Don’t mention Transnistria: Moldova on the eve of elections

Alexa Chopivsky 25 November 2010

On Sunday, Moldova goes to the polling booths for the fourth time in nineteen months. Despite the best efforts of leading politicians to emphasize a multi-vectored foreign policy, most Moldovans still see the election as a straight choice between the EU and Russia. Alexa Chopivsky interviews Prime Minister Vlad Filat.

Tbilisi: tearing down the past

George Nonidze 23 November 2010
Charming old buildings in Georgia’s capital Tbilisi, often listed, are being pulled down and the city disfigured. International organisations are pouring grants and loans into rebuilding projects, but there is little accountability and no building control, laments George Nonidze.

After Lisbon, what next?

Jana Kobzova 19 November 2010

This weekend world leaders are assembling in Lisbon to discuss a new NATO security concept for Europe. Yet in focusing on external threats, the alliance is likely to ignore significant back-yard tensions. The continent would be wise to look elsewhere to ensure its long-term security, writes Jana Kobzova.

Elections in Kyrgyzstan: a step towards democracy?

Asel Doolotkeldieva 18 November 2010

Will Kyrgyzstan’s progress towards democracy, initiated after the April Revolution, be undermined by victory of the non-democratic parties at the recent parliamentary elections? Or might possibly these parties surprise everyone and accept the changes? Asel Doolotkeldieva weighs up the probable outcomes.

The road to electoral perfection in Kyrgyzstan

Alexey Semyonov, Baktybek Abdrisaev, and Kuban Taabaldiev 18 November 2010
Kyrgyzstan’s October parliamentary elections revealed a number of teething problems in law and systems, write Alexey Semyonov, Baktybek Abdrisaev and Kuban Taabaldiev. The Kyrgyz electoral bodies would be well minded to adopt an holistic approach to solving them — from the introduction of technological solutions such as e-voting, to involving key stakeholders in the counting process.

Time for the human approach

Mary Kaldor and Javier Solana 15 November 2010
Dmitry Medvedev’s proposal for a new post-cold war security order offers a significant opportunity for the world. But both the West and Russia need to move on from conventional security logic, and think in terms of the human, argue Mary Kaldor and Javier Solana.

Towards the Rehabilitation of Law: interview with Bill Bowring

Masha Karp 4 November 2010

Bill Bowring is well known to anybody interested in international law, and especially in human rights in Russia. Professor of Law at Birkbeck College and a practising barrister, it was he who in 2002 established the European Human Rights Advocacy Centre, which has since helped many applicants, mainly from Chechnya, to take their cases to the European Court of Human Rights. In 2008 Bowring published his book “The Degradation of the International Legal Order?”. Masha Karp talks to Professor Bowring about this book, about justice in Russia and about the relation between theory and practice in his work.

Don’t be quick to judge the new Ukraine

Alexander Feldman MP 28 October 2010
Foreign analysis of contemporary Ukrainian politics has alleged a black-white conversion from freedom to autocracy. The reality is much more nuanced than that, says Ukrainian MP Alexander Feldman

Daring to speak out in Belarus

Olga Birukova 28 October 2010
A chilling account of brave journalists in Lukashenka’s Belarus, so many of whom die in unexplained circumstances. Olga Birukova hopes that Western PR gurus and journalists will not be taken in by official statements or the KGB-controlled picture of society in Belarus.

Ukraine’s constitutional debate: finding the way forward

Andreas Umland 26 October 2010
A vital national debate about constitutional reform is under way in Ukraine. But the debate often takes no account of international political discussions or recent scholarly research. Can the new regime embrace this opportunity to lay down the foundations of a democratic future for Ukraine? Andreas Umland throws down the challenge

Georgia at a crossroads: after the post-war

Jonathan Wheatley 22 October 2010
In Tbilisi, memories of the bitter conflict with Russia in August 2008 are fresh, but everywhere too are signs that forces of change are pushing Georgia in new directions. Jonathan Wheatley takes the measure of a fluid political moment.

Get real about ‘enlarging Europe’

Denis Corboy, William Courtney, and Kenneth Yalowitz 21 October 2010
Membership of EU and NATO continues to be a thorny question for the countries of Eastern Europe and for Turkey. Arrangements short of full membership offer economic and security benefits and should be the way forward, contend Denis Corboy, William Courtney and Kenneth Yalowitz

Tajikistan’s marginalised youth

Sophie Roche and John Heathershaw 20 October 2010
Armed conflict has been raging for almost a month in the mountains of the Kamarob gorge between the forces of the Government of Tajikistan and local ‘mujohids’. This is the most serious political violence in Tajikistan for ten years. Here, in the second of a two-part article, Sophie Roche and John Heathershaw draw on ethnographic research and contacts with residents of the region to explain the nature of contemporary ‘Islamic radicalism’ in the area and the possible causes and dynamics of the current violence.

Conflict in Tajikistan – not really about radical Islam

Sophie Roche and John Heathershaw 19 October 2010
For almost a month, an armed conflict has been raging in the mountains of the Kamarob gorge between the forces of the Government of Tajikistan and local ‘mujohids’. This is the most serious political violence in Tajikistan for ten years. Here, in the first of a two-part article, Sophie Roche and John Heathershaw draw on ethnographic research and contacts with residents of the region to explain the legacy of the civil war and the social and political contexts of this largely unreported conflict.

Kyrgyzstan: reform starts with education

Scott Horton and Baktybek Abdrisaev 18 October 2010
Kyrgyzstan could be the first Central Asian parliamentary democracy. But the southern region has first to be reconciled and stabilized. The way forward is to use the well established Kyrgyz traditions of education to teach acceptance of ethnic diversity in schools and universities, explain Scott Horton and Baktybek Abdrisaev.

The Russian media

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Russia-China

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The new year in Russia

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Russia's new economy

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Russian rights at the crossroads

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Beyond the gastarbeiter: post-Soviet migration

Madeleine Reeves (Manchester University, UK) presents the other side of post-Soviet migration.

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Regions

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Russia's year of elections

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Women, tradition and power in the North Caucasus

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Project_ID

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Privatizatsiya, twenty years on

Russian economy: trying to please people doesn’t help, Dmitry Travin

Privatisation, but no private property, Andrei Zaostrovtsev

Is corruption in Russia's DNA?, Pyotr Filippov

The Russian banking system: between the market and the state, Pavel Usanov

Russia’s crony capitalism: the swing of the pendulum, Vladimir Gelman

Russian reforms, twenty years on. Introduction to the series, Dmitry Travin

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