with the help of the Russian Orthodox Church was met by the most comprehensive crackdown within the cultural sphere since perestroika. Examining this case in detail can reveal the extent to which the Russian government is concerned about its ability to maintain popular legitimacy. The fact that it has continued to try to manage the cultural sphere may indicate the level of democracy that has or has not been established in Russia so far today. / text

本文目的在於探討普丁時期（2000-2012年）的俄喬關係發展。當面對內外環境的轉變，俄羅斯如何因應並調整對喬治亞的外交政策，以鞏固自身國家利益及國際地位？普丁主政的不同時期，俄羅斯與喬治亞兩國關係發展的過程與影響因素為何？經由文獻回顧，研究結果顯示俄喬關係發展在普丁時期每況愈下，影響兩國關係發展的主要因素為：喬治亞政權替換之影響、喬治亞欲加入北約的衝擊、薩卡希維利執政下的喬美合作、五日戰爭對俄喬關係之影響。 本文認為即便俄羅斯利用能源、經濟手段施加對喬治亞的影響力，然而俄羅斯未能解決喬治亞內部的民族分裂問題，因此導致喬治亞政府日益親向西方。雖然俄羅斯與喬治亞在外交關係交惡，相關研究數據仍然顯示喬治亞居民認為發展俄喬之間的經濟、政治關係相當重要。

CHANGE AND CONTINUITY IN RUSSIA&rsquo / S RELATIONS WITH THE UNITED STATES IN EURASIA (2000-2005) Dereli, Pinar M. Sc., Department of Eurasian Studies Supervisor: Assit. Prof. Dr. Oktay F. Tanrisever June 2006, 112 pages This thesis seeks to analyze change and continuity in Russia&rsquo / s relations with the United States (US) in Eurasia under the leadership of Vladimir Putin between 2000 and 2005. The thesis argues that the fundamental change in Russia&rsquo / s relations with the US came immediately after Putin&rsquo / s presidency, rather than 9/11 terrorist attacks, as his foreign policy priorities required the establishment of close relations with the US as much as possible. The September 11 terrorist attacks have only facilitated the implementation of Putin&rsquo / s this pragmatic foreign policy. In fact, the continuation of differences between Russia and the US concerning bilateral and regional issues shows that their strategic partnership is mainly rhetoric driven by the short-term tactical considerations rather than shared global values and long-term interests. For this reason, Eurasia continued to be an area of confrontation in Russia&rsquo / s relations with the US in the post-9/11 era. The thesis consists of four main chapters apart from introduction and conclusion. The first main chapter discusses the evolution of Russian foreign policy towards the US between 1991 and 2000. The following chapter deals with the sources of change in Russian foreign policy towards the US before 9/11 events. The next chapter examines Russian-US bilateral relations after 9/11. Finally, the last chapter discusses the impact of 9/11 on the Russian-US relations in Eurasia. Keywords: Pragmatism, Vladimir Putin, Russian foreign policy, the United States, September 11.

La present tesi doctoral té com a objectiu l’anàlisi de la commemoració televisiva de la Victòria sobre l’Alemanya nazi a la Rússia post-soviètica. En particular, l’anàlisi es centra en la retransmissió de la desfilada militar del 9 de maig a la Plaça Roja de Moscou, el gran media event de la Rússia de Putin i Medvédev, i segueix el cami encetat per Dayan i Katz en l’estudi dels grans esdeveniments mediàtics. Tal i com indica el subtítol de la tesi, aquesta anàlisi és transversal; a part de la retransmissió de l’acte central de la commemoració, també s’ocupa d’analitzar els discursos presidencials dels darrers onze anys (2000-2010), utilitzant la metodologia de la semiòtica narrativa, així com l’anàlisi de les programacions del dia 9 de maig entre 1964 i 2010 del principal canal de televisió rus, i de l’agenda temàtica dels noticiaris de les principals televisions del país del 19 d’abril al 16 de maig de 2010. L’objectiu final de la tesi és posar de manifest les diferents estratègies que fan de la commemoració de la Victòria un esdeveniment mediàtic hegemònic a la Rússia actual i com a través d’aquest esdeveniment es constitueixen les bases de la identitat de la Rússia post-soviètica que converteix els seus ciutadans en soldats de la memòria històrica de la Victòria. / This thesis aims to analyze the TV celebration of the Victory over Nazi Germany in post-Soviet Russia. In particular, the analysis focuses on the broadcast of the military parade of 9 May in Moscow’s Red Square, the great media event in Putin’s and Medvedev’s Russia, and follows the path begun by Dayan and Katz in the study of media events. As indicated in the subtitle of the thesis, this analysis is cross-sectional; in addition to the broadcast of the main event of the commemoration, it also analyzes the presidential speeches from 2000 to 2010 —using narrative semiotics methods—, the programming on 9 May of Russia’s main television channel from 1964 to 2010 and the agenda of the main television news programmes in the country from April 19 to May 16 in 2010. The goal of this thesis is to highlight the different strategies that turn the commemoration of Victory into a hegemonic media event in present Russia, and how through this event the basis of post-Soviet Russian identity is constructed, turning the Russian citizen into a soldier of the historical memory of Victory.

