CREECA Lecture Series Podcast

Dr. Madina Djuraeva talks about her 8-year long research on multilingualism among Central Asian young adults. She shares her fieldwork experience in both Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan where she collected narrative data from over 60 student participants. Dr. Djuraeva also shares a number of her key research findings around the themes of morality, belonging, and education. Madina Djuraeva defended her Ph.D. in the department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is a Lecturer of Elementary Uzbek and she has previously taught both Tajik and Uzbek languages through CESSI. Originally from Bukhara, Uzbekistan, Madina grew up in a multilingual environment of the city, which eventually contributed to her choice of profession. Her doctoral research examines lived experiences of being and becoming multilingual at the nexus of language, education, policy, and identity in the contexts of post-Soviet Central Asia and transnational migration. She has published on the issues of (non)nativeness, language policy, and morality in multilingual Central Asian communities

“An Uzbek Patron and the Limits of Eurasian Power” - Morgan Liu (The Ohio State University) Can the rich and powerful (“elites”) make society a better place? How can they transform structural problems and are there limits to what elites can accomplish for the common good? I present a case from Jalal-Abad, Kyrgyzstan where an Uzbek grand patron claimed to act for the communal good by building urban institutions serving people of all ethnicities. As a result, Uzbeks, who have experienced discrimination in Kyrgyzstan, actually flourished in this city under politically adverse circumstances for the first two decades of post-Soviet independence, until the violence of 2010 brought this Uzbek patron’s endeavors to a crashing and burning halt. We conclude with the global implications about what elites can and cannot do for the public good.

After the fall of communism, regardless of debates on the nature of systemic change, most agreed on the importance of non-violence. In this paper, I argue that the year 1989 represented a revolution in the very idea of revolution—self-limiting, non-violent, and yet far reaching in impact. However, Cold War triumphalist narratives and Western liberal mis-readings have together misrepresented the lessons and legacies of 1989, generating a “recipe-based” approach to regime change. Yet today multipolar great power politics, the soft power decline of the United States and liberal democracy more generally, an international legal regime that dis-incentivizes unpopular authoritarians to step away from power, and the moral hazard associated with the doctrine of Responsibility to Protect, have made non-violent or “1989-type” revolutions far less likely.

While recent findings suggest that violence during civil war can generate pro-social behavior, why do we often see polarization between groups based on ethnic, religious, or sectarian differences after conflict? What conditions explain why we see this in some cases, but not others? These questions matter, given that polarization complicates peacebuilding, affects post-war party politics, and may lead to a return to conflict. Presenting evidence from Bosnia, Price argues that how violence is targeted during civil war is essential to explaining the observed variation. Collective violence increases the salience of group identity while selective violence is unlikely to provoke these responses. Where these changes are widespread, they aggregate into cleavages, the social divisions which define political competition, and these results may persist well past the initial conflict.

Election forensics is a growing field of statistical techniques that can be used to detect suspicious patterns in election data. Researchers are increasingly turning to such methods to detect and evaluate potential manipulation in elections, both internationally and in the US. This lecture will present a brief overview of the state of the art, discuss the benefits and drawbacks of the election forensic approach, and then demonstrate how election forensic methods can be used to study variation in electoral manipulation at the subnational level in Russia and Ukraine. In particular, it will show how the type of election manipulation that parties employ in a territory depends both on their access to patronage resources and the degree to which they face political risks in that region.

Savelyeva explores the transformation of political culture in Russia from 2011-2019, describing a shift in attitudes toward protest, changes in the motivations and strategies of the opposition, and the burgeoning role of local activism in these movements.

Brel considers the post-communist development of the Republic of Belarus and suggests an answer to the question of why the country failed to democratize. Employing modernization theory, the presentation analyzes the connection between economic development and democracy, and between civil society and democracy. It also explores the idea that the absence of a strong national consciousness might have contributed to the country’s inability to democratize.

In this talk, Brooks will present an abbreviated statement of fact and personal experience dealing with the Supreme Commercial (Arbitrazh) Court of Russia from 1991 to 2016. He will tell the first-hand story of working with the Court as it reformed and adopted principles intrinsic to an independent, objective, and fair court system, and practices consistent with the rule of law, individual rights, transparency and deterring corruption. The lecture will conclude with a discussion of governmental and political pressures which rolled back much commercial court reform.

The interconnected terrorist and criminal milieus are believed to be a critical destabilizing factor in today’s global security environment, yet the trafficking/terrorism nexus remains highly politicized and loosely applied concept. What is the nature of trafficking/terrorism connections and how do they vary across states? Does the trafficking/terrorism nexus amplify the threat of terrorist violence? Focusing on Central Asia, this presentation offers surprising answers to these and other questions. It challenges the assumption that the intersection of terrorist and criminal activity is a prevalent, or even a common, occurrence.

Popular understanding of modern authoritarianism lacks a satisfying explanation for the genuine popularity of autocrats, as many clearly enjoy enthusiastic support even in times of economic stagnation or decline. In their recently published book, Robertson and his co-author argue that part of the solution lies in unpacking the role of emotions in building support for rulers. Drawing on a unique panel survey conducted shortly before and after Russia’s annexation of Crimea, they discover that the resulting “rally” around the authoritarian flag involves much more than simply support for the leader or a simple increase in nationalism. Rather, they witness a broad shift in respondents’ emotional orientation. Driven by the shared, mediated experience of the Crimean “moment”, this shift improves people’s evaluation of their social, political and economic surroundings in the present, the future – and even the past.