Back in the Ussr"
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Load more
Recommended publications
-
Who Set the Narrative? Assessing the Influence of Chinese Media in News Coverage of COVID-19 in 30 African Countries the Size Of
Who Set the Narrative? Assessing the Influence of Chinese Media in News Coverage of COVID-19 in 30 African Countries The size of China’s State-owned media’s operations in Africa has grown significantly since the early 2000s. Previous research on the impact of increased Sino-African mediated engagements has been inconclusive. Some researchers hold that public opinion towards China in African nations has been improving because of the increased media presence. Others argue that the impact is rather limited, particularly when it comes to affecting how African media cover China- related stories. This paper seeks to contribute to this debate by exploring the extent to which news media in 30 African countries relied on Chinese news sources to cover China and the COVID-19 outbreak during the first half of 2020. By computationally analyzing a corpus of 500,000 news stories, I show that, compared to other major global players (e.g. Reuters, AFP), content distributed by Chinese media (e.g. Xinhua, China Daily, People’s Daily) is much less likely to be used by African news organizations, both in English and French speaking countries. The analysis also reveals a gap in the prevailing themes in Chinese and African media’s coverage of the pandemic. The implications of these findings for the sub-field of Sino-African media relations, and the study of global news flows is discussed. Keywords: China-Africa, Xinhua, news agencies, computational text analysis, big data, intermedia agenda setting Beginning in the mid-2010s, Chinese media began to substantially increase their presence in many African countries, as part of China’s ambitious going out strategy that covered a myriad of economic activities, including entertainment, telecommunications and news content (Keane, 2016). -
The Russia You Never Met
The Russia You Never Met MATT BIVENS AND JONAS BERNSTEIN fter staggering to reelection in summer 1996, President Boris Yeltsin A announced what had long been obvious: that he had a bad heart and needed surgery. Then he disappeared from view, leaving his prime minister, Viktor Cher- nomyrdin, and his chief of staff, Anatoly Chubais, to mind the Kremlin. For the next few months, Russians would tune in the morning news to learn if the presi- dent was still alive. Evenings they would tune in Chubais and Chernomyrdin to hear about a national emergency—no one was paying their taxes. Summer turned to autumn, but as Yeltsin’s by-pass operation approached, strange things began to happen. Chubais and Chernomyrdin suddenly announced the creation of a new body, the Cheka, to help the government collect taxes. In Lenin’s day, the Cheka was the secret police force—the forerunner of the KGB— that, among other things, forcibly wrested food and money from the peasantry and drove some of them into collective farms or concentration camps. Chubais made no apologies, saying that he had chosen such a historically weighted name to communicate the seriousness of the tax emergency.1 Western governments nod- ded their collective heads in solemn agreement. The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank both confirmed that Russia was experiencing a tax collec- tion emergency and insisted that serious steps be taken.2 Never mind that the Russian government had been granting enormous tax breaks to the politically connected, including billions to Chernomyrdin’s favorite, Gazprom, the natural gas monopoly,3 and around $1 billion to Chubais’s favorite, Uneximbank,4 never mind the horrendous corruption that had been bleeding the treasury dry for years, or the nihilistic and pointless (and expensive) destruction of Chechnya. -
The Origins of United Russia and the Putin Presidency: the Role of Contingency in Party-System Development
The Origins of United Russia and the Putin Presidency: The Role of Contingency in Party-System Development HENRY E. HALE ocial science has generated an enormous amount of literature on the origins S of political party systems. In explaining the particular constellation of parties present in a given country, almost all theoretical work stresses the importance of systemic, structural, or deeply-rooted historical factors.1 While the development of social science theory certainly benefits from the focus on such enduring influ- ences, a smaller set of literature indicates that we must not lose sight of the crit- ical role that chance plays in politics.2 The same is true for the origins of politi- cal party systems. This claim is illustrated by the case of the United Russia Party, which burst onto the political scene with a strong second-place showing in the late 1999 elec- tions to Russia’s parliament (Duma), and then won a stunning majority in the 2003 elections. Most accounts have treated United Russia as simply the next in a succession of Kremlin-based “parties of power,” including Russia’s Choice (1993) and Our Home is Russia (1995), both groomed from the start primarily to win large delegations that provide support for the president to pass legislation.3 The present analysis, focusing on United Russia’s origin as the Unity Bloc in 1999, casts the party in a somewhat different light. When we train our attention on the party’s beginnings rather than on what it wound up becoming, we find that Unity was a profoundly different animal from Our Home and Russia’s Choice. -
