City Elections in Kuban (Spring — Autumn 1919)

The article is devoted to the elections to the city councils of the Kuban Territory, which took place in the spring and autumn of 1919. The author dwells in detail on the Kuban electoral law, according to which, for the first time in Russia, a rather rare electoral system — раnаchage — was used, and on the results of its application. Election campaigns in Yekaterinodar and other cities of the region are considered, the results of voting and the composition of councillors are analyzed. By the example of Yekaterinodar, the difference in electoral preferences of residents of “bourgeois” and “proletarian” regions is shown, as well as the influence of the educational and property level, occupation on the political preferences of the townspeople. Special attention is paid to the story of the murder in the editorial office of the newspaper “Utro Yuga”, which was caused by the struggle between moderately socialist electoral associations, and one of the immediate reasons was S. Ya. Marshak's election poems. The general results of the elections show that in most cities of the region the victory was won by the “right” homeowners' lists, but the author believes that the reason for this was not so much a change in the mood of the masses as the absenteeism of the left and centrist electorate.

Political evolution of the Sevastopol workers and the far left of ‘Southern Russia’ during the French intervention in 1918–1919

This article describes and analyses shifts in political preferences among Sevastopol workers during French intervention (November 1918 – May 1919). After outlining the social landscape of the city during the Russian Civil War, this paper focuses on the interactions between workers, foreign sailors and political parties. The aim of this article is to study the Bolshevisation of Sevastopol's working class based on the paths of several local workers. From the distribution of revolutionary leaflets to agitation in cafés, canteens, and factories, and many other illegal activities, what were the Bolsheviks' tactics to rally local workers to their cause?

Language, Ethnicity, and Separatism: Survey Results from Two Post-Soviet Regions

Scholars often use language to proxy ethnic identity in studies of conflict and separatism. This conflation of language and ethnicity is misleading: language can cut across ethnic divides and itself has a strong link to identity and social mobility. Language can therefore influence political preferences independently of ethnicity. Results from an original survey of two post-Soviet regions support these claims. Statistical analyses demonstrate that individuals fluent in a peripheral lingua franca are more likely to support separatism than those who are not, while individuals fluent in the language of the central state are less likely to support separatist outcomes. Moreover, linguistic fluency shows a stronger relationship with support for separatism than ethnic identification. These results provide strong evidence that scholars should disaggregate language and ethnic identity in their analyses: language can be more salient for political preferences than ethnicity, and the most salient languages may not even be ethnic.

The Two Faces of the ‘Global Right’: Revolutionary Conservatives and National-Conservatives

Studies of the Global Right usually trace its intellectual underpinnings to the revolutionary conservative New Right and its ideas claiming to defend an ‘ethno-pluralist’ European identity from the multiculturalist threat of a ‘Great Replacement’ through immigration. A second lineage, which we refer to as ‘national-conservative’, is less explored and is more concerned with threats to moral order and the loss of moral bearing due to liberalism’s relativism. These two intellectual lineages, and corresponding political alignments, engender different political projects of the Global Right, which is not that coherent as it seems. Taking a long-term historical-ideational perspective that underlines the power of ideologies as templates, we argue that a closer look at the different intellectual traditions of the Global Right can help explain the contrasting political preferences for socio-economic action, institution-building and transnational cooperation.

Resisting autocratization: the protest–repression nexus in Hong Kong's Anti-ELAB Movement

This introductory essay outlines the core themes of the special issue on the rise and fall of Hong Kong's Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement. In the essay, we highlight several theoretical and empirical contributions the featured papers make to our understanding of the protest–repression nexus from the onset of the movement to the imposition of the National Security Law. First, we describe the political and social contexts of the movement. Second, we present our empirical findings on Hong Kongers' political preferences. Finally, we highlight new research avenues arising from this special issue.

Anti-ELAB Movement, National Security Law, and heterogeneous institutional trust in Hong Kong

How does repression on opposition protests affect citizens' institutional trust under dictatorships? There has been a burgeoning literature investigating empirically both long- and short-term impacts of protests and their repression on citizens' political preferences in both democratic and nondemocratic contexts. Yet, the literature tells us relatively little about how the above question could be answered. This paper tries to answer this question by taking advantage of a recent natural experiment in Hong Kong when Beijing suddenly adopted the National Security Law (NSL) in June 2020 to repress dissidents' protest mobilization. Our findings are twofold. First of all, the NSL drove a wedge in the Hong Kong society by making the pro-establishment camp more satisfied with the post-NSL institutions on the one hand, while alienating the pro-democracy camp who lost tremendous trust in them on the other. Second, our study also reveals that one's trust in institutions is significantly associated with the regimes' ability to curb protesters' contentious mobilization. The Hong Kongers who had higher confidence in the NSL to rein in protests would also have a greater level of trust than those who didn't. The effect, however, is substantially smaller among pro-democracy Hong Kongers except for their trust in monitoring institutions. As Beijing is transforming Hong Kong's current institutions from within hopes of bringing about a new political equilibrium, our study helps provide a timely assessment of Hong Kong's institutional landscape and sheds light on how likely this strategy can work.

Misje stabilizacyjne w badaniach opinii publicznej w Europie Środkowej na przykładzie społeczeństwa polskiego po 1989 roku

The purpose of this article is to analyse changes in public opinion polls about the participation of the Polish Army in stabilization missions after 1989. The research material consists of two parts. The first includes CBOS surveys from 1994 to 2016 and the second part includes a research project entitled “Political preferences. Attitudes – identifications – behaviour” carried out in 2018. After municipal elections in 2018, respondents answered questions prepared as part of a questionnaire based on a five-point Likert scale. The respondents answered the question: In your opinion, does Poland’s engagement in foreign stabilization missions ensure Poland’s security? and evaluated the statement: I support Polish involvement in foreign stabilization missions. The overview of CBOS surveys and questions within the project shows the analysis of the fluctuation of views on the participation of the Polish Army in the activities abroad. As a result of the research, it can be pointed out that the Polish public opinion undergoes numerous changes under the influence of the dynamics of the international situation, the feeling of threat and destabilization, as well as historical conditions.