Naturalizing the state and symbolizing power in Russian agricultural land use

Land is intertwined with politics: both as a sine qua non for the territorial state, as well as a spatially limited natural resource through which geopolitical power and advantage are articulated and enacted. This remains the case, notwithstanding the emergence of global and planetary frameworks for land management towards collective environmental and developmental goals. Indeed, such frameworks contend with narratives and practices that not only treat land as a strategic national resource, but entangle it with the very ontology of statehood itself. This study examines such state-natures through the case of Russian agricultural land use. Analyzing governmental discourse from 2000 to 2020, it examines how in the extensive cultivation of agricultural land has come to be a hallmark of twenty-first century vertical and horizontal symbolic state-making: both as an instrumental means of enhancing the state's geopolitical power, as well as a means by which state is reified as environmentally sovereign and self-subsistent. So doing, the study complements a growing body of work in critical environmental geopolitics that has tended to eschew state-based analysis, or else leave the state underproblematized. As I argue, considering how the state is made natural, in turn helps to understand how nature is politically if not ontologically entangled in geopolitical thought and practice—in ways that attempts to act upon and indeed bring about wider-scale environmental subjects must contend.     

The First World War and Public School Ethos: The Case of Uppingham School

Abstract

This paper examines the experience in the First World War of Uppingham School, then a middle-ranking public school, and its old boys, in comparison to prevailing scholarly orthodoxy. This holds that a public school education inspired attitudes of leadership and sacrifice and also provided elementary military knowledge, which made public schoolboys an important source of British Army junior officers in the war. Drawing on primary sources including the school’s own records the author concludes that there is little in the attitudes and experience of the old boys to support this orthodoxy and that a more nuanced approach is required.     

对俄国自由主义的理论探讨

自由主义首先是一种政治思潮,其次是一种社会政治运动,再次是某种政治制度和管理原则的总和。自由主义是古代西欧明的创造,于近代形成为体系,并蔓延到东欧国家。俄国自由主义大体上是从外部引进的,并在发展过程中出现了许多的类型和派别,其中最重要的是立宪主义。俄国自由主义在实质方面与西方自由主义相同,但它的形成与发展过程困难重重,缺少相应的社会环境。俄国自由派脱离人民,成为一种“少数人的运动”,并且由于诸多原因最终走向失败。     

The state of environmental protection in the Russian Federation: a review of the post-Soviet era

Abstract

In the 25 years since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, sweeping political, economic, and social changes have profoundly influenced environmental protection in Russia, the world’s largest country and one of global importance with respect to natural resources, biodiversity conservation, wilderness preservation, and climate change mitigation. This paper reviews the state of the environment by assessing post-Soviet era changes to legislation, government regulatory institutions, and civil society. A gulf exists between Russia’s formal environmental laws and state agency capacity and interest in enforcing them. This stems, in part, from repeated bureaucratic reorganizations that have progressively eroded environmental institutions. The Russian environmental movement, which blossomed during Gorbachev’s reforms in the late 1980s, struggled in the 1990s to mobilize the broader public due to economic hardship and political instability. Since then, the Putin administration has labeled many environmental groups “anti-Russian” and used aggressive tactics such as raiding NGO offices, intimidating journalists, and instituting severe legislative measures to quash advocacy and dissent. Post-Soviet environmental successes have been relatively few, with expansion of the protected area system and forest certification notable exceptions. These successes can partially be attributed to efforts by large environmental organizations, but expansion of certification and corporate social responsibility is also tied to Russian business interests dependent on natural resource export to global markets increasingly sensitive to environmental concerns. The paper concludes by illustrating how corruption, poor enforcement, and the muzzling of civil society render the state incapable of resolving arguably its most significant environmental challenge: illegal and unregulated resource use.     

The futures of ethnic groups in the Russian Federation

The changes, sometimes dramatic, in the size and structure of the ethnic groups of the Russian Federation (RF) raise questions about their possible futures. The paper presents simulations of how ethnic groups of the RF could develop in the future and discusses the demographic aspects of the predicted changes. The simulations cover a 25-year period, from 1 January 2011 to 1 January 2036 and were prepared for the 22 most numerous ethnic groups using a multistate cohort-component population dynamics model. To prepare the assumptions for the simulations, ethnicity-specific data (no longer collected) on fertility, mortality, and international migration were used. The results indicate that in the coming 20 years Russia will face numerous challenges related to the changes in the size, age structure, and ethnic composition of its population. The population of the RF will age and, except in the “Modernization” scenario, will shrink. Non-Slavic and Muslim populations will increase their share in the total population at the expense of Slavic and Orthodox ethnic groups and will age more slowly.     

