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This article considers the staging of documents and national identity in Talgat Batalov’s 2012 theatre productionUzbek, an autobiographical solo show that recounts Batalov’s experience emigrating from Tashkent to Moscow at the age of nineteen. Through its close reading ofUzbekin performance, this study illustrates how the author uses irony and humor to both embody and elucidate the sociospatial discourse that posits Russia as the “modern center” to Central Asia’s “pre-modern periphery.” Additionally, this article explores how by presenting his audiences with his actual immigration records, and undermining their credibility, Batalov activates the unreliable status of documents in contemporary Russian culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the evidence of Russia's activity in Latin America and Africa, the paper explores the country's lending policies as part of the country's economic statecraft. Russia joined the group of countries that provide loans to other governments only quite recently, using the flow of resources from oil sales. As a latecomer, Russia and its companies target states with markets unoccupied by Western competitors. Russia even supports regimes with low credibility and provides them with political and economic support. Because of this high-yield but also high-risk strategy, it faces problems and losses in countries such as Venezuela or Libya. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines Azerbaijan's decision to go to war in Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020. It aims to unveil the lessons Azerbaijan learned from the reaction of major regional actors in the South Caucasus to rising tensions in Armenian–Azerbaijani relations from the mid-2000s to the 2020 July border crisis. The paper argues that the consistent unresponsiveness of the international community emboldened Azerbaijan to proceed with its war preparations. It shows that Azerbaijan perceived the attitude of regional powers as inability and/or reluctance to interfere in the conflict, and this created a permissive environment for an all-out war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While many states move from elite to mass higher education (HE) systems, little is known as to why some authoritarian developing states resist this transition. In post-Soviet Uzbekistan the tertiary system was consciously restricted to cover roughly 10% of the population; a situation that continued for more than two decades. This paper argues that it is the securitization of the role of HE growth that confronts the transition of HE from elite to mass systems. To support this argument, the paper analyses Uzbekistan's HE policy and the notorious 1992 student protests that legitimized the securitization of HE expansion in the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What determines the flow of unsanctioned information in authoritarian regimes? To answer this question, we explore the use and circulation of illicit foreign information among citizens in North Korea. This paper focuses on how the structure of social relations among citizens determines where and with whom people acquire and disseminate politically unsanctioned and potentially illegal content offline. Based on findings from a choice‐based conjoint administered to 313 former residents of North Korea, we show that social capital and trust-related effects associated with the place where information is acquired and the person who provides it determine information flows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many countries, the rapid evolution of digital platform technology has triggered significant shifts in competition law. Many have interpreted China's recent moves as signaling a broader crackdown on private entrepreneurship. In Russia, even before the invasion of Ukraine, government policy became increasingly restrictive toward foreign internet platforms. This paper analyzes the development and enforcement of competition law in Russia and China. We show that both technologically driven changes in the ability of digital platform firms to exercise market power and changes in the external political environment affect the relative strength and coalitions of interested bureaucratic actors and influence policy outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to this special issue by studying power from the perspective of the ability of actors to induce compliance with international norms. Presenting a case study of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative implementation in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, the paper explores how states get involved with and comply with the initiative. This case study shows that Central Asian states are socialized through a multiplicity of actors. Also, the power of inducing compliance with a norm is attained by various actors throughout the norm-implementation process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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 FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the disability protests that took place in Poland in the 2010s in relation to the American tradition of disability protest as a reference point in the global history of disability. The similarity of means and the difference of outcomes between American and Polish protests reveal the role of social, political and economic contexts of post-communist states in the use of disability protest strategies. This paper also explores how the hidden transcript of deaf and disabled resilience was transformed into a public one, reshaping the general public’s mental framework in relation to