Series: Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society

Ukraine expert Winfried Schneider-Deters intervenes in the debate on Russia's war against Ukraine with three timely essays, written during the winter of war in Kyiv in 2022/2023. He critically discusses the ambivalent reception of Russian aggression not only in German society. Calls by intellectuals to stop arms deliveries and to negotiate and compromise with the aggressor are, in effect, calls...

Ukraine is again—since its annexation of Crimea in February 2014 and the ongoing war in the Donbas—the stage of the largest crisis in Europe since the end of the Cold War. When it comes to understanding the resolution and prevention of complex hybrid conflicts, theories in international relations are trapped in their state-centred perspectives. Meanwhile, the role of the individual...

Oleksandra Keudel proposes a novel explanation for why some local governments in hybrid regimes enable citizen participation while others restrict it. She argues that mechanisms for citizen participation are by-products of the political dynamics of informal business-political (patronal) networks that seek domination over local governments. Against the backdrop of either competition or coordination between patronal networks in their localities, municipal...

Aleksandr Prokhanov and Post-Soviet Esotericism by Edmund Griffiths delves into the multifaceted persona of Aleksandr Prokhanov, a prize-winning novelist and the editor of the weekly newspaper Zavtra. Prokhanov stands as a prominent figure in Russian imperial patriotism. Ever since 1991, when he signed (and reputedly wrote) the manifesto for the failed putsch against Mikhail Gorbachev, he has been an influential...

This book views the Ukrainian Revolution of Dignity, from a broad systemic perspective, as an ongoing process in which societal, economic, political, and institutional developments are intertwined. The Euromaidan and further developments, especially the Russian aggression, accelerated the westward reorientation of the economy, strengthened institutional checks and balances (for instance, through decentralisation), changed the main social cleavage from an ethnolinguistic...

This volume focuses on a highly controversial unit within the Ukrainian military, the Azov (former regiment) Brigade. Azov is known for its far-right origins but has garnered worldwide attention through its role in the defence of Mariupol in 2022. There is still confusion and obfuscation about the Azov Brigade's development since 2014 and its status today. Many conflate the unit...

This timely book provides a comprehensive analysis of political uncertainty and is one of the first efforts to empirically measure it. Political Uncertainty by Gergana Dimova compares political ambiguity within both established as well as unconsolidated democracies and explores institutional, behavioural, and media factors influencing such uncertainty. Combining aggregate statistical analysis and qualitative case studies, Dimova seeks to provide answers...

This collection of essays explores malign Russian influence operations that aimed to advance Moscow's strategic and tactical objectives in European countries as well as particular African states. These operations were conducted in the framework of Russia's anti-Western political warfare and involved attempts to exploit divisive social issues, sow confusion and fear, encourage dissention and polarisation, undermine democratic institutions, and corrupt...

This is the fourth volume prepared by the initiators of the Three Ukrainian Revolutions (3R) project, ongoing at the College of Europe in Natolin since 2016. The present collection of essays analyses the changes that have taken place in the post-Soviet space since 1991, and which have determined both the process of democratisation and the return to authoritarianism in the...

How did the Ukrainian oligarchy survive the institutional disruption of the Euromaidan revolt of 2013/2014? How did it manage to continue its extractive political and economic practices, amid deep changes in Ukraine's society and polity? To answer these questions, The Ukrainian Oligarchy After the Euromaidan analyzes the evolution of the Ukrainian super-rich in 2006-2017. It traces the process of conversion...

This work is a contemporary historical, narrative analysis of events in and around Ukraine from 2013 to 2019. These years were almost as significant for Ukraine as the achievement of independence in 1991, because Ukraine was in danger of losing its independence again after the victory of the Maidan. This popular uprising against the kleptocratic regime of President Yanukovych led...