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While the same formal candidate selection rules are generally in place throughout a state, there is often intracountry variation in male descriptive overrepresentation. To explain this variation, scholars cannot focus exclusively on women (e.g., how do women respond to formal institutional opportunities?) or femininity (e.g., how do norms governing appropriate female behavior affect women's odds of being selected as a candidate?). Rather, scholars must attend to the ways that informal norms regarding masculinity operate across space and time within a country. Drawing on the insights of feminist institutionalism, this essay examines two intracountry sources of variation in candidate selection: the spatial urban-rural divide and temporal differences between first-time recruitment and renomination. While the formal candidate selection rules are uniform, informal institutions vary depending on where and when we look, leading to different levels of male overrepresentation.

The paper analyzes how the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the Eurasian Development Bank (EDB) approach sustainable development in their legal documents and social media. Unlike democracies, autocracies are driven by concerns of regime survival, but they often seek legitimacy through expressed commitments to global norms. We find that while the EBRD has a clear and detailed environmental agenda, this is not so for the EDB, which appears unconcerned about legitimizing itself on this issue. The paper advances our understanding of the likely role of these organizations in sustainable development, identifying areas for further research on global environmental challenges.

What are the long-term effects of the financial sanctions against Russia? We provide a time-sensitive analysis of the sanctions impact on certain Russian financial markets and highlight how Russia has responded strategically. Our analysis also captures the effect of the threat of sanctions and informs the debate on sanctions effectiveness. Thus, our study indicates how financial sanctions can be incorporated into theories of deterrence and conflict resolution. We also provide some policy implications that can be generalized and reinforce previous research. Russia's banking system is highly dependent on dollar transactions, and in response to sanctions, Russia has systematically undertaken measures to promote its economic sovereignty under conditions of continued financial integration. We argue that sanctions put some pressure on the Russian budget, and that this effect has been exacerbated by the Covid-19 crisis, but also that Russia has used debt placements strategically in order to deter sanctions escalation.

This article proposes a transparent method for collecting, structuring, and analyzing Russian budget data on defense and security-related expenditures. A precise answer to the question of how big Russia’s defense expenditures are is impossible because of issues concerning secrecy and accounting principles. We circumvent this challenge by constructing lower and upper bounds for Russia’s military expenditure, showing that depending on the chosen measure these have increased from the range of 10.3–31.2% of federal expenditures in 2011 to 12.9–35.4% in 2018. The analysis also yields additional insights into the concept of secrecy in the Russian budget; we show that 39 out of 96 subchapters in the Russian budget contain secret expenditures, many of which are not nominally related to defense or security, and that secret expenditures increased as a share of total expenditures from 12% to 17% between 2011 and 2019.

The Russian-Ukrainian relationship is inherently complex. Since the end of the Cold War, there have been several defining moments in this relationship, which have contributed to how Russia perceives any potential challenges to its security. Securitising discourse from Russian political leadership, namely the President, offers an insight into what aspects of this relationship are escalated so extensively that extreme courses of action may be deemed necessary (i.e., a full-scale invasion of Ukraine). Drawing on Buzan et al. (1998), this project identifies the key sectors that Russia politicises, and those that it securitises vis-à-vis Ukraine. In addition, this study highlights the key sub-themes within politicisation and securitisation that were found within these sectors. This is all within a timeframe where relations have moved from comparatively stable to a time of war (February 2019 – February 2023). There is some degree of overlap between the themes politicised and securitised, especially across the military, political, societal, and economic sectors of security. There were no cases of securitisation within the environmental sector. Overall, this study found a significant shift in Russia’s securitisation framing of Ukraine from mid-2021 onwards. 

As a humorous response to the threat of the Russian occupation of Belarus during the joint military exercise of September 2017, civic activists created the fictional Republic of Veyshnoria. This meme soon obtained all the attributes of a micro-nation, including numerous virtual citizens, serving to critique the autocratic government of Belarus and creating a platform for alternative nation-building. Via humor and fake news, fictional Veyshnoria is becoming increasingly instrumental in the realm of information and ideological warfare.

This thesis examines the impact of the foreign agent's law in Russia from 2012 – February 2022. It reveals that the law on foreign agents significantly affects non-governmental organizations and individuals' possibility to operate through direct discrimination, reporting requirements, and lost funding. This was achieved using a theoretical framework and empirical case analysis. The empirical findings and content analysis are used to trace the impact of foreign agent legislation on organizations' activity.

This paper is about treason and anxiety in a small country. In particular, it examines how anxiety of treason as a core political affect and as a form of collective sentimentality has been shaping Georgia's political culture, especially since independence. I approach treason first and foremost as a category embedded in the collective memory narratives to demonstrate how it has been used to frame political processes. At the same time, I treat controversies involving accusations of treason as ramifications of collective anxiety over the notions of peoplehood and sovereignty in a small country.

