The Russian Siloviki & Political Change

Daedalus ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 146 (2) ◽  
pp. 53-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian D. Taylor

The siloviki – Russian security and military personnel – are a key part of Team Putin. They are not, however, a coherent group, and there are important organizational and factional cleavages among the siloviki. Compared with some security and military forces around the world, Russian military and security forces generally lack the attributes that would make them a proactive and cohesive actor in bringing about fundamental political change in Russia. In the face of potential revolutionary change, most Russian military and security bodies do not have the cohesion or the will to defend the regime with significant violence. Russian siloviki are a conservativeforce supportive of the status quo. Future efforts by the siloviki to maintain the stability of the existing political order are most likely to be reactive, divided, and behind the scenes.

Articult ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 80-92
Author(s):  
Ksenia K. Eltsova ◽  

The article analyzes the reviews of female and male fashion collections published in the “Style” supplement of the “Kommersant” newspaper during the year 2009. The “Kommersant”, the leading quality publication in Russia in the 2000s, positioned itself as a media for the financial, political and cultural elite of the country, and thus presented a case extremely interesting for discourse analysis. Namely, the world financial crisis of 2008 turned out to be a threat situation to the status quo of the elites of the moment. The situation required articulation of the belonging to the group (elite), more intense than before the crisis. I examined how the system of status markers – the discursive “semiotics of distinction” proposed to the target audience as a strategy for group identification – was constructed in the “Kommersant. Style”: the “consumption of restraint” as a metaphor for “resilience” in the face of the crisis becomes the leading recommendation of the discourse. Putting the results into the context of the 2010s, it can be realized that the idea of “restraint” in consumer behavior transcends the elitist discourse and is popularized in the field of mainstream publications.


Author(s):  
Neil E. Williams

Systematic metaphysics is defined by its task of solving metaphysical problems through the repeated application of a single, fundamental ontology. The dominant contemporary metaphysic is that of neo-Humeanism, built on a static ontology typified by its rejection of basic causal and modal features. This book offers and develops a radically distinct metaphysic, one that turns the status quo on its head. Starting with a foundational ontology of inherently causal properties known as ‘powers’, a metaphysic is developed that appeals to powers in explanations of causation, persistence, laws, and modality. Powers are properties that have their causal natures internal to them: they are responsible for the effects in the world. A unique account of powers is developed that understands this internal nature in terms of a blueprint of potential interaction types. After the presentation of the powers ontology, it is put to work in offering solutions to broad metaphysical puzzles, some of which take on different forms in light of the new tools that are available. The defence of the ontology comes from the virtues of metaphysic it can be used to develop. Particular attention is paid to the problems of causation and persistence, simultaneously solving them as it casts them in a new light. The resultant powers metaphysic is offered as a systematic alternative to neo-Humeanism.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Rachel A. Schwartz

ABSTRACT The coexistence of predatory informal rules alongside formal democratic institutions is a defining, if pernicious, feature of Latin America’s political landscape. How do such rules remain so resilient in the face of bureaucratic reforms? This article explicates the mechanisms underlying the persistence of such rules and challenges conventional explanations through process-tracing analysis in one arena: Guatemala’s customs administration. During Guatemala’s period of armed conflict and military rule, military intelligence officers introduced a powerful customs fraud scheme that endured for more than 20 years, despite state reforms. Its survival is best attributed to the ability of the distributional coalition underwriting the predatory rules to capture new political and economic spaces facilitated by political party and market reforms. This illustrates that distributional approaches to institutional change must attend to how those with a stake in the status quo may continue to uphold perverse institutional arrangements on the margins of state power.


2003 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 79-95
Author(s):  
Slobodan Ivanović

Very often, there are more imitators than innovators in the hotel industry. There are very few hotel enterprises engaged in continually innovating their services. Creative imitators help to diffuse innovations and to meet the needs of certain segments o f the tourist market. They realise the improvement possibilities of the tourism product or service, which requires innovation. Changes to certain features o f the product or service can help to increase their value for both domestic and foreign tourists. Hence, it is maintained that creative imitation is sooner to take hold on the tourist market than on the tourism product or service. The globalisation process of the world economy, as well as the hotel industries, has imposed a certain way of thinking referred to in journalism as "change as a constant necessity" or putting it harshly "innovate or disappear from the business scene”. Anything that is different represents change. Innovation means accepting ideas for services which are new to hotel enterprise. Because innovations disturb the status quo of the hotel enterprise, they are met with resistance by some members of the organisation. Strategic thinking is what every hotel enterprise needs to prevent it being caught off guard by the affects of changes in its micro and macro environment. Namely, troubles begin for the hotel enterprise when it fails to adapt in an adequate and acceptable way to the changes occuring within the hotel industry. Adverse changes in the environment and the inability of the hotel enterprise to respond to these changes are the cause of incongruity between the hotel’s potential (accommodation and other facilities) and the demands of the hotel industry i.e. the tourist markets on which it is present.