disability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union is often seen as a bulwark of progressive values, including LGBTI rights. By restricting such rights, politicians thus appear to reject the EU's fundamental principles. This paper argues, however, that anti-gender politics is often a surprisingly pro-European phenomenon. Many of its practitioners rebuff accusations of Euroskepticism. For them, rights restrictions are less an attempt to reject European integration than to redirect its trajectory. They aim to reconnect the EU with Europe's civilizational roots. The paper illustrates this argument by analyzing the discourse actors have used to justify anti-gender policies in three countries: Hungary, Lithuania, and Slovakia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brexit has been a major crisis facing the European integration process. The paper examines how Brexit was framed and exploited by two EU member state governments, Czechia and Hungary. We conceptualize Brexit as a "distant crisis" for these two countries: although it is likely to have significant impacts, these are uncertain and not immediate. Building on the crisis-framing literature, we apply frame analysis to examine governmental rhetoric and find that both governments have instrumentalized Brexit for internal purposes by pragmatically adapting their discursive positions on it to fit their political calculus on both domestic and European issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does the Kremlin have a coherent approach in the way it deals with the memory of the Soviet atrocities? If so, what does it consist in? In this paper, I address these questions by turning to a study of the "Russia—My History" chain of multimedia historical parks. I reconstruct the interpretation of the Soviet atrocities as it is (re)produced in the Moscow-located headquarters of the chain and the broader historical interpretation that this interpretation—at the same time statist and patriotic—is nested within. I argue that this interpretation is indicative of the Kremlin's way of dealing with Russia's difficult past, which consists in transforming it into a tool of ingenious political manipulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relationship between exposure to immigration in one's region or locality and sense of socio-territorial belonging, understood as a "we-feeling" toward other inhabitants of the territory. Based on the Russian case, it addresses the question whether higher intensity of in-migration is related to weaker sense of belonging and how this relationship depends on immigrant origin. Using survey data combined with official statistical data, I found a negative relation when immigration from non-CIS states is considered, but not in case of in-migration from CIS states. I interpret these findings in terms of symbolic boundaries and the Soviet legacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines Russia's actions in Libya in the context of its pursuit of great power status. Drawing on a theoretical framework of Social Identity Theory, which had been developed and popularized in IR by the scholars Larson and Shevchenko, the article argues that Russia's Libya policy consists of two strategies. First, it pursues social creativity through versatile diplomacy, which has positioned it as an invaluable mediator. Moreover, Russia relies also on social competition by supporting Libyan warlord Khalifa Haftar. While these strategies raised Russia's profile, the ultimate success of status-seeking strategies depends on the recognition by the higher-status holders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how recent world history is interpreted in Russia's latest state-approved textbooks, particularly what kind of ideological and civilizational leanings the interpretations reflect. Discourse analysis reveals that the textbooks broadly accept the superiority of the capitalist developmental model and liberal-democratic political system, all within a Western-centric, if not pro-Western, paradigm based on modernization theory; only in the context of recent geopolitical conflicts is the West portrayed in an adversarial light. These findings suggest that liberal and Western-centric thinking continues to influence sections of Russia's political and intellectual elites as well as the country's post-Soviet generation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the impact of political regimes on carbon emissions (CO2) from a historical perspective, covering the period of 1970–2015. Our sample consists of 153 countries that we follow for 20 years before the transition (1970–1990) and 26 years after it (1990–2015). During transition, post-Communist states experienced a decline in CO2, when controlling for economic variables. Transition had a positive impact on the environment only in cases when it was associated with democratization. When transition has led to consolidation of autocratic regimes, CO2 has increased. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