The Upper Paleolithic of the Russian steppe zone

The vast steppe area North of the Black Sea has been populated since the early Middle Paleolithic. The number of known sites dating to the Upper Paleolithic is increasing as research progresses, and today about 150 Upper Paleolithic sites have received some (although varied) degree of study. For a long time, the steppe zone was considered to have had a separate cultural-economic adaptation that differed drastically from that found in the periglacial province farther north. The difference was expressed in the specialization in bison hunting and in the very high mobility of the population. More recent archaeological research, described briefly in this article, presents a different picture: Subsistence was more varied, hunting was not limited to bison, and the settlement system indicates long periods of occupation of the sites. There were many local archaeological cultures, and study of the material remains indicates numerous contacts between the people of the steppe zone and those in Central Europe and the Caucasus and, by way of the Caucasus, with Western Asia.     

基于模糊综合评价的标识牌解说效果研究——以北京松山国家级自然保护区为例

标识牌是目前被运用最为广泛的解说媒介之一,但我国现阶段对自然保护区标识牌的研究偏重于规划设计方法与内容,对其解说效果的研究明显不足。本文基于以上背景,选择具有代表性的北京松山国家级自然保护区为研究区,从游客视角出发对标识牌解说效果进行研究。运用因子分析法,构建了研究区标识牌评估指标体系,包括标识牌外型、解说技巧和解说内容等三个方面共21项因子。并采用多层次模糊评价法,定量评价了研究区标识牌的解说效果。评估结果表明,研究区标识牌外型因子和解说内容因子解说效果中等,解说技巧因子解说效果较差。     

俄国近代政治恐怖主义的源流

俄国近代政治恐怖主义被视为近现代国际恐怖主义之源,而涅恰耶夫被视为政治恐怖主义的“鼻祖”。他的极端主义的理论思想、政治主张和活动方式,不仅对19世纪七八十年代俄国的社会政治运动,而且对民意党和社会革命党,都产生了极其重要的影响。而民意党和社会革命党的恐怖主义理论、组织原则、宣传和行动方式,则为当代国际恐怖主义组织所继承。     

乾隆时期中俄外交争议中的土尔扈特部问题

本对乾隆时期土尔扈特部东归的原因、清朝对土尔扈特部的政策以及清朝和俄罗斯因土尔扈特部东归而产生的交涉等进行了探讨。认为土尔扈特部族东归乃是基于现实状况的考虑,为了该族生存的空间而做出的决定。     

The Geography of Crime and Punishment in the Russian Federation

A UK-based team of two geographers and a criminologist presents the results of its ongoing investigation of the geography of Russia's prison system, which in 2011 is in the early stages of transition from housing inmates in communal barracks (regardless of the severity of their crimes) to one more similar to that in the United States, in which facilities are differentiated to accommodate the entire spectrum of inmates from those housed in maximum security prisons (cellblocks) to minimum security institutions ("colony settlements"). The authors seek to determine whether a Soviet-era spatial bias in the location of facilities persists in presentday Russia by comparing the location of prisons across regions with the distribution of the country's population as well as the per capita incidence of recorded crimes and serious crimes.     

俄国革命中的立宪会议问题

立宪会议问题对于1917年俄国革命进程具有重大影响。立宪会议被赋予解决所有迫切问题的重负,承载了人民群众的主要期待和希望,但临时政府受继续进行战争的政策牵制,没有把它作为紧迫的任务来解决,因而延缓了和平、土地、民族等迫切问题的解决。十月前后布尔什维克对立宪会议的态度从积极主张到彻底否定,这一变化除了现实政治原因之外,也有思想理论上的根源。而俄国社会、经济、文化的相对落后,是影响立宪会议命运的深层因素。     

The impact of Russian food security policy on the performance of the food system

Abstract

Food security has guided Russia’s food policy since 2010. The article examines the impact of food security policy on the food system. The Russian model of food security combines government intervention in the form of assistance for domestic production while simultaneously restricting market access. Food security does not appear to have a deleterious impact on the food system. We measure impact on four dimensions. Financial support for agriculture continues to increase in nominal rubles. In food production, the beef and dairy branches continue to lag, but increased grain production has made Russia a global leader in grain exports. Average per capita food consumption improved, although the poor consume much less, and the decline of the ruble affects the way Russians shop. The largest impact of food security has been on food trade. Food security policy has brought food to the forefront as an instrument of foreign policy. Food trade is politicized, witnessed by the food embargo against the West and food import bans against Turkey and Ukraine.     

中国自然保护地立法模式探析

建立自然保护地是有效保护和合理利用自然资源的重要举措。法制建设是自然保护地建设和管理的重要基础与有力保障。自然保护地建设过程中发生的种种矛盾,归根到底是利益相关者之间的利益冲突,为此政府必须提供平衡各方利益的制度保障。中国现有的类型化部门立法与其他法律规范相结合的自然保护地立法模式存在立法层级低、法制协调性不足、立法体系封闭、保护对象不明确等缺陷。考虑到自然的整体性和调整利益冲突的有效性,我们应该选择综合性框架立法作为中国自然保护地立法的理想模式。     

Representations of the Chudes in Norwegian and Russian Folklore

Abstract

The objectives of this article are (1) to reveal the meaning (semantics) of the word “Chude” in Norwegian and Russian cultures; (2) to analyze Russian and Norwegian legends about the Chudes in order to define the main plot-constructing elements. When writing this article the authors used a synchronous and diachronous methods of analysis of material that was written down in a period that exceeds one and a half centuries. In etymological sense the word “Chude” (tsjude or Cud) can be derivative form from old Slavic form *tjudjo (strange, foreign) that can in its turn be borrowing from a Gothic or a German word that got the meaning “a nation” (folk). With the Sami the word “tshudde”/ “shutte” means an enemy, an adversary. The image of the Chudes has been preserved in Russian and Norwegian narrative traditions. Oral stories in Norway are called sagn. In Russian folkoristic narratives about the Chudes are traditionally called “predanie”.