Societal development in Azerbaijan has been strongly affected by the war since its independence. Such an impact can be seen in two major ways. First, the liberation of the occupied areas became the overarching vision for both political leaders and society and, essentially, one of the pillars of post-Soviet Azerbaijani national identity. Second, this gradually resulted in a militarization of state and society which strengthened the hegemony of the authoritarian regime. Azerbaijan’s recent victory further enhanced the popularity of president Ilham Aliyev and, in this sense, lowered incentives for democratization within society. Both of these factors have contributed to a situation where a reconciliation process seems far away. Even after territorial integrity was largely restored in 2020, the notion of ‘us’ vs. ‘them’ is still deeply rooted in the nation’s self-image and reinforced by the official narrative. Society is not ready to reconcile with Armenia, both due to the lingering trauma and the lack of any reconciliation mechanisms.

Up until 2020 Aleksandr Lukashenka’s authoritarian regime had ruled Belarus for 26 years without major challenges. Thus, the popular mobilization that took shape in connection with the August 2020 presidential election came as a surprise. It was not the first time that elections in Belarus were not fair – but it was the first time that large sectors of the population reacted openly. Six months later, Belarusians all over the country were still contesting the falsified results. What contributed to this mobilization and politicization of a previously largely apolitical society? Why does that development represent such a serious threat to the authoritarian system? This study sees the Belarusian presidential election and its aftermath as illustrating the ‘politics of uncertainty’ of electoral authoritarian regimes. Because of the intrinsic insecurity of authoritarian systems, all regular elections in that context entail risks, which in theory might lead to change. In Belarus, the emergence of latent threats to the regime’s legitimacy in the form of social cleavages and an economic crisis, combined with the fundamental dynamics of the ‘election game’, amplified this instability. The election served as the starting point for a process of transformation that became the most serious threat ever faced by the Lukashenka regime.

Elections in Belarus have become “potemkinism” with the sole purpose of reinforcing the authoritarian system. During the 2020 presidential election, however, the electoral process turned from meaningless to meaningful as formerly apolitical residents actively participated en masse throughout the whole electoral process. What circumstances contributed to this unexpected development? The election clearly illustrates what the theory about electoral authoritarianism refers to as the “politics of uncertainty.” Three types of uncertainty in particular contributed to the processes which gave the election and its aftermath its remarkable character. First, the Belarusian regime was haunted by inherent institutional and informational uncertainty, which made it vulnerable. Second, until 2020, the regime had successfully neutralized the routine uncertainty stemming from the election itself, but this time they failed. The electoral situation opened a window of opportunity for latent threats to authoritarian legitimacy to surface and become the backbone of antiregime mobilization. Finally, this would not have happened without the extreme uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic. The perceived lack of governmental response to the crisis intensified the impact of the inherent and routine uncertainty to the extent that it resulted in societal mass mobilization and repoliticization.

Using Heydemann’s concept ‘authoritarian upgrading’ as the theoretical point of departure, this article sheds light on the adaptation of the Azerbaijani authoritarian regime that is taking place in the political arena, civil society, media and information sector, and in relation to religious practices. It elaborates on how authoritarian upgrading is associated with the consolidation of the authoritarian regime and suggests that the core of these measures entails making authoritarian norms and values appear more attractive and acceptable. Notably, it illustrates the conscious attempts to engage the younger generation across multiple sectors in authoritarian upgrading making them both a target and a tool in this process.

On August 9, 2020, presidential elections were held in Belarus. Despite blatant electoral fraud and procedural violations, the official results declared Aleksandr Lukashenka reelected for a sixth term. While in the past, even the most obviously fraudulent election results have been followed by an atmosphere of resigned acceptance, this time countless Belarusians took to the streets to contest the results. What made this election different? This analysis of current affairs looks at the 2020 events through the lens of authoritarian consolidation theory, suggesting the unprecedented political mobilization was enabled by erosion in the three pillars of authoritarian stability: repression, cooptation, and legitimation. A majority of the population had been accepting the political status quo out of fear, for social and monetary security provided in exchange for loyalty, or a general understanding that there were no alternatives. Lukashenka did not realize this had largely changed. Nine months later, the foundation of the authoritarian regime is in an even worse shape. The regime’s reliance on repression further counteracts the legitimacy of the system. As a result, it seems it will be difficult for the authorities to re-consolidate authoritarianism, at least in the near future, no matter how the ‘revolution’ unfolds.

On 25 February, Belarus held simultaneous parliamentary and local council elections in what was dubbed “Single Voting Day”. Although the government did not invite the OSCE’s international election monitors, there is no doubt their verdict would have been the elections did not comply with OSCE standards – since 1994 no Belarusian election has. Nevertheless, a closer look at these elections reveals they were not just business as usual. In fact, they provide some revealing insights about the political situation in Belarus going from bad to worse.

Urban Protest: A Spatial Perspective on Kyiv, Minsk, and Moscow by Arve Hansen 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.

The article contributes to a better understanding of ‘Traditional Islam’ (TI), a state-led project in Azerbaijan to establish an alternative narrative promoting a specific local understanding of Islam that builds on its non-political, non-sectarian and national features to prevent ‘non-traditional’ religious variants from gaining popular traction. The phenomenon has not appeared in a vacuum. First, its features and functions stem from Soviet-era anti-religious and nationalities policies. Second, many aspects of TI resemble counter-radicalisation initiatives worldwide. Finally, while introduced as a means of blocking radicalisation in order to protect Azerbaijan’s national identity as a secular state, Traditional Islam in fact works to extend state control over the religious domain and thus to prevent the development of any religiously grounded dissent against the authoritarian regime.