De facto states manifest asymmetric relations with their patrons. Enduring struggle for their existence has led them to demand, dictate, conform to, or defy patronage as their modus operandi. Abkhazia’s relations with Russia have been based on external assistance while clearly excluding land ownership. Recent plans to shift some Abkhazian territory to Russia’s control have sparked public outcry in Abkhazian society. This paper argues that governing elites in Abkhazia are navigating a thin line between Russian demands and threats to cut off economic support and the ontological insecurity caused by the grim prospects of losing control of premium Abkhazian soil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2021 events at the Belarus–European Union border have had considerable political, economic, and humanitarian consequences. Combining insights from the Discourse-Historical Approach and Corpus-Assisted Discourse Analysis with securitization theory, the paper investigates the dominant frames identified in the coverage of the border events by the largest Polish television network (TVP). The findings suggest that TVP portrayed immigrants and refugees mostly as dangerous, relying on the stereotypical image of the Muslim Other. Utilizing quantitative methods to analyze large data samples, the study illustrates how corpus linguistics tools provide valuable insights for social science research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the two most relevant minority groups living on the two sides of the Ukrainian--Romanian borderland of Bukovina. This research inquires from a comparative perspective how Romanians in Ukraine and Ukrainians in Romania (confined to the region of Bukovina) position themselves in relation to the state of their ethnic origin and to the current state of their residency. The paper argues that the self-identification of each ethnic minority with the present home state hinges more on the economic and political conditions existing in the respective state rather than on cultural bonding or loyalties to their kin-state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Russian LGBT activism started to emerge in the early post-Soviet years. However, only since the mid-2000s have Russian LGBT activists begun to engage in protest activity to a significant degree. In the ensuing years, they have organized (or attempted to do so) a variety of protest events on an annual basis. The paper draws on social psychological studies of collective action to examine what motivates Russian LGBT activists to protest. The study also seeks to investigate why they choose protests as a suitable tactic to achieve their goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to study the effect of electoral regulation on party system development. Using a new database, this study shows existing variation in regulating electoral competition. It further illustrates that, perhaps contrary to electoral regulation design, increases in the amount of regulation about funding and monitoring have a stifling, rather than a stimulating, effect on party system size. More importantly, the paper provides evidence supporting the cartel thesis argument in that the changes allowed by incumbent parties help secure their collective survival, while keeping newcomers out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the end of the USSR, the mobility infrastructure in Tajikistan followed a trajectory of decay. Transport systems had to be reorganized, mobility practices had to be reshaped, and some areas became less accessible. Meanwhile, new international connections have emerged thanks to new political openness. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2014 and 2022, this paper offers an empirical analysis of the nexus between remoteness and connectivity by looking at the evolution of physical infrastructure in Tajikistan's VMKB province over the past thirty years and discussing the rather contradictory yet simultaneous processes of internationalization and marginalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While citizenries' responses to sociopolitical events are often studied, how youth engage with such happenings remains unclear. This article therefore analyzes 45 texts written by individuals under the age of eighteen in three of Ukraine's regions—Zakarpattia, Volyn, and Chernihiv—following the Euromaidan of 2013-14. The study reveals the ways young Ukrainians absorbed, upheld, and (re)inscribed national narratives and discourses in light of the demonstrations and subsequent war. Though it remains uncertain whether their feelings will be sustained into the future, the paper emphasizes the wide-reaching effects of sociopolitical happenings on a country's entire population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that pre-adolescent peer-group socialization in Georgia still refers to criminal subculture known as the thieves' world. Through ethnographic observation of children playing games borrowed from the prison context, the paper asks what function these games now have. The paper argues that children no longer see the subcultural capital of the thieves' world as a viable currency to gain status, or the games as modeling important functions for adult life. Instead, the paper finds that now, perhaps due to government policies, game players approach the subculture ironically as a way of developing belonging and demonstrating broader socio-cultural knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While some religious institutions postponed their religious services during the pandemic, Orthodox Christian churches insisted on keeping their doors open. Why did churches challenge social distancing policies, and how did they succeed in defying state authority at any cost? We address this puzzle drawing on an analysis of official statements, media, in-depth interviews, and surveys in Georgia and Ukraine conducted in 2020 and 2021. Our data suggest that the churches' historical role as the pillar of the nation provided the necessary motivation and leverage against the government; their success, however, varied with respect to the level of church fragmentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the interplay between the European Union's (EU) interventions fostering LGBT+ rights in Georgia, and the visibility-raising strategies of local queer activists. The growing antagonism between the EU and