Contested Spaces between State and Society

Chair: Mihai Varga (Freie Universität Berlin)

Nadja Douglas (ZOiS)

Evolving protest culture and trust in institutions in the Armenian context

As part of the ongoing research project “Public initiatives and state power structures – a post-Soviet comparison”, this paper focuses on the evolution of protest and policing culture in Armenia. Recent social and political unrest, such as during the “Electric Yerevan” protests in 2015, have demonstrated the destabilising potential of social grievances and discontent. The Armenian authorities have reacted by displaying a mixture of weakness and intransigence and by considerably strengthening the law enforcement sector. The paper draws on findings from interview narratives (collected in Yerevan in spring 2017) and extensive document analysis in relation with results from public opinion polls on trust and confidence in state structures, notably the law enforcement sector. Emphasis is placed on the question how changes in protest and policing culture have a transforming effect on state-society relations in general and the development of public policy in the country.
 

Christian Fröhlich (Higher School of Economics, Moscow)

Urban activism and citizenship under post-Soviet conditions: the Muscovites’ struggle for public space

This paper studies local urban activism in the semi-authoritarian context of contemporary Russia. It takes Moscow as the cumulative place of post-Soviet neoliberal, capitalist urban development and shows why and how Muscovites oppose it by engaging in local informal initiatives. This original research employs data from interviews with residents organizing and participating in activism against new apartment blocks, radial highways and churches in residential districts as well as against the diminishing of public parks and recreational areas. It reveals a new form of citizenship in contemporary post-Soviet urban settings, which is connected to the cultural meaning of property and a changing nature of state-society relations. These localized forms of urban protest offer individual participation in collective meaning-making and mobilization that is able to overcome widespread withdrawal into private life and the lack of experience with public politics, which often is described as a post-Soviet condition of the civil sphere. Thus, contemporary urban activism re-politicizes public space without engaging into party politics or central state structures. The backyard and the immediate neighbourhood can therefore become nurturing grounds for ‘politics of encounter’ (Andy Merrifield). The analysis will systemize reasons and conditions for everyday encounters of neighbours to become politicized and develop into collective mobilizations. Attention will also be paid to ways of how residents undergo strong limitation and control over public space as well as how they deal with channelling and cooptation strategies in an increasingly authoritarian Russian context and under ‘authoritative neoliberalism’ of Moscow´s urban governance in particular.


Tatiana Golova (ZOiS)

Politics of the practical: Finding common ground and boundary work by activists in Novosibirsk

Local single-issue mobilizations have been discussed as a prevalent mode of activism in present-day Russia. Against the background of perceived de-politicization and distrust towards the official public realm, such self-organised protests look inspirational. Yet, they are seldom able to transcend the limits of localized life-worlds and address systemic topics, or to frame local contentious issues in a universal way. This paper argues that the development of non-particularist interpretations of localized conflicts is connected to the challenge of establishing cooperation between protest actors. Drawing on a case study of recent socioeconomic protests in the third-largest Russian city of Novosibirsk, the paper explores how actors of different political orientation create organizational and discursive spaces of cooperation. The empirical data consists of in-depth interviews with activists and document analysis. Further, the analysis demonstrates how activists establish differences between their respective we-group and others. In particular, I will show how they accentuate boundaries to the public, first-time protesters, and fellow activists. These dimensions are especially important to answer the question how opportunities for sustained cooperation and mutual acceptance of contentious actors are perceived, created, or diminished.