Implementing Human Rights Norms : A Case Study of Russia's Partial Compliance to ECHR Protocol No. 6
In December 1991, Russia started down the road of its post-Soviet existence. The re-emergence of Russia as a separate, independent entity compelled the state to come to terms with its revived national identity. Russia’s relationship with the West lay at the core of the challenge to define what Russia is and how it should relate to the outside world. Opinion divided over whether Russia should rapidly integrate with Europe and “return to the civilized community of nations” or whether it should seek “a strengthening of Russia’s positions in the East” and rather pursue its unique mission as a mediator between the East and West. Against this backdrop I have analysed Russia’s membership in the Council of Europe (CoE) and Russia’s partial compliance to the European Convention on the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR) Protocol No. 6, which refer to the abolishment of the death penalty in peacetime. Employing constructivist insights, I argue that this partial compliance is explained by the lack of a coherent and widely accepted national identity. Due to different perceptions of Russia’s identity among various state actors, identities collide, and interests, and consequently action, will be in a competing and conflictual relationship to each other. Thus, norm compliance is challenged when identities overlap and their norms conflict. This, I argue, is evident in Russia’s relationship with the European ideational community and the country’s dealing with the death penalty issue. The more Russian state actors value the European identity of their state, the more they will seek to comply with “European” norms, such as the strong European abolitionist norm, and vice versa. In my analysis, I also discuss whether it is right to completely dismiss rational explanations to Russia’s partial compliance. In this way I bring my case into the midst of the rational–constructivist debate in International Relations theory. Contributing to this debate, I investigate whether an either-or approach is the most productive way of explaining Russia’s ideational behaviour or whether rational and constructivist assumptions combined may shed new light on how to understand Russian compliance with international human rights norms or the lack of such.
As safe as the Bank? : Household financial behaviour and economic reasoning in post-soviet Russia
This study examines the financial behaviour of Russian households from the collapse of communism to the financial melt down in August 1998. By transforming savings into investment, financial intermediaries are important to economic growth. In post-Soviet Russia, financial intermediaries were increasingly unable to attract new household savings, as people turned to foreign currency. What determined the allocation of household savings? The study considers the three main alternatives households could turn to: The state savings bank; commercial financial companies; and foreign currency, mainly dollars. But how do we go about to explain the behaviour of millions of individuals over time? Economists usually assume that people maximise returns on their assets. Financial behaviour would then reflect economic variables such as interest rate, exchange rate and inflation. Such a view fits uneasily with observed behaviour in post-Soviet Russia. However, why would people not allocate their savings in the most profitable way? This study holds that to understand why people do what they do, we should listen carefully - although not uncritically - to what they say and how they say it. On this view, we can explain the behaviour of individuals only if we can understand them. And - since social phenomena are constituted by the behaviour of individuals - such understanding is crucial to the causal explanation of macro level phenomena. The historical narrative thus becomes an important vehicle for explanation of the contemporary world. Through analysis of discourses on financial institutions, as they appeared in newspapers of the day and as I have been able to gather from interviews conducted in 2004, this study identifies certain dramatic events that altered the way Russians perceived different financial institutions and their view on trust, risk and profitability, and finds that such changes in perception go a long way to explain the changes in observed behaviour in this period.
Stalin i postsovjetisk nasjonalbolsjevisme
Ikke bare ortodokse marxist-leninister så med sorg på Sovjetunionens oppløsning. I hele sovjetperioden fantes det også patrioter og nasjonalister som støttet aktiv opp om det kommunistiske regimet. Denne uensartede gruppen av «medløpere» kalles gjerne for nasjonalbolsjeviker. De betraktet Sovjetunionen som en fortsettelse av det russiske imperiet og Stalin som en arvtaker etter de største tsarene. Det paradoksale er at det i dag, mer enn et tiår etter Sovjetunionens oppløsning, fortsatt finnes representanter for denne tradisjonen. Etter at kommunismens maktmonopol ble brutt, står de nå fritt til å uttrykke sine tanker og søke inspirasjon hvor de måtte finne den. Aleksandr Dugin, Gennadij Zjuganov og Aleksandr Prochanov er alle aktive publisister og fremtredende representanter for postsovjetisk nasjonalbolsjevisme. I dette notatet brukes en idéhistorisk undersøkelse av deres syn på Stalin som verktøy til å finne ut hvordan nasjonalbolsjevismen har utviklet seg etter kommunismens fall. Studien viser at nasjonalbolsjevismen ideologisk sett har opplevd en blomstring i tiden etter Sovjetunionens sammenbrudd. Den har utviklet seg i flere retninger, men et hovedtrekk er at retorikken er blitt mer intolerant og hatefull. «Medløperideologien» er nå blitt revisjonistisk. Sovjetperiodens nasjonalbolsjeviker ønsket å bevare staten og systemet. Dugin, Zjuganov og Prochanov går inn for å gjenopprette Sovjetunionen, gjerne i form av et enda større eurasiatisk imperium med en ny Stalin på tronen. Dessuten rettferdiggjør de Stalins utrenskninger i større grad enn sine åndsbrødre fra sovjettiden. I tråd med sin bipolære verdensanskuelse deler Dugin, Zjuganov og Prochanov mennesker inn i venner og fiender av den russiske nasjon. De mener Stalins utrenskninger kun var rettet mot dem som ville Russland vondt og ønsker seg et nytt, brutalt oppgjør med dagens fiender.
