The Sochi Predicament PDF Download

Author: Bo Petersson
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 144385445X
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
For a variety of political, climatic, ecological, security-related and other reasons, the Russian summer resort of Sochi by the Black Sea would seem a most unlikely candidate for the Olympic Winter Games. Despite this, the Games will be held there in February 2014, and the Russian leaders regard the Games as a highly prestigious project underlining Russia’s return to a status of great power in the contemporary world. This book conducts a thorough inventory of the contexts, characteristics and challenges facing the Sochi Games. It deals with the problems from Russian, Georgian, Abkhazian and Circassian perspectives and makes in-depth analyses of profound challenges related to matters such as identity, security, and ethnic relations. The book brings together an international group of eminent scholars representing different disciplinary perspectives, including political science, sports science, ethics, ethnology, and Caucasian studies.

Author: Bo Petersson
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 3838210506
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 231

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Book Description
Using the Russian president’s major public addresses as the main source, Bo Petersson analyzes the legitimization strategies employed during Vladimir Putin’s third and fourth terms in office. The argument is that these strategies have rested on Putin’s highly personalized blend of strongman-image projection and presentation as the embodiment of Russia’s great power myth. Putin appears as the only credible guarantor against renewed weakness, political chaos, and interference from abroad—in particular from the US. After a first deep crisis of legitimacy manifested itself by the massive protests in 2011–2012, the annexation of Crimea led to a lengthy boost in Putin’s popularity figures. The book discusses how the Crimea effect is, by 2021, trailing off and Putin’s charismatic authority is increasingly questioned by opposition from Alexei Navalny, the effects of unpopular reforms, and poor handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, Russia is bound to head for a succession crisis as the legitimacy of the political system continues to be built on Putin’s projected personal characteristics and—now apparently waning—charisma, and since no potential heir apparent has been allowed on center stage. The constitutional reform of summer 2020 made it possible in theory for Putin to continue as president until 2036. Yet, this change did not address the Russian political system’s fundamental future leadership dilemma.

Author: Annika Bjorkdahl
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137550481
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 323

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Book Description
This volume brings to the fore the spatial dimension of specific places and sites, and assesses how they condition – and are conditioned by – conflict and peace processes. By marrying spatial theories with theories of peace and conflict, the contributors propose a new research agenda to investigate where peace and conflict take place.

Author: Emil Edenborg
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1351712942
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 219

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Book Description
In this book, Edenborg studies contemporary conflicts of community as enacted in Russian media, from the ‘homosexual propaganda’ laws to the Sochi Olympics and the Ukraine war, and explores the role of visibility in the production and contestation of belonging to a political community. The book examines what it is that determines which subjects and narratives become visible and which are occluded in public spheres; how they are seen and made intelligible; and how those processes are involved in the imagination of communities. Investigating the differentiated consequences of visibility, Edenborg discusses what forms of visibility make belonging possible and what forms of visibility may be related to exclusion or violence. The book maps and analyses the practices and mechanisms whereby a state seeks to produce and shape belonging through controlling what becomes visible in public, and how that which becomes visible is seen and understood. In addition, it examines what forms contestation can take and what its effects may be. Advancing theoretical understanding and offering a useful way to analytically conceptualize the role of visibility in the production and contestation of political communities, this work will be of interest to students and scholars of gender and sexuality politics, borders, citizenship, nationalism, migration and ethnic relations.

Author: Robert W. Orttung
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1317813170
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 151

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Book Description
President Vladimir Putin’s Olympic venture put the workings of contemporary Russia on vivid display. The Sochi Olympics were designed to symbolize Russia’s return to great power status, but subsequent aggression against Ukraine, large-scale corruption, and the doping scandal have become the true legacies of the games. The Kremlin’s style of governance through mega-projects has had deleterious consequences for the country’s development. Placing the Sochi games into the larger context of Olympic history, this book examines the political, security, business, ethnic, societal, and international ramifications of Putin’s system.

Author: Jenifer Parks
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 1498541194
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 231

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Book Description
Using previously inaccessible archival documents, this study provides a longitudinal investigation of the middle levels of Soviet bureaucracy responsible for overseeing Olympic Sport during the Cold War. Spanning the period from the USSR’s Olympic debut in 1952 through the 1980 Games held in Moscow, this book argues that behind the high-profile performances of Soviet elite athletes, a legion of sports administrators worked within international sports organizations and the Soviet party-state to increase Soviet chances of success and make Soviet representatives a respected voice in international sports. Soviet officials helped expand the Olympic movement, increasing the participation of women, developing nations, and socialist bloc countries, while achieving Soviet political and diplomatic aims. Soviet representatives, over the course of only a few decades, became a dominant and respected voice within international sports circles, actively promoting Olympic ideals abroad even as they transformed those ideals to better align with Soviet goals. In the process, Soviet sports contributed to the evolution of Olympic sport, integrating the Soviet Union into an emerging global culture, and contributing to transformations within the Soviet Union. Back home in the USSR, the Sports Committee's leading personalities represented a new kind of Soviet bureaucrat, who emerged in the late years of Stalinism and contributed to the professionalization of party-state apparatus. Standing at the intersection between state and society, between Soviet political goals and their execution, and between Olympic sport and Communist ideology, mid-level Soviet sports administrators demonstrated ideological drive, political savvy, and professional pragmatism, providing the impetus, expertise, and experience to transform broad ideological constructs into specific policies and procedures in the Soviet Union and realize Soviet propaganda and foreign policy goals in international and Olympic sports.