Starting from a personal, contemporary outlook on society today, it might be obvious for a reader to immediately think of media as global, an entity hovering over national borders, transcending geography and geo-politics. As such viewers, we ignore thus that media - and the press in particular - have for a long time in the past been associated and tightly linked with mechanisms of nation-building, as well as with concepts such as nation, national identity and nationalism. Living in Sweden one might be acquainted with a fairly frequent representation of Russia in the media, just as well as with a fairly specific one; and the same would plausibly go for other countries. Through a narrative analysis of newspaper articles, this study focuses on the comparison of the representation of Russia in Swedish and Italian liberal online press in order to research whether the weaker degree of partisanship that characterises liberal journalism would still allow for two different storylines about Russia to be told through different narratives. With Daniel C. Hallin and Paolo Mancini’s study of media systems, as well as Kristina Riegert’s comparison of national representation in foreign news as a background, this study researches whether societal and political agendas and partisanship shape the image (and hence narration) of Russia in the two countries’ newspapers. Using Allan Bell’s values of newsworthiness and Vladimir Propp’s analysis of the quest’s narrative structure, it concludes that although the storylines about Russia told by the two countries were in fact different and plausibly coherent with the respective country’s circumstances (with a margin of exception), their narrative did not fully represent the model that Hallin and Mancini had assigned them.

Russian-American Relations and the Mass Media Securitization of Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump in the American Press by Valeriia Alikina This thesis is focused on two issues relevant to Security Studies and Political Science: relations between the Russian Federation and the United States of America, which are currently experiencing yet another decline, and problematics of political journalism. It reviews the process of securitization of Russia through speech acts in the mass media of its historical opponent, the United States. First, the thesis provides a theoretical framework, securitization theory, introducing its main principles. To prove that the process of securitization indeed occurs, the method of discourse analysis is employed. The third chapter provides background information on the relations between the Soviet Union/Russia and the United States since the end of the World War II; this information is completed by the role mass media had in their affairs. The next chapter frames the issue of propaganda, elaborating on the meaning behind this concept, the "fake news" narrative, and the idealistic idea of media objectivity. In the fifth chapter, the case study, two processes of securitization are reviewed. The first one is the American mainstream media, namely ​The New York Times​ and ​The...

Government Organized Non-Governmental Organizations (GONGOs), once common during the Soviet-era, are now increasingly resurfacing under the Putin administration. Once completely abolished from Russia, these deceitful organizations are accompanying various new laws signed by President Putin in the Russian Federation. While Russia does not claim to be a liberal democracy with a free civil society and Putin has described his state as a “managed democracy,” the puzzle still remains why the Putin administration is secretly using organizations to fulfill government ploys. This thesis will analyze the types of GONGOs along with new laws and policies signed into effect under the Putin and Medvedev Administration. I conclude this thesis by partially confirming my hypothesis that president Putin is rationally choosing to create these organizations in an effort to consolidate his power and promote Russian culture.

This master's thesis Comparative Analysis of Russian presidential elections 1996 - 2008 from the perspective of hybrid regime theory analyses four presidential elections in the above mentioned period and subsequently applies theoretical models of the hybrid regime theory. Such an application will allow to answer questions not only about the character of the elections - whether they can be considered democratic and competitive or not - but also about the character of the Russian regime as such. In this regard the analysis of parliamentary elections has to be also included as these take place only a few months before the presidential elections thus having a significant impact on the presidential electoral process and often on the result as well.

BEAUDUIN, Adrien. Old Master, New Neighbour: Putin's Russia in the Czech Foreign Policy Discourse. Master thesis. Charles University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Insitute of International Studies. Supervisor Dr.Jiří Vykoukal, 2013. Abstract The return to democracy in Central-Eastern Europe (CEE) and the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 did not mean that CEE-Russian relations could start anew. This dissertation uses post-structuralist discourse analysis and takes the case of the Czech Republic to examine the development of the Czech official foreign policy discourse towards Russia between 2001 and 2009. Looking at the history of opinions on Russia in the Czech lands and analyzing five events or periods of the 2000s, the present works tracks the evolution of the Russia's identity as constructed by the official Czech discourse. On the official level, the influence of Russia's image on the construction of the Czech identity is also analyzed. The results showed a worsening of relations after 2006 and suggest that the image of the 'Russian threat' has not disappeared from the political discourse in the Czech Republic. Moreover, the Czech official foreign policy discourse constructed the image of the Czech Republic as anchored in its Euroatlantic and European orientation.

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