A Gap in OSCE Conflict Prevention? : Local Media and Inter-Ethnic Conflict in the Former Soviet Union
This paper argues that local media have been of great importance in the escalation of inter-ethnic conflicts in the former Soviet Union, and that conflict prevention by the OSCE in the region initially did not focus appropriately on media issues. During the past few years, however, media issues have increasingly come to preoccupy the OSCE, chiefly in connection with human rights issues and freedom of speech, but to some extent also as an element of conflict prevention. The importance of local media for OSCE conflict prevention is analysed in terms of the activities of the High Commissioner for National Minorities and Representative on Freedom of the Media, and OSCE annual reports.
Ways of improvement in the Russian labour market with emphasis on the shadow employment
The report discusses the main peculiarities of the Russian labour market, such as the relatively low unemployment, the prevailing shadow labour relationships and the overmanning in the public sector. The report is organised as follows. The first part aims to highlight the main aspects of the Russian labour market development and some peculiarities of the shadow employment in Russia. The second part presents the model, and applications of possible government policies for the labour market are discussed in the third part. The last part concludes.
Partnership and Discord: Russia and the construction of a post Cold War security architecture in Europe 1991–2000
This study analyses Russia’s approach to the construction of a post-Cold War security architecture in Europe from 1991 to 2000. The author examines tensions, contradictions and ambiguities in Russia’s policy that contributed to making both partnership and discord ingredients to Russian–Western security relations. For instance, how can we understand Russia’s intense opposition to NATO enlargement and NATO’s out-of-area operations in light of Russia’s own formalised cooperation with the Western alliance? And how can we conceive of Moscow’s enduring position that the OSCE should be the ‘cornerstone’ of Europe’s security architecture, considering what many observers have interpreted as Russian obstruction of, and non-compliance with, OSCE decisions and norms? The author seeks to answer these questions by tracing the Russian debate on national identity and foreign policy that emerged in the wake of Soviet dissolution.
Damage Limitation and Decline in Institutional Powers: Russia’s Perception of the EU as a Security Actor 1999–2002
The report will discuss whether or not Russian interest and endorsement of the EU’s security and defense dimension repeated the overall strategic perspective of the Primakov doctrine, which aimed at counterbalancing US unipolarism by playing on the differences between the US and Europe in international affairs. I ask this question since analysts are not equivocal to this end. Some suggest that “Primakov’s fall from power has not undercut the importance of multipolarity in Russian foreign policy. By analyzing perceptions, I seek to highlight the dominating trends in the discourse on the EU in Russia. This involves a broad orientation with regard to sources. Russia has engaged in a comprehensive debate on relating to the EU and NATO within the field of security, and the report draws on vast material from the security debate within research circles and official speeches and newspaper reports. Perceptions will be linked to the interpretive approaches of damage limitation or declining institutional powers. A definition of these two approaches will be given below.
Strengthening Cooperative Threat Reduction with Russia : The Norwegian Experience
Many nuclear safety and security challenges remain in Northwest Russia. Years of international cooperation – and substantial funding – are required to deal with the legacy of the extensive nuclear activities of the Cold War. Among the more urgent projects that call for international attention are the safe dismantling of nuclear attack submarines and clean-up at naval storage facilities, e.g. at Andreeva Bay. For nearly a decade, Norway and other countries have been working cooperatively with Russia to improve the situation. While important progress has been made, much of the foreign support has come with some hard-learned experiences. However, the dialog established, the cooperative framework institutionalized, and today’s understanding of the respective concerns, priorities, and practices of the actors involved should create a sound basis for new rounds of cooperative and concerted efforts to limit the persistent nuclear security and safety risks in the region. In this report, past and ongoing activities for remedial actions in Northwest Russia are assessed, and suggestions for continued and improved cooperation are presented. The survey has been conducted as part of the Norwegian contribution to the international research consortium on «Strengthening the Global Partnership: Protecting Against the Spread of Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Weapons».