The arrival into geography, and especially urban geography, of a frame of questioning coming from postcolonial studies has contributed to a fascinating debate about what a "postcolonial" city is and ...how the urban duality between ethnically, socially, and spatially segregated "European" towns and "native" settlements is being reformulated and transformed. Obviously, Arctic cities are not postcolonial in the political sense of being independent from the former colonial centre - although this process may be under way in Greenland - but they have seen a progressive move from a Eurocentric culture toward greater hybridization. This article looks into two new trends that contribute to making Arctic cities postcolonial: first, the arrival of indigenous peoples in cities and the concomitant diminution of the division between Europeans/urbanites and natives/rurals; and second, the arrival of labour migrants from abroad, which has given birth to a more plural and cosmopolitan citizenry. It advances the idea that Arctic cities are now in a position to play a "decolonizing" role, in the sense of progressively erasing the purely European aspect of the city and making it both more local and rooted (through indigenous communities) and more global and multicultural (through foreign labour migrants).
This article argues that to capture Russia's influence abroad, one needs to comprehend the country's "gray diplomacy" as a neoliberal realm open to individual initiatives. We define "entrepreneurs of ...influence" as people who invest their own money or social capital to build influence abroad in hopes of being rewarded by the Kremlin . We test this notion by looking at both famous and unknown entrepreneurs of influence and their digital activities. We divide them into three broad categories based on their degree of proximity to the authorities: the tycoons (Yevgeny Prigozhin and Konstantin Malofeev), the timeservers (Alexander Yonov and Alexander Malkevich), and the frontline pioneers (the Belgian Luc Michel). An analysis of the technical data documenting their online activities shows that some of these initiatives, while inscribed into Moscow's broad aspirations to great powerness, are based on the specific agendas of their promoters, and thus outlines the inherent limits of Moscow's endeavors.
Many scholarly studies of the Ukrainian conflict look at its origins, focusing either on the international level (external interference) or the domestic one (including ethnic, linguistic, economic, ...and regional tensions) (Pikulicka-Wilczewska and Sakwa 2015). The international level of analysis draws attention to external factors, namely Russia’s conscious decision to fragment Ukraine and make it a “failed state” in order to avoid its moving closer to the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Even though Moscow denies playing any role in the conflict, several international and independent Russian sources have confirmed the direct involvement of Russian regular troops (Urban 2015; Sutyagin 2015; Yashin and Shorina 2015). For scholars who emphasize the primacy of the international aspect of the conflict, the current war in Donetsk and Luhansk is not a civil war but a war orchestrated and directed from Moscow against Ukraine via Russian proxies (Motyl 2014; Kuzio 2015).
The theme of "Russian influence" has been invading the think tank world. Yet the concept of influence must be deployed with care. Analysts have frequently assumed that, when states do things thought ...favourable to Russia, it must be because Moscow has either forced them to act in that manner, or has actively manipulated their domestic politics so that they do so. Left largely unconsidered are the various other reasons that one state might act in a manner desirable to another. In this article we look at the different vectors that might yield Russia-favorable behavior by Kazakhstan: exogenous ones that Russia actively and passively generates and endogenous ones that are passively or even actively generated within Kazakhstan itself. We discuss Russia's economic and strategic links with Kazakhstan, the issue of the Russian minority, the status of the Russian language, Russian media presence, Russia's governmental and non-governmental networks, and the "payoff" of the latter three vectors: Kazakhstani popular Russophilia. By distinguishing between active and passive vectors, as well as between exogenous and endogenous ones, we propose a more nuanced and better theoretically articulated picture of Russia's "influence" in Kazakhstan.
This article first introduces the recent theoretical advances achieved through the concept of neopatrimonalism. Next, it links neopatrimonialism to the concept of patronal presidentialism, which has ...been used in the Eurasian space. It then analyzes the societal and economic mechanisms of these patronal regimes, deconstructs the links between patronage and "clan politics," and insists on the hybrid character of the norms and legitimacies of these regimes, thereby asserting that there is room for change and innovation. It concludes by discussing the cumulative knowledge offered by this special issue examining Central Asia. PUBLICATION ABSTRACT
This volume explores the changing place of Islam in contemporary Central Asia, understanding religion as a "societal shaper" - a roadmap for navigating quickly evolving social and cultural values. ...Islam can take on multiple colors and identities, from a purely transcendental faith in God to a cauldron of ideological ferment for political ideology, via diverse culture-, community-, and history-based phenomena. The volumes discusses what it means to be a Muslim in today's Central Asia by looking at both historical and sociological features, investigates the relationship between Islam, politics and the state, the changing role of Islam in terms of societal values, and the issue of female attire as a public debate. Contributors include: Aurélie Biard, Tim Epkenhans, Nurgul Esenamanova, Azamat Junisbai, Barbara Junisbai, Marlene Laruelle, Marintha Miles, Emil Nasritdinov, Shahnoza Nozimova, Yaacov Ro'i, Wendell Schwab, Manja Stephan-Emmrich, Rano Turaeva, Alon Wainer, Alexander Wolters, Galina M. Yemelianova, Baurzhan Zhussupov.
Russia is unique on the circumpolar landscape in that indigenous communities constitute only a small percentage of its Arctic population. Whereas they represent 80 percent of Greenland’s population, ...50 percent of Canada’s, 20 percent of Alaska’s, and 15 percent of Norway’s Arctic regions, they make up less than 5 percent of the population of Arctic Russia. Although indigenous peoples have a more solid demography than Russians and have therefore seen their share of the Arctic population slowly increase over the past two decades, their rights remain fragile. Moscow does not consider the Arctic to have a specific status due to the presence of indigenous peoples, and its reading of the region is still very much shaped by the imperial past, the memory of an easy conquest (osvoenie) of territories deemed “unpopulated,” and the exploitation of the region’s subsoil resources.
This article advances the notion of "Polar Islam" to describe the birth and structuring of Muslim communities in Russia's Arctic cities. It does not assert that Arctic conditions have created an ...entirely specific Islam; most of the features attributed here to "Polar Islam" can easily be found in other regions of Russia. Yet the climatic conditions, remoteness, and heavy industrial character of these cities contribute to accentuating certain characteristics that mold the social landscape in which Muslims live, thereby offering a fascinating regional case study of the development of Islam. This article first explores the emergence of Islamic symbols-mosques-on the Arctic urban landscape and the institutional struggles around the control of this Polar Islam. It then delves into Muslim communities' cultural adaptation to their new Arctic identity. The blossoming of this Polar Islam confirms that Islam is no longer geographically segregated in its traditional regions, such as the North Caucasus and the Volga-Urals; it has spread to all the country's big cities. In this respect, Arctic cities are at the forefront of Russia's societal transformations.
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