CREECA Lecture Series Podcast

Conflict between states or actors belonging to different identity groups is often accompanied by sharply divergent historical narratives about responsibility for past wrongs. Indeed, shared understanding of past events is often a constituitive element of a social identity, and these diverging narratives of the past can prevent cooperation in the present. In formal models of cooperation such as the Repeated Prisoner’s Dilemma, many strategies that facilitate cooperation depend upon shared beliefs about who is responsible for prior defections. Absent such agreement, these strategies are likely to perpetuate conflict rather than overcome it. In contrast, we examine alternative “blame-free” strategies that can sustain cooperation in the absence of shared beliefs about guilt for past transgressions. We present the results from a computer tournament of several strategies and show how if there are divergent perceptions, “temporary mutual punishment” is the the strategy that tends to prevail, if cooperation is possible at all. We consider this model of cooperation with a case study of the current context of U.S.-Russian relations since the Crimea crisis.

Murav’s new project, Archive of Violence: Neighbors, Creatures, and the Witness Literature of the Russian Civil War, explores the strangeness of neighborly relations, enacted both in violence and reconciliation. The talk examines both kinds of relations in one of the most important witness texts of the time, Itsik Kipnis’s 1926 Yiddish novel Months and Days (Khadoshim un teg).

A panel of UW-Madison experts discusses the nature and impact of Russian influence in U.S. elections. Faculty members from the Center for Russia, East Europe, and Central Asia (CREECA) and the Elections Research Center will speak about Russian hacking efforts leading up to the 2016 presidential election, as well as what we can expect going into the 2018 midterm elections. Timeline of podcast: 0:00: Introduction. Moderator: Ted Gerber, Director, Center for Russia, East Europe, and Central Asia & Professor of Sociology 3:16: Opening Remarks by Barry Burden, Director, Elections Research Center & Professor of Political Science 6:52: Opening Remarks by Scott Gehlbach, Professor of Political Science 13:49: Opening Remarks by Young Mie Kim, Professor, School of Journalism and Mass Communication & Political Science 21:53: Opening Remarks by Megan Metzger, Post-Doctoral Fellow, Wisconsin Russia Project 27:55: Dialogue among panelists

The law against ‘propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations’ (homosexuality) has operated in Russia since 2013. It legitimized homophobia, causing a wave of increased homophobia resulting in hate crimes (bashing, abuse, homicide) against people identified as lesbians, gay men or transgender. My research sought to identify the sources of data for further statistical generalization. As a result, I collected texts of court decisions on criminal law sentences of violence against members of the LGBT community. The generated data shows existing dynamics of hate crime against LGBT in Russia characterized by a dramatic growth in such crimes after the adoption of the ‘propaganda’ law. Further, narratives produced by judges demonstrate their views on different sexualities, perpetrator emotions, and other related themes. The texts of the legal sentences are powerful enunciations of juridico-political discourse supported by institutions of criminal law. Thus, many new venues of analysis exist that could be pursued to further scrutinize relations of power in Russia.

The canon of political theory rarely deals with Eastern European political thought, either as a regional category or in relation to particular thinkers. The East-West duality describes and prescribes a hermeneutic relationship that delineates a form of (subaltern) engagement with the East European other. Popescu discusses the implications of this hermeneutic relationship for how the region is conceived, including its much contested variants, like the Balkans, and how it is reflected on the study of political thought coming from the region. To illustrate the argument, she briefly invokes the example of Vaclav Havel's writings and their reception. Popescu uses this case study as a springboard to propose a reconsideration of both the study of political theory (and its canon) and, more specifically, of the East-West duality as an analytical category.

The effectiveness of property rights -- and the rule of law more broadly -- is often depicted as depending primarily on rulers' "supply" of legal institutions, overlooking the crucial importance of private sector "demand" for law. In this talk, based on his recent book Property Rights in Post-Soviet Russia: Violence, Corruption, and Demand for Law, Gans-Morse unpacks the demand for law in Russia, building on an original enterprise survey as well as extensive interviews with lawyers, firms, and private security agencies. By tracing the evolution of firms' reliance on violence, corruption, and law over the two decades following the Soviet Union's collapse, the book clarifies why firms in various contexts may turn to law for property rights protection, even if legal institutions remain ineffective or corrupt.

This study contributes to the debate about the legacies of the Soviet era in contemporary Russian politics. Critical of treating legacies as causal factors, Sharafutdinova advances a socio-cognitive approach that brings together political leadership, legitimacy concerns and factors that constrain/enable the choices of legitimating narratives that resonate with the masses. She argues that Vladimir Putin has indeed relied on the revival of the central dimensions of the Soviet collective identity evoking a sense of exceptionalism and using conflict as a means of consolidating the Russian domestic public.

Tymofiy Mylovanov is an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Pittsburgh. He holds a PhD from UW-Madison. He is involved with projects such as the Ukraine Decentralization Initiative. In this lecture, he talks about his work with Ukrainian economic organizations and their influence on the Ukrainian government.

International migrants navigate their way in a legal space in the countries of destination, and must comply with various laws and regulations to obtain work authorization, residence registration, and maintain authorized documentary status. Law power affects people in the home countries as well. The presentation builds upon ethnographic research in Tajikistan, and discusses recent changes in Russian migration laws, introduction of re-entry bans, and the meaning of the new travel restrictions for Tajik migrants who maintained physical, social, and symbolic connections with Russia over time.

Collaborating with Maria Petrova and Aleksey Makarin, Ruben Enikolopov tests empirically whether the spread of social media affects participation in political protests. Using the example of political protests in Russia in December 2011 they show that increased penetration of social media led to higher probability of the protests. Additional results suggest that social media has affected protest activity by reducing the costs of coordination, rather than by spreading information critical of the government.