Author(s):  
Г. М. Нечаєва

This article examines the stages of the electoral process based on the legislation of Ukraine on elections since the proclamation of independent Ukraine until now. Considerable attention is paid to the disclosure of the concept of "electoral process", since democracy and the legitimacy of the entire system of public authorities depend to the electoral democracy. On the basis of various points of view of scientists, scholars of lawyers it can be concluded that the electoral process as a legal category is an independent legal institution of constitutional law, which should be understood as a set of constitutional and procedural norms governing the formation of representative bodies of the state and other elected bodies of state power and bodies of local self-government, election of state officials. The issue of the legislative support of the electoral process in Ukraine, the problem of the formation of a system of electoral legislation in Ukraine on the basis of which the electoral process takes place - elections of the President of Ukraine, people's deputies of Ukraine, deputies of local councils and village, town and city mayors. Adequate reflection of the will of the citizens on the formation of a system of government, the creation of conditions for free and deliberate expression of will require not only the legislative consolidation of the principles of free and fair elections, but also detailed legal regulation of procedures for conducting an election campaign, determination of the status of the subjects of the electoral process, their rights and obligations defining the results of elections, etc. The necessity of formation and establishment of a stable electoral culture of voters and the stability of electoral legislation for ensuring the proper realization of the electoral rights of Ukrainian citizens is indicated. However, the main problem is not so much in adopting laws that would comply with generally accepted democratic principles, but in ensuring compliance with these principles in practice, which does not always lie in the field of legislative regulation. In order to ensure legality in the process of organizing and holding elections, the functioning and interaction of all branches of state power, local self-government bodies and public associations must be agreed upon.


2017 ◽  
Vol 110 ◽  
pp. 133-148
Author(s):  
Jolanta Jabłońska-Bonca

“THE EFFECT OF AUREOLE” AND “EFFECT OF PARTICIPATION” IN THE LIGHT OF INDEPENDENCE OF LAWYERS-SCIENTISTSThe purpose of the text is to signal the need to investigate the conditions for the preserva­tion of the independence of lawyers who practice and simultaneously engage in science. Research independence is understood in the text as loyalty to the principles of methodology and ethics of research. There have been, and will be, lawyers-scientists who are creative, well-skilled to do re­search, and also autonomous, capable of criticizing the status quo, striving for truth no matter what the consequences. In the 21st century, being in such aposition is getting harder and harder. This is due to the fact that many lawyers-scientists concurrently perform important social and occupational roles besides scientific research. The article focuses on two examples of conditions that hinder the preservation of independence and entice lawyers-scientists into the world of politics and ideology. It is: a the activity of lawyers-scientists in the mass media and the consequences of the so-called “aureole effect”, as well as b the “dual occupancy” and the meaning of “participation effect”.


2006 ◽  
pp. 131-149
Author(s):  
Milan Balazic

Since the fall of the Berlin wall, the process of globalization has been understood as a necessary fate. The myth of the almightiness of the market economy, liberalization and deregulation is revitalized. Before us, there is a phenomenon Lacan?s discourse of University, which in 20 century was firstly given as a Stalinist discourse and today is given as a neo-liberal discourse of globalization. From underneath og a seeming objectivity, a Master insists-either the Party and the Capital. Just as the utopia of the world proletarian revolution has fallen apart, the utopia of globalize capitalism and liberal democracy is also falling apart. The 9/11 event is opening opportunities for a construction of the field of social and political, out of the contour of the status quo. The coordinates of the possibility has changed and if we take the non-existence of the grand Autre on ourselves, then the contingence interference in the existent socio-symbolic order is possible.


Author(s):  
Theresa Carilli

Marginalization, a fluid concept, challenges status quo understandings and representations of individuals throughout the world. Considered to reference individuals who have been excluded from the mainstream dialogue, marginalization has developed into a term that evokes an examination of the master narrative, also known as the metanarrative. In a world where the master narrative predominates, individuals are systematically excluded based on a characteristic or characteristics they possess that disrupt a specified system of cultural norms. In relation to the global media, marginalized voices represent groups that have self-contained cultural norms and rules that differ from mainstream norms and rules. While marginalized groups may share some norms, rules, and values with the mainstream culture, they possess differences that can be viewed as transgressive, existing outside the mainstream norms, rules, and values. Media representations of groups that are globally marginalized, and sometimes stigmatized, include but are not limited to race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, class, ableism, and religion. A study of these marginalized groups reveals an implied system of privilege that reifies the status quo and supports the master narrative. Media invisibility results from marginalization, and when marginalized groups are represented, often those representations are through a marketable, stereotypical lens. As a result of the dearth of images, and a system of privilege, few studies examine marginalized groups in countries throughout the world. By creating a global dialogue about marginalized voices, images, and self-representations, advocacy for difference and understanding allows these voices, images, and self-representations to become expressive renderings of specific transgressive cultural norms.


Philosophy ◽  
1970 ◽  
Vol 45 (172) ◽  
pp. 114-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith Ward

What is it to be ‘morally serious’? In one sense, it is quite obvious that a man who stands by his moral principles with difficulty and in face of many obstacles, even to the extent of giving his life rather than denying these principles, is a morally serious person. He might be contrasted with a man who gives up or modifies his moral principles whenever their implementation becomes difficult, or threatens to harm his interests; and this person might be called morally frivolous. That is what moral seriousness is; but still, one might ask, what is it to be a morally serious man? What does it involve to be such a man? Is it just a sort of pathological obstinacy; even, perhaps, a misplaced conservatism in face of the facts, which clings to the principles it knows, whatever the cost? One cannot rule out such a possibility. But the martyr and the hero do not consider themselves to be merely obstinate. In the face of risk and even certain suffering, they typically regard it as of supreme importance to be obstinate in sustaining their principles. Something more is felt to be at stake than mere defence of the status quo.


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