Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: In this paper, we examine the issue of agricultural production among Russian urban households. We specifically test if such production is largely a leisure activity, as argued by Clarke (1999), or whether it contributes significantly to the survival of these households. We additionally examine which factors encourage or discourage agricultural production among these households. Using data from the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey, we find that agricultural production is a strategy that has been adopted disproportionately by middle-income groups with material and skill assets rather than households in the lowest income groups or those headed by single adults. Agricultural production among urban households in Russia, in other words, is reinforcing, rather than reducing, social inequalities.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: We begin with a brief history of social security policy in Russia both before and after the collapse of the Soviet Union. We describe the current pension scheme. We then explore the reasons why Russia is in the process of implementing a social security scheme based largely on a model proposed by the World Bank, concluding that the decision reflects the effects of both internal and external economic pressures as well as cultural diffusion via the network of neo-liberal economists and pension experts associated with international financial institutions, most notably the World Bank. We conclude with a discussion of how we would restructure the Russian scheme making greater use of the notional defined contribution (NDC) model.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Russian human rights violations and the shadow they create on Russian-European relationship are frequently in the headlines. Tensions between the actors are indisputable but the development is far more complex than headlines suggest. The other side of the coin is that Russian authorities and NGOs and European multilateral organisations cooperate on various human rights issues on day-to-day basis and over the years these ties have been institutionalised. Many European human rights norms and standards are accepted by the Russian authorities and incorporated into Russian legislation. They are standards against which Russian action is evaluated internationally ? and ever more often domestically as well. True internalisation of human rights norms is likely to be a long process. Despite the optimistic prognoses immediately after the end of the cold war, transition is not necessarily linear progress towards democratisation, rule of law and the respect of human rights. This study believes that multilateral human rights cooperation is important and can bring significant changes in the long run. This starting point derives from the "social communication" theoretical approach to regional cooperation that links identity change with conceptual bargaining and argumentative consensus. Even instrumental use of norms may develop into structures within which processes of social communication and the internalisation of values and norms develop.This seminar paper looks at the human rights cooperation between Russia and three European intergovernmental organisations, namely the Council of Europe, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the European Union. It sets out to examine the nature, structures and dynamics of the relationship in this issue area.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Abstract:
We argue that there is a similar situation between today Russia and Weimar Germany because similar factors lead from a defective electoral democracy to an electoral autocracy. We demonstrate that a structural explation with socio-economic factors is not appropriate to explain democratic breakdown in the “crucial cases” of Weimar Germany and Post-Soviet Russia. We show that 1. a considerable lack of democrats on the elite level as well as on the population level and 2. an ill-defined form of government, that allows the president to rule without the parliament in combination with an nondemocratic actor which gets elected for president are sufficient reasons for a country to experience an authoriarian regression. In the second and third part of the paper we take a look on the question, when an electoral semiautocracy is in danger to get a fascist ideocracy. In the second part we show that there is fertile ground for fascism in Russia today. We demonstrate that as in Weimar Germany we can find in today Russia strong fascist actors and a widespread nationalism among the population. But in the third part we we will show, that all in all, ironically, in current Russia, in distinction to Germany 1. a manipulated party system and a underdeveloped third sector, 2. a strong semiautocratic president make it difficult for the country to become a liberal democracy, but make it also improbable that the Russian regime will transgress into a fascist autocracy.