Author: Adel Bashqawi
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1543447651
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 495

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Book Description
Many Circassian people have been living in diaspora for more than 150 years. They were forcefully driven out of their homeland by a combination of military and political methods. In this book, author Adel Bashqawi explains the origins, details and outcomes of the Russian-Circassian war and how it was directly responsible for the current situation of Circassians. He discusses the crimes and human rights violations committed against Circassians. The author sheds light on the evolution of the political situation of Circassians in the homeland and in diaspora until the current day, including the various Circassian political bodies. The author also deals with the issue of the Circassian identity and possible legal methods that Circassians can utilize to regain their rights. This book will teach Circassians, young and old, about their history and the history of their homeland. It is a must read for anyone who is interested in the Circassian issue and for anyone who cares about human rights.

Author: Andrey Makarychev
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137490950
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 229

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Book Description
The edited volume explains why sport mega events can be discussed from the viewpoint of politics and power, and what this discussion can add to the existing scholarship on political regimes, international norms, national identities, and cultural narratives. The book collects case studies written by insiders from different countries of post-Soviet Eurasia that have recently hosted— or intend to host in the future —sporting events of a global scale. Contributing authors discuss cultural, political, and economic strategies of host governments, examining them from the vantage point of an increasing shift of the global sport industry to non-Western countries. Mega-events often draw domestic lines of cultural and social exclusion within host’s polities. It is these ruptures and gaps this volume explores, contributing to a better understanding of the intricate interconnections between global institutions and national identities.

Author: Tuomas Forsberg
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000469247
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
This book focusses on Russia’s cultural statecraft in dealing with a number of institutional cultural domains such as education, museums and monuments, high arts and sport. It analyses to what extent Russia’s cultural activities abroad have been used for foreign policy purposes, and perceived as having a political dimension. Building on the concept of cultural statecraft, the authors present a broad and nuanced view of how Russia sees the role of culture in its external relations, how this shapes the image of Russia, and the ways in which this cultural statecraft is received by foreign audiences. The expert team of contributors consider: what choices are made in fostering this agenda; how Russian state authorities see the purpose and limits of various cultural instruments; to what extent can the authorities shape these instruments; what domains have received more attention and become more politicised and what fields have remained more autonomous. The methodological research design of the book as a whole is a comparative case study comparing the nature of Russian cultural statecraft across time, target countries and diverse cultural domains. It will be of interest to scholars and students of Russian foreign policy and external relations and those working on the role of culture in world politics.

Author:
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1510739882
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 361

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Book Description
The official U.S. government report on Russian interference in democracy around the world! Most Americans were surprised to learn of Russian efforts to manipulate the results of the 2016 presidential election, and have become increasingly concerned about the vulnerabilities of our democracy. Here for the first time in an official U.S. government report is the fascinating and detailed account of how ex-KGB agent Vladimir Putin has used computer hackers, official state spy agencies, and even Russian organized crime thugs over the past thirty years to achieve his policy agenda?not only for Russian political domination, but also for his own enrichment and the enrichment of the oligarchs who control almost all aspects of the Russian economy. This complete report includes chapters on: Putin’s Rise and Motivations Manipulation and Repression Inside Russia Old Active Measures and Modern Malign Influence Operations Weaponization of Civil Society, Ideology, Culture, Crime, and Energy Kremlin Interference in Semi-Consolidated Democracies and Transitional Governments Kremlin Interference in Consolidated Democracies Multilateral and U.S. efforts to Counter the Kremlin’s Asymmetric Arsenal In Putin’s Asymmetric Assault on Democracy in Russia and Europe, we learn about Vladimir Putin’s rise to power through the KGB to mayor of St. Petersburg and eventually as head of the Russian state. We discover the history of how Putin used classic Cold War KGB tactics by weaponizing civil society, culture, ideology, and Russia’s criminal element against the nascent Russian democracy by cultivating and using ties to NGOs, thinktanks, extremist political groups, the Russian orthodox church, industrial and energy policy, and the Russian Mafia. We also see how the Kremlin then exported this political extortion, intimidation, and monetary corruption first to its Eastern European neighbors, then their western partners in the European Union, and how it has now landed on America’s shores. Just as certain people in the intelligence community became increasingly alarmed at the growing strength and sophistication of Al-Qaeda in the late 1990s, the senators and staffers of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations are giving the nation fair warning of a 9/11-level assault on the United States, this time by Russia’s spy agencies. Putin’s Asymmetric Assault on Democracy in Russia and Europe reveals not only the history of Russia’s devastating tactics, but how to recognize and counter them.