Russia over their "shared neighborhood" crystallizes the idea of a value-based divide between the West/EUrope and the East/Russia on LGBT+ issues—with Georgia occupying a liminal position therein. The paper puts forward the concept of geopoliticization to unpack how the discursive construction of LGBT+ equality as a geopolitical issue shapes Georgian queer activists' visibility strategies, and to interrogate the outcomes these processes produce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relationship between institutional trust and party cues, and individual geopolitical preferences in Moldova. Based on the idea that deciding whether to join either the EU or the EAEU is a complex decision, I argue that the use of national proxies could help some Moldovans in shaping their geopolitical preferences. Using survey data (2012–2019) and multilevel logistic regression, I show that citizens who trust the national institutions tend to align with the geopolitical preferences of those in charge of said institutions. Similarly, voters tend to support the geopolitical views of their preferred political parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developments in the Black Sea region since 2014 have combined to transform Romania into the Western alliance's linchpin in southeastern Europe. Regrettably, successive Romanian governments have underfunded defense and the modernization of the armed forces, leaving them with incoherent capabilities. This essay examines the Romanian defense institution on four levels. First, outputs of the armed forces are examined in a critical light. Second, key inputs into defense execution are assessed. Third, the paper proposes a different manner by which to examine these challenges with the objective of finding practical solutions. The fourth and final section examines the critical issue of finding the necessary resources to fund increased training, maintenance, and modernization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes factors facilitating the electoral success of the Slovak extreme-right party ĽSNS by examining contextual explanations of electoral support during in 2010–2016 national elections. Conducting regression analysis on aggregated data, we find that, during the 2010 and 2012 elections, the local presence of a Roma minority was important, and in the 2016 elections the party achieved success in more economically deprived micro-regions. These changes indicate that factors linked to perceived ethnic threat are insufficient to explain the electoral breakthrough of the party. We argue that the breakthrough was possible thanks to their increasingly anti-elite communication along with favorable contextual circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides theoretical justification and empirical evidence linking the mode of privatization of state assets in banks and industries to the quality of institutions of legal and financial governance that underpin financial development. The evidence from twenty-five states of Eastern Europe suggests that allowing foreigners to assume the role of strategic investors in banks and industries via direct sale methods of divestiture of state assets contributes to legal and institutional development, particularly a stronger and more impartial legal system, better quality of bureaucratic governance, and stronger legal protection of creditors, while insider privatization schemes, such as voucher privatization or management–employee buyouts, do not fulfill the same role. The empirical results are robust to instrumental variable analysis and to the inclusion of numerous economic and political controls for alternative explanations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While there is a sizable body of evidence linking greater economic freedom to better environmental outcomes, there is an ambiguous relationship of trade to the environment. What occurs when trade expands among countries that already have shown that the environment is not a priority? Such an example comes from real life with the Eurasian Economic Union (EaEU), a collection of autocracies that have pursued integration but without any extensive, market-based liberalization. This paper examines the role of the EaEU in increasing trade among its member states and shows that the EaEU did indeed lead to more environmentally unfriendly production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Kazakhstan today, overt dissent is not typically tolerated. However, recent large-scale citizen protests over land use and the environment have resulted in significant concessions by the government. This paper examines the discourses and slogans of protests spaces, which invoke the (inter)national legal frameworks of the United Nations, the legacy of land and bio-species conservation in the former Soviet Union, and a nationalized moral paradigm of respect for ancestral lands, cultural heritage, and sovereignty. Protesters not only call upon government leaders to respect these existing structures of authority, but also position themselves pragmatically as agents of social and political change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the Russian political elite's security thinking and, through comparison of the similarities and differences between Soviet-era and current elite security thinking, how it has been influenced by historical experience, Russian domestic politics, and trends of the international system. The paper also attempts to analyze the influence of the political elite's security thinking on general public threat perception. The article argues that prospective Russian political elite external security attitudes are influenced by continuing threat perceptions