Search

The roof collapse of the Maxima supermarket in Riga, Latvia on November 21, 2013 left 54 dead. This analysis identifies the disaster as a "safety crime." Neoliberal deregulatory measures, intensified by the global economic and financial crisis and a programme of radical austerity, together with corporate and state disregard of public safety and well-being, combined to produce the disaster. The wider context and underlying causes of catastrophic safety failure exemplify the inherently contradictory character of the neoliberal "Baltic model" of austerity, recently much in vogue with international policymakers in both Europe and the United States. The authors conclude that the current renewed drive by the European Commission towards reducing regulation for business, especially in the aftermath of the crisis, further justifies longstanding anti-regulatory preferences of neoliberal domestic elites, with the result that the costs of disregard for public safety are externalized onto the general populace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The collapse of the USSR resulted in a decline of institutions which had supported the dominance of ethnic Russians throughout the periphery of the country. In theft place new institutions and mechanisms have been developed to regulate the access of people of different nationalities to power, resources and prestige. This article provides a comparative analysis of ethnic transformation in ten of the fourteen successor states of the former Soviet Union. The analysis identified five types of ethnic transformation in the successor states. In the Baltics the attempts of titular ethnic groups to secure predominance over ethnic Russians and radically transform institutions of the Soviet state resulted in the creation of exclusive ethnic democracies. In Central Asia an elite-negotiated transformation led to the emergence of ethnocracies in Thrkmenistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, while the regimes formed in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan were characterized by a mixture of ethnocratic and consociationalist features. In Moldova a failed attempt at unification with Romania eventuated in policies directed towards the creation of a Moldovan ethno-territorial federation. Finally, in Ukraine gradual reforms and attempts to abolish any ethnic hierarchy have led to the creation of consociationalism, in which ethnic Russians and Ukrainians, Rus sophones and Ukrainophones share power over the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]