civil society

17 articles tagged with civil society were found.

RUSSIAN ANTI-WAR MOVEMENTS. THE HOPE OF EPIPHANY

The war against Ukraine sank the civil society of Russia into despair. The dreams of turning the country with a centuries long tradition of despotic power and imperialist foreign policy into a peaceful postmodern liberal democracy were brutally crushed. Alongside the tragedy of thousand Ukrainians, this full-scale invasion has meant a defeat of the Russian intellectuals, liberals, and political dissidents who had been trying for many years to persuade themselves and the outside world that the strange reality they inhabited was an inevitable part of being a transitional society. This defeat forced them out of their country. Cursed by their compatriots as “traitors” and by some public abroad1 unwilling to stand up to the criminal regime, the new Russian émigré are now trying to construct a new “Civitas Solis” in exile, a different future for themselves and their country which is supposed to rise in place of the apocalyptic darkness of the present.

Essay by Alexander Generalov June 20, 2023

Protests, anti-war grassroots initiatives and resistance in Russia

Since the beginning of Russia‘s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the repression of civil society has gradually intensified in Russia. During recent years political activism has been under threat and pressure, and in the last year activism has largely gone underground due to the escalating level of repression; therefore one sees few mass protests. The Russian authorities have consistently taken restrictive measures against any street protest, and the last permissible form (a single-person action) in the end also turns out to be almost impossible.

Essay by Inga Koroleva (pseudonym) June 20, 2023

Alexandra Talaver, coordinator of Feminist Anti-War Resistance: “War represents a culmination in the continuum of patriarchal violence” A conversation based on an e-mail interview with Alexandra Talaver conducted by Yulia Gradskova

Alexandra Talaver is one of the coordinators of the Feminist Anti-War Resistance (FAR), that was promptly launched on February 25, 2022, with a manifesto that was later translated into dozens of languages. The manifesto called for peaceful resistance to the war and Putin’s regime, support for Ukraine, and solidarity with feminists in Russia resisting the invasion (see next page). Together with the manifesto, social media accounts were launched on Telegram, Instagram, and Twitter as the main means of mobilization. FAR immediately gained dozens of thousands of subscribers due to the number of feminist media activists joining FAR, and due to a strong and clear anti-war stance, while many political forces and organizations in Russia failed to articulate it that fast.

By Alexandra Talaver and Yulia Gradskova June 20, 2023

Safe guarding human rights during war

Civil society in Ukraine is, although under severe stress, very active and plays an important role in providing people with their basic needs and safeguarding their human rights. Civil society in Ukraine is still functioning even in a situation of full-scale invasion and warfare, with constant shelling and unpredictable attacks on infrastructure and Ukrainian civilians. How is this possible?

By Ninna Mörner January 18, 2023

Albanian November, students calling

In the analysis of how self-organized groups work, act, and cooperate in young democracies like Albania, it is shown that different financial, human, technical, and political factors determine to what degree the self-organized groups are dependent on the political opportunity system in order to achieve their goals.

By Gilda Hoxha June 18, 2018

Parental Movements with Disparate Agendas

There were two disparate and somehow polemic tendencies, or overarching discourses, among the parental movements presented at the workshop on Södertörn University in May 2014. The first was the nationalist discourse, whilst the other predominated discourse was concentrated on promoting new norms in parenting.

By Dominika Polanska January 21, 2015

Civil religion in Russia A choice for Russian modernization?

In an attempt to bring Russian articulations of Russian religiosity into a dialogue with the American sociologist Robert N. Bellah’s theory on secularization the author argues for a Russian model of civil religion.

By Elina Kahla October 20, 2014

nation-building À la russe How Putin’s government is educating the Russian elites of tomorrow

The nationally organized camp Seliger All-Russia Youth Forum gathers tens of thousands of young Russians every year. Here a report from the inside of the camp, observations in contemporary nation-building.

By Kristiina Silvan October 18, 2014

Reversing the myth On weak post-communist civil society

The rationale of the conference “The Challenge of Collective Action: New Perspectives on Civil Society and Social Activism in Contemporary Poland” was to question the conventional view of Polish civil society by highlighting the neglect of spontaneous and informal forms of activism in studies of post-socialist and Polish civil society.

By Dominika Polanska January 24, 2014

Armenian parliamentary elections 2012 – an extremely well scrutinized operation

A week before elections the head of the Armenian Central Election Committee announced that the Armenian parliamentary election would be monitored by over 30 000 observers, both foreign and domestic. The elections in Armenia 2012 were far from revolutionary, but perhaps it was a sign of a gradual evolution of Armenian democracy towards normality. The election results have not yet being challenged and parliament is better representing the political forces in the country and the party system is more consolidated.

By Anders Nordström May 9, 2012