based on past experiences in Russian history and Russia's perceived weaknesses, which fuel fears triggered by domestic, political, and socio-economic conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper investigates the effect of Communist legacies on attitudes toward migrants in present-day Russia. Midway through the first decade of the 2000s, Russia established itself as an attractive center of labor migration. This rise of migration triggered an upsurge of xenophobic sentiment and nationalism. This paper examines the variation of anti-migrant sentiments across the regions of the Russian Federation and concludes that it is strongly affected by the legacies of the Communist regime. Regions with a higher share of CPSU members in their population in the 1970s are characterized by stronger negative attitudes towards migrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2008, tighter budget constraints have forced the Russian federal government to adjust the system governing its relations with the regions. This paper argues that more advanced Russian regions have the potential to develop a constructive response to the recent deterioration in their operational environment. This argument is based on an analysis of the experiences of coping with the external shocks that have occurred over the last 25 years in the Republic of Tatarstan. The paper identifies key factors that have helped the republic successfully tackle previous shocks, such as elite cohesion and internal consensus regarding republican developmental priorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the correlates of Russia's aggressive international policy and argues that rising oil revenues increase the aggressiveness of presidential foreign-policy rhetoric. Using content analysis and machine-learning techniques, I generate a measure of aggressive discourse as the share of anti-Western sentences in Russian presidential speeches delivered between 2000 and 2016. These are analyzed using OLS regression with lagged dependent variables. I conclude that the aggressiveness of foreign-policy rhetoric in Russian presidential speeches positively correlates to oil prices. I also find no support for alternative explanations linking hawkish foreign policy to NATO expansion or domestic legitimacy concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Democratic backsliding, a term commonly used to describe the recent changes in politics in Central and Eastern Europe, is most profoundly related to the emergence and electoral success of populist political actors in the region. While the established literature has been focused almost exclusively on Hungary and Poland, which are the most visible examples of recent illiberal turns in Central and Eastern Europe driven by national-conservative populists, the main aim of this paper is to focus on the populism of ANO in the Czech Republic. Based on a mixed-method content analysis, the main argument of the paper is that the rise of centrist technocratic populism (perhaps less radical at first glance) ends the era of the Czech Republic's exceptionalism in Central Europe in terms of its resistance to populist illiberal challenges. In other words, the analysis shows that populism combined with technocracy (and not necessarily with more radical ideologies such as nativism) presents a vision of a regime alternative to the dominant liberal democratic paradigm. This alternative is based on a denial of political pluralism, anti-partyism, resistance to constitutionalism, and the embrace of majoritarianism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a new approach to contemporary religious authority among Muslim migrants in Russia, conceptualizing such notions as duty and loyalty in the Muslim migration context. The study demonstrates the fluidity of the boundary between official and unofficial authorities using the configuration of the Muslim environment of Irkutsk (Siberia) as its real-life example. The research focuses on the position, religious practices, and views of Central Asian mullahs in the city of Irkutsk. Though they do not hold any official positions in the city mosque, they nevertheless play a considerable role in the construction of the religious everyday life of their fellow believers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The escalation of Russia’s eight-year war against Ukraine in February 2022 did not produce the outcomes that Russian political elites anticipated. This paper uses almost a decade of public opinion data collected by the Ukrainian agency Info Sapiens and a recent survey conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology to analyze changes in attitudes that can help explain the responses of citizens. We explore how key events have produced rallying effects and changes in behavior. Further, we explore the implications for postwar reconstruction efforts. Our findings suggest that the challenges of the last decade have unified Ukrainians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global transformation of academia under "new public management" and metrics-based assessment has brought forth intense debates on the governance of science. This study investigates key values and visions of academic governance in Russia through a set of focus groups with scientists plus a nationwide survey (n = 6,166) conducted in 2019. Russian scholars defy both state pressures and grassroots self-governance (due to fundamental distrust of peers); the preservation of privacy is their key concern. Finally, we present basic self-images of science (competitive, cooperative, and mobilizational) and point out the tensions between liberalism and democracy in post-Soviet