Transatlantic Security – Challenges and Opportunities
In this project NUPI analyzes developments in transatlantic security policy together with researchers from CSIS in the United States and RUSI in the United Kingdom. The aim of the project is to contri...
“Victims of Democracy” or “Enemies at the Gates”? Russian Discourses on the European “Refugee Crisis”
With over one million people arriving in Europe as refugees, the UN Refugee Agency declared 2015 “the year of Europe’s refugee crisis.” This article explores the meaning-making process surrounding the “refugee crisis” in a Russian context, using discourse theory to analyze representations of refugees, Russia, and the West in opinion pieces and interview articles in three major Russian newspapers. In addition to the humanitarian and security discourses presented in existing studies, I identify a geopolitical discourse that represents refugees as victims of interventionism and democratization processes that the West has promoted in the Middle East and North Africa. More generally, this study adds to the literature on discursive construction of identity and difference.
Migrant Workers in Russia. Global Challenges and the Shadow Economy in Societal Transformation
Moen-Larsen reviews Migrant Workers in Russia. Global Challenges and the Shadow Economy in Societal Transformation edited by Anna-Liisa Heusala, Kaarina Aitamurto and published by Routledge.
Putins propagandaproblem
In this op-ed, Moen-Larsen and Gjerde write about the propaganda that has characterized the official Russian media coverage of the so-called “special military operation” in Ukraine.
Brothers and barbarians: Discursive constructions of ‘refugees’ in Russian media
This article maps the unexplored terrain of representations of refugees in Russian media, using discourse theory and the concepts of subject positions and symbolic boundaries to analyse these representations. The research questions are: Who are the refugees? What discourses do they feature in? What kinds of symbolic boundaries do these representations maintain? This study analyses the three Russian newspapers Izvestija, Novaya gazeta and Rossiiskaya gazeta, focusing on how, between 1 January 2014 and 31 December 2015, these newspapers came to employ the term ‘refugee’ for persons from Ukraine and for those from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Analysis of the subject position of ‘refugee’ in discourses about security, humanitarianism, integration and nationalism reveals contrasting images of refugees from Ukraine and MENA refugees. The latter are represented as ‘threatening’ and ‘alien’: symbolic boundaries are maintained between Russians and these refugees as well as between ‘superior’ Russia and ‘inferior’ Europe. In contrast, refugees from Ukraine are often presented as similar to Russians. Nationalist discourse merges with security, humanitarian and integration discourses, creating contrasting symbolic boundaries between these two groups of refugees and Russians. Refugees are classed as ‘preferred’ or ‘non-preferred’ migrants on the basis not of their situation, but their ethnicity.
Suitcase – shelling – Russia’: narratives about refugees from Ukraine in Russian media.
The armed conflict in South-East Ukraine has brought a massive increase in refugees in the Russian Federation. This article examines the meaning-making process surrounding the sudden presence of these refugees, through analysis of narratives in three major national newspapers – Izvestiya, Novaya gazeta and Rossiiskaya gazeta –1 June – 30 September 2014. Three thematic groups of narratives predominated: about war, about refugee reception and aid, and about Russia in international relations. These give meaning to the subject-position “refugees from Ukraine” primarily as war victims and aid recipients.
Russkii as the New Rossiiskii? Nation-Building in Russia After 1991
Russia’s post-1991 nation-building project has been torn between competing interpretations of national identity. Whereas the other former Soviet republics opted for nation-building centered on the titular nation, Russia’s approach to national identity was framed by the fact that the RSFSR had been defined not as a designated national homeland but as a multi-ethnic federation. This, coupled with Russia’s definition as the legal successor of the Soviet Union, suggesting continuity and a history of uninterrupted statehood, has enabled a range of rivaling understandings of how to define the “nation.” Focusing on top-down official nation-building, this article examines how, against a backdrop of shifting political contexts, structural constraints, and popular attitudes, the Kremlin has gradually revised its understanding of what constitutes the “Russian nation.” Four models for post-Soviet Russian nation-building are identified – the ethnic, the multi-national, the civic, and the imperial. Over time, the correlation of forces among these has shifted. The article concludes that, despite some claims of an ethno-nationalist turn after 2014, the Kremlin still employs nationalism instrumentally: National identity has undoubtedly become more russkii-centered, but, at the same time, the Kremlin keeps the definition of “Russianness” intentionally vague, blurring the boundaries between “nation” and “civilization.”
PODCAST: Er Sikkerhetsrådet i krise?
How Important Are Traditional Values for Putin’s Support?
May Putin in fact be losing more support than he is winning when he “talks conservative”?
RUSMENA round tables in Rome and Florence on 1 and 2 June 2022