In recent literature on post-Soviet electoral revolutions in places where attempts at regime change through popular protest did not succeed, opposition groups are often simply regarded as ‘failed’. And yet, opposition actors exist and participate in the political life of their country. Building on the Belarusian and Azerbaijani cases, we argue that opposition actors are maintained in a ‘ghetto’, often virtual, tightly managed by the ruling authorities who exert monopolistic control over civic activities. Opposition actors adapt to the restricted conditions – accepting a certain level of dependency. They thus develop various tactics to engage with the outside, striving to reduce the ghetto walls. To this end this article proposes a typology of what we call oppositional ‘resistance models’: electoral, in the media, lobbying and through education. The models highlight what makes ‘opposition’ in authoritarian states and are a step towards a more comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon in this context.

Russia is trying, through its bombs, attacks, and brutality, to erase what Ukraine was. Therefore, it is a war effort to keep remembering how Ukraine in peace looked like, how it smelled, tasted, and felt. And to never forget that this is a war against Ukraine, in its own right. Not as a representative of the West, and not as a representative of democracy. But because Ukraine is of such importance to Russia, that a break between the two is unthinkable for Putin. That was what Leonid Kravchuk, the Ukrainian president, realized already in 1991. He, and Ukrainian leaders after him, tried to protect their territory while at the same time reassuring Russia that relations could still be friendly. But Russia has never changed in a similar way.

In this chapter, I approach the existential aspects of being a refugee and living in exile, those aspects that are not part of the system-world of the state and its policies but the life-world of being. Involuntary emigration as in the case of Estonians and Bosnians that is the focus in this chapter, and the integration that may follow, accentuates fundamental existential questions. Having to leave behind the place where you are rooted causes an existential trauma, a trauma defined as a highly stressful event, a serious threat to one's life or integrity, involving feelings of uncertainty, helplessness and fear. There are many strategies that men and women who have experienced disruption use to create a whole out of the separation that has occurred. Here, I explore how the way that life is remembered and narrated can become a way to mitigate the existential trauma of refugee-ship. I will do so by analysing how individuals in two refugee communities, the Estonian "republican" generation that fled their homeland in 1944, and the Bosnians who left their tormented territory in 1992 and 1993, remember their lives. In the life stories of the Estonian and Bosnian refugees who went through existential traumas it is not only the fact that traumatic events are integrated, but how and by which narrative structure it is done.

On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a full-scale invasion into Ukraine under orders of Vladimir Putin. The invasion subsequently inspired a debate on the rationality behind this decision. The existing academic debate into the decision behind the invasion has identified both external and internal factors which can explain why this specific action may have been taken but has omitted a nuanced answer on clarifying the extent of Putin’s military actions. Prospect theory dictates that people under conditions of risk are more likely to be risk acceptant if they have experienced the context leading up to the decision to be one in which they have experienced losses. This thesis aims to explore how prospect theory can contribute to an understanding of Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine by employing a congruence analysis case-study approach. It concludes that the principles of prospect theory provide a substantiated explanation as to why Putin chose a full-scale invasion into Ukraine, demonstrating that Putin found himself in a domain of losses and opted for the option with the highest outcome uncertainty. Moreover, prospect theory also adds nuance to the existing academic debate by defining rationality as a scale with intervening factors, demonstrating that Putin’s decision-making rationality may have been impacted by his framing of losses.

The acquisition of ‘proficiency’ is often assumed to solve a variety of problems when conducting ethnographic fieldwork in a second language. Based on my experience of doing fieldwork while ‘proficient’ in Russian, this chapter highlights the issues raised by ‘fluency’, which complicate and deepen challenges common to ethnographic fieldwork in general. Firstly, I consider how I was ‘enlanguaged’ by new contexts and activities, espe- cially in learning new cultural norms. Secondly, I examine the performative aspects of conducting fieldwork in a foreign language, such as the pressure to ‘pass for a native’ and the emergence of a ‘field identity’. Finally, I reflect on how being ‘fluent’ impacts on issues of power, hierarchy and inequality in local Russian contexts. This chapter demonstrates how the emotional and ethical challenges of conducting ethnographic research in a foreign language do not end with ‘fluency’ and encourages those doing fieldwork to consider what it means to be an effective ‘intercultural speaker’.

While there is a common awareness of wartime media censorship in both Ukraine and Russia, there has been less research on Western media coverage and expert analysis of the war in Ukraine. This essay considers the extent to which a skewed and partisan version of the war’s evolution has been presented in UK media. Five stages are identi- fied in the emergence and evolution of a British meta-narrative on the war in Ukraine, replete with ‘cheering’ and ‘jeering’, that works against a realistic understanding of the war’s nature and reasonable consideration of possible future scenarios. It is argued this coverage has sidestepped critical questions of the war’s stage-by-stage escalation and has essentially avoided serious debate of the risks, costs and benefits of such a course.