Russia: CHRONOLOGY DECEMBER 1993 to FEBRUARY 1995
Issue Papers, Extended Responses and Country Fact Sheets file:///C:/Documents and Settings/brendelt/Desktop/temp rir/CHRONO... Français Home Contact Us Help Search canada.gc.ca Issue Papers, Extended Responses and Country Fact Sheets Home Issue Paper RUSSIA CHRONOLOGY DECEMBER 1993 TO FEBRUARY 1995 July 1995 Disclaimer This document was prepared by the Research Directorate of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada on the basis of publicly available information, analysis and comment. All sources are cited. This document is not, and does not purport to be, either exhaustive with regard to conditions in the country surveyed or conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim to refugee status or asylum. For further information on current developments, please contact the Research Directorate. Table of Contents GLOSSARY Political Organizations and Government Structures Political Leaders 1. INTRODUCTION 2. CHRONOLOGY 1993 1994 1995 3. APPENDICES TABLE 1: SEAT DISTRIBUTION IN THE STATE DUMA TABLE 2: REPUBLICS AND REGIONS OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION MAP 1: RUSSIA 1 of 58 9/17/2013 9:13 AM Issue Papers, Extended Responses and Country Fact Sheets file:///C:/Documents and Settings/brendelt/Desktop/temp rir/CHRONO... MAP 2: THE NORTH CAUCASUS NOTES ON SELECTED SOURCES REFERENCES GLOSSARY Political Organizations and Government Structures [This glossary is included for easy reference to organizations which either appear more than once in the text of the chronology or which are known to have been formed in the period covered by the chronology. The list is not exhaustive.] All-Russia Democratic Alternative Party. Established in February 1995 by Grigorii Yavlinsky.( OMRI 15 Feb. -
Federal Research Division Country Profile: Tajikistan, January 2007
Library of Congress – Federal Research Division Country Profile: Tajikistan, January 2007 COUNTRY PROFILE: TAJIKISTAN January 2007 COUNTRY Formal Name: Republic of Tajikistan (Jumhurii Tojikiston). Short Form: Tajikistan. Term for Citizen(s): Tajikistani(s). Capital: Dushanbe. Other Major Cities: Istravshan, Khujand, Kulob, and Qurghonteppa. Independence: The official date of independence is September 9, 1991, the date on which Tajikistan withdrew from the Soviet Union. Public Holidays: New Year’s Day (January 1), International Women’s Day (March 8), Navruz (Persian New Year, March 20, 21, or 22), International Labor Day (May 1), Victory Day (May 9), Independence Day (September 9), Constitution Day (November 6), and National Reconciliation Day (November 9). Flag: The flag features three horizontal stripes: a wide middle white stripe with narrower red (top) and green stripes. Centered in the white stripe is a golden crown topped by seven gold, five-pointed stars. The red is taken from the flag of the Soviet Union; the green represents agriculture and the white, cotton. The crown and stars represent the Click to Enlarge Image country’s sovereignty and the friendship of nationalities. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND Early History: Iranian peoples such as the Soghdians and the Bactrians are the ethnic forbears of the modern Tajiks. They have inhabited parts of Central Asia for at least 2,500 years, assimilating with Turkic and Mongol groups. Between the sixth and fourth centuries B.C., present-day Tajikistan was part of the Persian Achaemenian Empire, which was conquered by Alexander the Great in the fourth century B.C. After that conquest, Tajikistan was part of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, a successor state to Alexander’s empire. -
Investment and Trade Policy of the Republic of Belarus
INVESTMENT AND TRADE POLICY OF THE REPUBLIC OF BELARUS Igor Ugorich Head of Department, Foreign Trade Administration, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Belarus Globalisation creates a situation where the conflicts in certain regions directly affect the global state of affairs. From this perspective, developments in the 21st Century will be largely influenced by processes taking shape in the whole world. Multi-ethnic and multi-confessional Belarus has avoided the religious and ethnic conflicts so characteristic of many post-Soviet countries. Organised government management and law-enforcement systems have allowed us to ensure an adequate level of security for our society and people. The strategy of economic development, priorities and the stages of reformation of the economy of Belarus are based on the so-called “Belarusan model” of development, which is a socially orientated market economy stipulated by the Constitution and with regard to the place and the role of our state in the world community. Reformation of the Belarusan economy started in 1991 after the dissolution of the USSR. The current stage of reformation and development started in 1994-1995 and is connected with cardinal changes in the economic policy of the state carried out before. Belarus looked for its own way of development in the years of crisis, one based on a sound pragmatic and practical understanding of world experience, taking into account particular internal problems and the general situation in the world. How should one build a programme of economic development? To ensure financial stabilisation at the cost of a drastic tightening of monetary and credit policy which would limit purchasing power (i.e. -