academia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines representations of the ongoing conflict in and around Ukraine by scholars and policy analysts in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Greece, and Poland. Combining strategic narrative analysis and conceptual morphology, we deconstruct the main narratives of the conflict, identify the structural concepts of each narrative and analyze their use. We identify six key narratives of the Russian–Ukrainian conflict according to their presentation of what happened and their proposed way out of the conflict. In each country, the predominant approaches reflect a certain degree of coherence between political preferences and academic/analytical ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the Ukrainian comedy show Vechernii Kvartal, whose star and co-producer, Volodymyr Zelensky, won the Ukrainian presidency in 2019 despite having no previous experience in politics. As a long-running and popular television program, it likely contributed to shaping Ukrainians' attitudes toward politics and political elites, their understanding of politics, and their propensity to participate in it. In order to assess the Vechernii Kvartal's potential impact on viewers' political knowledge and engagement the study examines how Ukrainian politics is covered in the show's political sketches and how the country's politics and politicians are framed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing explanations for the Russian annexation of Crimea do not pay enough attention to changes in the representation of the Ukraine crisis throughout its duration in Russian foreign policy discourse. This paper provides an additional interpretation, contending that the annexation became possible due to a particular context in which the events in Ukraine were presented as a threat to Russian compatriots. It also argues that due to the external shock of February 2014 events, the "threat to compatriots" narrative became a dominant one and was adopted by Russian authorities, which likely contributed to the decision to annex Crimea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores media coverage of migration in Russia during the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic. We analyzed and coded articles published in six mainstream Russian newspapers and on one popular news site between March 1 and June 30 of 2020. Our results confirm key findings of the literature on media and migrants in Russia over the last decade, including the frequent portrayal of migrants as a security threat, a focus on legality and illegality, and the absence of a migrant voice. However, contrary to our expectations, not all sources significantly covered the topic of COVID-19 infections among migrants. Overall, our paper contributes to a growing literature examining the securitization of migrants in non-Western contexts and initiates a discussion of how a pandemic might exacerbate this phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the sources of Russia's proclivity to institutionalize subordination and intervention as patterns of regional order in the post-Soviet space. Methodologically, the study relies on theoretical assumptions of the English school that help explore the essence of the hegemonic projects Russia has sought to implement in its neighborhood since the middle of the twentieth century. In the end, the author concludes that distinct legitimacy concerns have decisively shaped Russia's hegemonic strategy of arranging its "spheres of influence" as hierarchical international societies relying on their own rules of membership and conduct. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Construction of Turkmenistan's East–West (EW) gas pipeline was completed in December 2015 when signs of the country's severe economic decline were becoming increasingly evident. This paper examines whether the EW pipeline can play any role in reversing this decline. To do this, it analyzes the feasibility of the four possible export options for Turkmenistan to utilize the pipeline: west, south, north, and east. This analysis demonstrates each option's infeasibility and associated problems. Based on this analysis, the paper concludes that the EW pipeline will be severely underutilized and thus contribute little to reversing Turkmenistan's economic decline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the re-emergence of the memory of the First World War in Russia and Ukraine during the post-Soviet period. It shows what kind of interpretations of the war the governments of these countries have put forward in order to establish new commemorative traditions. It examines the role of non-state actors in the revival of the memory of the war. The article demonstrates that despite sharp differences in attitudes towards the imperial heritage, both countries have structural similarities in their commemoration strategies and they are commensurable to those that developed in Western European countries right after the Great War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyzes long-term effects of changes in external conditions on the support for populist parties in the Czech Republic. The results confirmed importance of political dissatisfaction for the rise of populist parties but are limited by the presence of other protest parties. While the evidence of the effects of the economic context is mixed, results of our analysis indicate the importance of time and of election campaigns in particular. All in all, our results point to the importance of the campaign dynamics, the party system setting, and incumbency in assessing support for populist parties in Central Europe and elsewhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]