In the 1990s, the former states of the Soviet Union underwent dramatic and revolutionary changes. As a result of enforced, neoliberal reforms the fledgling republics were exposed to the familiar ...effects of globalised capital. Focusing on Kazakhstan, where violence and corruption are now facts of everyday life, Joma Nazpary examines the impact of the new capitalism on the people of Central Asia. Nazpary explores the responses of the dispossessed to their dispossession. He uncovers the construction of 'imagined communities', grounded in Soviet nostalgia, which serve to resist the economic order, as well as the more practical survival strategies, especially of women, often forced into prostitution where they are subject to violence and stigma. By revealing the extent to which Kazakh society has disintegrated and the cultural responses to it, Nazpary argues that dispossession has been a stronger unifying force than even ethnicity or religion. Comparing the effects of neoliberal reforms in Kazakhstan with those in other regions, he concludes that causes, forms and consequences of dispossession in Kazakhstan are particular instances of a much wider global trend.
Australian equality law is still largely dependent on individual enforcement to achieve systemic change. The degree to which discrimination law acknowledges and accommodates intersectional ...discrimination is a question of growing pertinence. This article bridges theoretical scholarship on intersectionality and empirical statistical evidence of how people experience discrimination in Australia, drawing on data from the 2014 General Social Survey, to critically evaluate the extent to which Australian discrimination law is able to accommodate intersectional experiences of discrimination. We argue that there is a fundamental disconnect between the legal framework, which focuses on separate and distinct 'grounds' of discrimination, and how people actually experience discrimination in practice, which is multiple and overlapping. This article offers concrete suggestions for how the legal framework and data collection could be improved to better integrate intersectionality in Australian discrimination law.
Australian equality law is still largely dependent on individual enforcement to achieve systemic change. The degree to which discrimination law acknowledges and accommodates intersectional ...discrimination is a question of growing pertinence. This article bridges theoretical scholarship on intersectionality and empirical statistical evidence of how people experience discrimination in Australia, drawing on data from the 2014 General Social Survey, to critically evaluate the extent to which Australian discrimination law is able to accommodate intersectional experiences of discrimination. We argue that there is a fundamental disconnect between the legal framework, which focuses on separate and distinct 'grounds' of discrimination, and how people actually experience discrimination in practice, which is multiple and overlapping. This article offers concrete suggestions for how the legal framework and data collection could be improved to better integrate intersectionality in Australian discrimination law.
The article investigates the judiciary of international criminal law and its development over time. Inspired by the sociological tools of Pierre Bourdieu and building on an original dataset, the ...article analyses the judiciary of three international criminal courts, namely the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the International Criminal Court and the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. The focus of the analysis is on how the composition of expertise in the judiciary of these courts reflects the wider power structure in the field of international criminal law as well as temporal developments in this structure. Reflecting and responding to these transformations, the judiciary of international criminal law has been affected by a double decline of positions and prestige and a turn towards practice as the core expertise of the field. However, despite this turn to practice, the accumulation of political expertise continues to structure access to elite positions in the international criminal law judiciary.
Most recent research seeks to explain contemporary changes in Russia by analysing the decisions of Russian leaders, oligarchs and politicians based in Moscow. This book examines another Russia, one ...of ordinary people changing their environment and taking opportunities to provoke societal changes in small towns and the countryside. Russia is a resource-rich society and the country’s strategy and institutional structure are built on the most valuable of these resources: oil and gas. Analysing the implications of this situation at the local level, this book offers chapters on resource use, local authorities, enterprises, poverty and types of individual, as well as a final chapter which places local societies within the framework of the Russian politicised economy. Based on extensive empirical data gathered through more than 400 semi-structured interviews with entrepreneurs, teachers, social workers and those working for the local authorities, this book sheds light on the role of local activity in the development of Russian society and is essential reading for students and scholars interested in Russia and its politics.
This book is the first in English to explore both Belaruss complicated road to nationhood and to examine in detail its politics and economics since 1991, the nations first year of true independence. ...Andrew Wilson focuses particular attention on Aliaksandr Lukashenkas surprising longevity as president, despite human rights abuses and involvement in yet another rigged election in December 2010.Wilson looks at Belarusian history as a series of false starts in the medieval and pre-modern periods, and at the many rival versions of Belarusian identity, culminating with the Soviet Belarusian project and the establishment of Belaruss current borders during World War II. He also addresses Belaruss on-off relationship with Russia, its simultaneous attempts to play a game of balance in the no-mans-land between Russia and the West, and how, paradoxically, Belarus is at last becoming a true nation under the rule of Europes last dictator.
This study examines the enduring Cold War legacies underpinning Western perceptions of contemporary Russia under President Vladimir Putin. It analyzes the ways in which the West has interpreted and ...reacted to Russia's domestic authoritarianism and foreign policy behavior and argues for diplomatic engagement based on liberal pluralism.
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