Threats to Russian Democracy and US-Russian Relations
After Chechnya: Threats to Russian Democracy and U.S.-Russian Relations ARIEL COHEN Introduction : All Politics Is Local , Al¡ Foreign Policy Is Domestic Half a year alter Russian tanks rolled into Chechnya, the future of Russian democracy and free markets is under threat. The internal situation in Russia bears a direct influence on Russia's relations with the outside world and the United States. While the world's leaders gather in Moscow to celebrate the victory over Nazism, Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev is calling for the use of force to "protect" Russian co-ethnics living outside the borders of the Russian Federation. Kozyrev's declarations go beyond mere rhetoric. Russia is introducing its new 58th field army in the Northern Caucasus, in clear and conscious violation of the Conventional Forces Europe (CFE) Treaty, a centerpiece of post-Cold War European security. If Russia is not planning an agressive action either against Ukraine or its Transcaucasus neighbors, why does it need to revise upwards the CFE limitations of 164 tanks and 414 artillery systems? Why was General Alexander Lebed, a self-proclaimed restorer of the old Soviet Union and Commander of the l4th Army in Moldova, applauding Kozyrev? Chechnya became the testing ground for the new Russian policy, both foreign and domestic. The people who engineered it, the so-called Party of War in Moscow, are watching for reactions at honre and abroad to this version of the "last thrust South." The West is facing its greatest challenge since the collapse of communism: how to deal with the Russia that is emerging from under the rubble. -
The Ukrainian Weekly 1993, No.23
www.ukrweekly.com INSIDE: • Ukraine's search for security by Dr. Roman Solchanyk — page 2. • Chornobyl victim needs bone marrow transplant ~ page 4 • Teaching English in Ukraine program is under way - page 1 1 Publishfd by the Ukrainian National Association inc., a fraternal non-prof it association rainianWee Vol. LXI No. 23 THE UKRAINIAN WEEKLY SUNDAY, JUNE 6, 1993 50 cents New York commemorates Tensions mount over Black Sea Fleet by Marta Kolomayets Sea Fleet until 1995. 60th anniversary of Famine Kyyiv Press Bureau More than half the fleet — 203 ships — has raised the ensign of St. Andrew, by Andrij Wynnyckyj inaccurate reports carried in the press," KYYIV — Ukrainian President the flag of the Russian Imperial Navy. ranging from those of New York Times Leonid Kravchuk has asked for a summit NEW YORK — On June 1, the New None of the fleet's Warships, however, reporter Walter Duranty written in the meeting with Russian leader Boris have raised the ensign. On Friday, May York area's Ukrainian Americans com 1930s, to recent Soviet denials and Yeltsin to try to resolve mounting ten memorated the 60th anniversary of the Western attempts to smear famine sions surrounding control of the Black (Continued on page 13) tragic Soviet-induced famine of І932- researchers. Sea Fleet. 1933 with a "Day of Remembrance," "Now the facts are on the table," Mr. In response, Russian Foreign Minister consisting of an afternoon symposium Oilman said. "The archives have been Andrei Kozyrev is scheduled to arrive in Parliament begins held at the Ukrainian Institute of opened in Moscow and in Kyyiv, and the Ukraine on Friday morning, June 4, to America, and an evening requiem for the Ukrainian Holocaust has been revealed arrange the meeting between the two debate on START victims held at St. -
ON the EFFECTIVE USE of PROXY WARFARE by Andrew Lewis Peek Baltimore, Maryland May 2021 © 2021 Andrew Peek All Rights Reserved
ON THE EFFECTIVE USE OF PROXY WARFARE by Andrew Lewis Peek A dissertation submitted to Johns Hopkins University in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Baltimore, Maryland May 2021 2021 Andrew Peek All rights reserved Abstract This dissertation asks a simple question: how are states most effectively conducting proxy warfare in the modern international system? It answers this question by conducting a comparative study of the sponsorship of proxy forces. It uses process tracing to examine five cases of proxy warfare and predicts that the differentiation in support for each proxy impacts their utility. In particular, it proposes that increasing the principal-agent distance between sponsors and proxies might correlate with strategic effectiveness. That is, the less directly a proxy is supported and controlled by a sponsor, the more effective the proxy becomes. Strategic effectiveness here is conceptualized as consisting of two key parts: a proxy’s operational capability and a sponsor’s plausible deniability. These should be in inverse relation to each other: the greater and more overt a sponsor’s support is to a proxy, the more capable – better armed, better trained – its proxies should be on the battlefield. However, this close support to such proxies should also make the sponsor’s influence less deniable, and thus incur strategic costs against both it and the proxy. These costs primarily consist of external balancing by rival states, the same way such states would balance against conventional aggression. Conversely, the more deniable such support is – the more indirect and less overt – the less balancing occurs. -
