ABSTRACT The countries of the Western Balkans have experienced more than a decade of democratic backsliding. Analysis of survey results revealed that these trends were accompanied also by substantial changes in citizens’ political attitudes. The support for a strong political leader has noticeably increased, while support for democracy has suffered a substantial decline. The results suggest that these tendencies can better be explained by the economic insecurity thesis than by the cultural backlash thesis. The analysis also revealed that the support for a strong leader has become increasingly compatible with the general support for democracy.

ABSTRACT In 2017, the draft of the law on patriotic education was submitted to the State Duma. The document clearly signaled that Russian authorities were starting to prepare for long-term resistance to external threats, both military and cultural. This development follows the adoption of five decrees with a similar focus. Exploring this “patriotic turn,” our research will focus on how power shapes collective memory and how the Russian patriotic campaign is perceived elsewhere in the post-Soviet space, namely in Kazakhstan. In this way, we want to shed new light on the nexus between historical memory, anti-Western resistance, and the foreign policy.

ABSTRACT To what extent do elite narratives about history shape what citizens make of the past? This article focuses on young Russians’ understanding of history and provides insights into the effects of memory politics in authoritarian settings. The research uses original survey data of urban youth and demonstrates that the regime successfully determines what events are considered important. However, conflicts over their interpretation persist, particularly with regard to less emotionally charged signifiers and those to which respondents can relate personally. Given low variation by age, I suggest that we observe a period effect upon historical memory, rather than a generational effect.

ABSTRACT In International Relations, “Central Asia” and “power” are often linked to either Great Power politics or authoritarianism. Yet, as “power” is a multifaceted component of social life, this paper suggests a comprehensive framework to analyze its different understandings and operations in the region. By adopting the typology of Michael Barnett and Raymond Duvall, the paper has three aims. First, to review the recent literature on power and Central Asia showing that “power” is a pervasive but undertheorized concept. Second, to broaden the understanding of “power” in the region. Third, to encourage reflexivity when it comes to power analysis.

ABSTRACT The paper explores the use of sanitary, phytosanitary, and technical norms for achieving political aims on the example of Russia. Even Russia’s entry to the WTO in 2012 did not alter the policy due to the general wording of these agreements together with the GOST (State Standard) norms valid in the post-Soviet space allow Russia to misuse these norms. Russia holds their nonfulfillment in reserve and activates them only if a political clash occurs. Such cases are usually not taken to the WTO organs by the impacted states because of the weaknesses of the WTO appeal process.

Russian membership in the Council of Europe is a function of two threats: isolation internationally and too much democratization/liberalization domestically. These concerns conditioned Russia’s halcyon first decade of membership. Looking forward, however, the obligations of membership challenge Vladimir Putin’s limited interest in further domestic reforms at a time when international isolation bothers him less. The authors argue that understanding these varying domestic and international pressures is a good predictor of Russia’s membership interests. The authors explore general hypotheses from this case study about the conditions under which illiberal regimes willingly cede sovereignty in order to join more liberal and democratic international organizations.

This article concerns the Islamic community in contemporary Russia and the dynamic identities of Muslim migrants there. The focus of this study is the religious and wider social practices of those Muslim migrants who are considered leaders of local micro-communities, enjoy respect within their religious community, and have steadfast religious authority within their circles. These practices are considered in their local religious and migrant contexts through the prism of such concepts as religious individualism, everyday lived Islam, and tactical religion. The author shows multiple ties that emerge between the region’s Muslims, specifically between unofficial local leaders, and other believers who need this authority to elaborate their everyday Muslim practices in the context of migration and the authority crisis in Russian Islam. This study emphasizes the importance of the everyday in the formation of individual religiosity and shows how a local Muslim environment builds up around certain key figures outside the mosque.

Based on the theory of transaction cost economics, the paper argues that by vertically organizing political exchange, populist regimes reduce market-type political transaction costs—bargaining, enforcement and information costs—of democracy. However, management-type political transaction costs—organizational costs, partly stemming from corruption—rise as populists in power leverage government control through hierarchically organized clienteles. Transaction cost economics suggest that a shift from democratic towards authoritarian populist regimes occurs when formal and informal political institutions prove unable to maintain horizontal political exchange, and demand for increased government discretion grows. This is demonstrated on Viktor Orbán’s authoritarian populist regime in Hungary.

This article examines the thesis that educational cleavage, operating through an authoritarian–libertarian value dimension, has become one of the most important social cleavages that influence political divisions in contemporary Europe. This model, which is a revision of the standard cleavage model of politics, has been developed and tested in the Western European context. However, the validity of this assumption in different social contexts, such as the Eastern European and the post-communist, has not been tested yet. This article uses data from the fourth wave of the European Values Survey to test the idea that the authoritarian–liberal dimension mediates the influence of education on party orientation in seven Balkan countries and territories. The results show that education and authoritarianism are significantly and negatively correlated in each Balkan country. Yet, there are differences in their political relevance that are dependent on the behavior of the parties themselves and possibly the presence of other major cleavages.

China’s presence in the Tajik Pamirs is a paradox. While Chinese capital, geopolitical interests, and grandiose plans for new Silk Roads shape ambitions and fears, actual encounters with Chinese business people, engineers, or tourists remain rare and brief. In this context, people in the Pamirs find themselves waiting for pending futures conjured up in relation to China. Considering a future free economic zone, China trade across the Kulma Pass, and an old silver mine recently bought by a Chinese company, I analyze the paralyzing limbo Tajikistan’s Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region is facing at this particular historical conjuncture.