The ethnonym “Chude” has a collective meaning in Russian and Norwegian folklore. In Norwegian culture it means plunderers of different ethnical belonging who came from the East to plunder the local population in the Northern Norway. As the undertaken research has shown, this name could have been applicable to Russian, Finns, Karelians, Kvens and peoples speaking Nordic languages (Swedes). In the Russian cultural tradition the name “Chude” was used to name different Finno-Ugric peoples living in the North-West Russia before the Russians came there and who later assimilated with the Russians. The Kola Sami called Swedes and Norwegians who came to them from the west to plunder the Chudes. The existence of a people in the same name in the old times is not excluded. The research carried out by place name scientists reveals that this people could be related to the Baltic-Finnish group of peoples.

The word Chude has historical and mythological aspects. Folk legends about the Chudes have “preserved” memories about the historical past of the northern region. Additionally this ethnonym contains conceptions of the world's binary character that are typical for archaic consciousness. Folk legends about the Chudes are widespread in the European North of Russia while plots about militant and plundering Chudes are localized in traditional Sami regions of Russia and Norway. In folk legends and sagn, the Russians and the Sami belong to one's “own” world, while the Chudes are associated with the concepts of the “strangers”. This nomination acquired the meaning “a stranger”, “a robber”.     

Growth in the International Reserves of Russia,China, and India: A Comparison of Underlying Mechanisms

A noted international specialist on the Russian economy compares the different mechanisms by which the emerging powerful economies of Russia, China, and India accumulated substantial foreign reserves during the 2000s in the lead-up to the global financial crisis. He also investigates the costs incurred by these countries of intervention into exchange markets to maintain exchange rate regimes supporting such accumulation, as well as measures undertaken after the crisis to address sudden and massive outflows of foreign private capital and considerable decreases in demand for imports in developed countries. The author argues that each of the three countries can be viewed as a prototype for a particular means of reserve accumulation among emerging market countries that has led to the revival of the Bretton Woods international monetary system.     

The Structure of Russian Industrial Exports in Comparative Perspective

A British economist presents a comparative study focused on the change in the technological structure of Russia's high- and medium-technology industrial exports. The export profiles of 19 countries in the post-communist region, including the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe are compared with those of China, India, Brazil, Mexico, and Indonesia. Classifying 260 export activities for each of the 24 countries according to the level of technology intensity required in production, the author measures change in export structures by employing the Krugman Specialization Index and the Balassa Index of Revealed Comparative Advantage. The results of measures are followed by a discussion of implications for the future development of high-tech industries and higher value-added exports in Russia. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: F14, O11, O30, P50. 4 figures, 2 tables, 36 references.     

俄罗斯远东的经济发展与中国人的作用

分析了远东地区经济发展落后的历史、地理、人口等原因,对中国人在沙皇俄国时期、前苏联和俄罗斯联邦等不同时期,在远东地区经济发展中的作用进行了论述,并对远东地区同中国开展经贸合作的必然性及中国人在远东地区的前景进行了展望。     

Russian Investment in the Commonwealth of Independent States

The paper by three RAND Corporation specialists analyzes the extent, rationale, and role of Russian investment in other member states of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Based on a unique, comprehensive survey, it evaluates differences between Russian and Western investors—in particular, the effects of Russian business practices in promoting or retarding reforms directed at expanding market activities, improving governance, and reducing corruption. The authors also assess the extent of Russian government involvement in investment decisions and explore whether that government has an operational agenda for encouraging investment in other countries of the CIS. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: F21, F23, O18. 4 figures, 4 tables, 37 references, 2 appendices.     

The Impact of State-Controlled Banks on the Russian Banking Sector

A senior Russian economist examines the structure, governance, and balance sheets of state-controlled banks in Russia, which accounted for over 55 percent of the total assets in the country's banking system in early 2011. The author offers a credible estimate of the size of the country's state banking sector by including banks that are indirectly owned by public organizations. Contrary to some predictions based on the theoretical literature on economic transition, he explains the relatively high profitability and efficiency of Russian state-controlled banks by pointing to their competitive position in such functions as acquisition and disposal of assets on behalf of the government. Also suggested in the paper is a different way of looking at market concentration in Russia (by consolidating the market shares of core state-controlled banks), which produces a picture of a more concentrated market than officially reported. Lastly, one of the author's interesting conclusions is that China provides a better benchmark than the formerly centrally planned economies of Central and Eastern Europe by which to assess the viability of state ownership of banks in Russia and to evaluate the country's banking sector.