The Ukrainian Weekly 1992, No.26
www.ukrweekly.com Published by the Ukrainian National Association Inc.ic, a, fraternal non-profit association! ramian V Vol. LX No. 26 THE UKRAINIAN WEEKLY SUNDAY0, JUNE 28, 1992 50 cents Orthodox Churches Kravchuk, Yeltsin conclude accord at Dagomys summit by Marta Kolomayets Underscoring their commitment to signed by the two presidents, as well as Kiev Press Bureau the development of the democratic their Supreme Council chairmen, Ivan announce union process, the two sides agreed they will Pliushch of Ukraine and Ruslan Khas- by Marta Kolomayets DAGOMYS, Russia - "The agree "build their relations as friendly states bulatov of Russia, and Ukrainian Prime Kiev Press Bureau ment in Dagomys marks a radical turn and will immediately start working out Minister Vitold Fokin and acting Rus KIEV — As The Weekly was going to in relations between two great states, a large-scale political agreements which sian Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar. press, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church change which must lead our relations to would reflect the new qualities of rela The Crimea, another difficult issue in faction led by Metropolitan Filaret and a full-fledged and equal inter-state tions between them." Ukrainian-Russian relations was offi the Ukrainian Autocephalous Ortho level," Ukrainian President Leonid But several political breakthroughs cially not on the agenda of the one-day dox Church, which is headed by Metro Kravchuk told a press conference after came at the one-day meeting held at this summit, but according to Mr. Khasbu- politan Antoniy of Sicheslav and the conclusion of the first Ukrainian- beach resort, where the Black Sea is an latov, the topic was discussed in various Pereyaslav in the absence of Mstyslav I, Russian summit in Dagomys, a resort inviting front yard and the Caucasus circles. -
The Russian Default and the Contagion to Brazil
A Service of Leibniz-Informationszentrum econstor Wirtschaft Leibniz Information Centre Make Your Publications Visible. zbw for Economics Baig, Taimur; Goldfajn, Ilan Working Paper The Russian default and the contagion to Brazil Texto para discussão, No. 420 Provided in Cooperation with: Departamento de Economia, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro Suggested Citation: Baig, Taimur; Goldfajn, Ilan (2000) : The Russian default and the contagion to Brazil, Texto para discussão, No. 420, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), Departamento de Economia, Rio de Janeiro This Version is available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/186664 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. personal and scholarly purposes. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle You are not to copy documents for public or commercial Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, If the documents have been made available under an Open gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der -
Yevgeny Primakov's Operational Code and Russian Foreign Policy
University of Tampere Faculty of Management Politics/International Relations YEVGENY PRIMAKOV’S OPERATIONAL CODE AND RUSSIAN FOREIGN POLICY Pihla Bernier Master’s Thesis in International Relations Advisor: Tuomas Forsberg ABSTRACT University of Tampere Faculty of Management BERNIER, PIHLA: Yevgeny Primakov’s Operational Code and Russian Foreign Policy Master’s Thesis, 82 pages International Relations August 2018 Keywords: Yevgeny Primakov, Operational Code, Russian Foreign Policy, Russia, Primakov Doctrine Yevgeny Primakov was an important figure in both Soviet and Russian foreign policy circles throughout his lifetime until 2015. He was a critical leader in the 1990s holding positions of both Minister of Foreign Affairs and Prime Minister, which also coincided with times when Russia was charting a new foreign policy course. He reinvented a foreign policy school of thought called Statism which has been the most influential with Russian leaders for many years and continues to be so today. Current research has not adequately addressed his importance. This thesis set out to investigate his beliefs and worldview utilizing the operational code method using Alexander George’s ten question model. Research was conducted based on Primakov’s own writings, speeches and interviews. Yevgeny Primakov has been called both a westernizing leader and a hard-liner, but it was found both of these labels are incorrect. Rather, he should be viewed as a patriotic pragmatist. His actions were motivated by advancing Russian interests of which one of the greatest was restoring Russia as a major player in international relations again. His attitude towards the United States was complex, viewing them as a rival, yet not as an enemy.