Commentary | Комментарии 94

The Ukrainian Opposition in the 2012 Election: Elvis has left the building

The upcoming parliamentary election in Ukraine should have been a slam dunk for the country’s opposition forces. According to the recent IRI poll, 2/3 of Ukrainians believe the country…

Pluralism or Impunity?

Notes from Kraków How effective are theories as explanatory tools? How strong should our commitments be to certain theories? These questions ignited a vivid debate at the 9th Convention…

Moldova as a Test Case?

Guest post by Andrey Devyatkov—After the recent visit of Angela Merkel to Moldova on 22 August many experts expected that the Transdnestrian settlement is to become one of key…

European Studies: A Deficit of New Approaches

Guess what panel was the largest at a major conference on European studies held in Passau, Germany? Quite tellingly, it was on EU–China relations. As Fraser Cameron, the director of…

Russia’s Soft Power: Beyond Kalinka-Malinka

This past weekend I had a rare chance to observe Russia’s soft power in action: Gandermenmarket, one of the most beautiful squares in Germany (at least, this is what…

Away with Political Simulacra?

What Russia and the EU share, even having drifted apart from each other in most policy spheres, are unfulfilled (or simply wrong) expectations. Indeed, intensive discourse on Russia’s European…

The Army and the Church

The widely publicized trial of Pussy Riot has brought a great deal of attention to the role played by the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) in setting state policy in…

Talking about Talking: A Socio-Linguistic Look at Russia and its Neighbors

For socio-linguists everything matters – private ads hanging on the fences, street signs, media commercials, election posters, and even football fans’ exclamations. This made the Socio-Linguistic Symposium “Language and…

Visual Representations, Pussy Riot, and Putin’s Hatred for Politics

If you need a short and comprehensible answer to the question of why Russia is not like the rest of Europe, look at the “Pussy Riot” trial. Perhaps the group…

Sports and Olympian Politics

Perhaps, the most striking paradox of the London Olympic Games is that in spite of the much-discussed commercialization they leave much space for politics. For Britain, the Games bear…

Solving the Transnistrian Impasse

Guest post by Rebecca Chamberlain-Creangă and John Beyer—Vienna hosted conflict negotiations in July 2012 to resolve Europe’s problem of Transnistria, a secessionist region carved out of the Republic of…

East Europe Orientation Pause Opens Fortochkas* for the United States

Eastern Europe is a very volatile region with interests and identities of key actors far from stationary. Being pro-Russian or pro-European is a matter of interpretation. Is Ukraine’s Viktor…

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