“The Case of Two Boys,” Gender, and Justice in Late Soviet Russia

2016 ◽  
Vol 43 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 245-274
Author(s):  
Rhiannon Dowling
Keyword(s):  
Justice System ◽  
Young Men ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Bias ◽  
Education Levels ◽  
Soviet Russia ◽  
Village Women ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Town

This article examines a criminal case from 1966–1969 concerning a crime that took place in 1965 in the town of Izmalkovo outside of Moscow. Two young men were charged and eventually acquitted for the rape and murder of their female classmate. Their trial drew the attention of jurists and journalists from the capital, as well as scrutiny from the highest judicial and party organs in addition to the ire of local villagers. Two accounts remain of the trial: one written in 1969 by a Moscow journalist, Olga Chaikovskaia, well-known for her writings on crime and law throughout the late Soviet period, and the other penned over a decade later by Dina Kaminskaia, one of the defense lawyers in the trial and later notorious for her advocacy on behalf of prominent dissidents. Both of these women, in describing their defense of the young men, employed gendered conceptions of justice and legality in order to criticize or condemn the Soviet justice system and its agents. And yet Kaminskaia’s and Chaikovskaia’s narratives reveal that, in spite of deep divisions between people from different classes, localities, and with disparate education levels, both urban intelligentsia elite women and the simple village women who heartily opposed them could still have a remarkable degree of faith in the criminal justice system well into the era of “stagnation.” What interested the women from the capital in this case was their perception that the highest organs of Soviet power were involved in these boys’ prosecution, and that their convictions were a foregone conclusion. What kept them coming back to Izmalkovo after repeated set-backs, was the hope that, with the right arguments and evidence, and in spite of the political bias working against them, that justice could nonetheless be achieved for the boys. On this count, they were correct.

scholarly journals “Our Home - Russia” as the Movement of Bright Centrism (1995-1999)

2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 409-420
Author(s):  
Artemiy A Stepanov
Keyword(s):  
Primary Sources ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
The Political ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
Political Movement ◽  
Genetic Method ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
Regional Project ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Soviet Russia

The article deals with the political movement “Our Home - Russia” (NDR) as the first attempt of the creation of the “party of power” in post-soviet period. The aim of this work is to analyze the experience of the NDR and the reasons of the failure of this project. In the course of the study, the historical genetic method, M. Duverger’s partological analysis, and A. Gramsci’s theory were used. The author turned to the political science literature on parties and elections in the Russian Federation and used NDR’s materials and publications of federal mass media as primary sources. In 1995 the movement was created with the experience and the basis of the preceding pro-Kremlin project the “Democratic Choice of Russia” (DVR). Unlike the DVR, it was built on the B. Eltsin’s initiative who needed the support in the State Duma all the time. The prime minister V. Chernomyrdin headed this union and members of political and financial elite of federal and regional levels became its leaders. Despite their strength the movement did not become full-fledged «party of power» because of the communists` domination in the Duma and the lack of large electoral support. The «Our Home - Russia» like DVR could not make effective regional divisions and spread its influence among people masses. The inner split, weakness of Chernomyrdin’s figure and the absence of due president’s support were the causes of its fail in the parlamentary elections of 1999. Nevertheless, the NDR became the first centrist movement in post-Soviet Russia, which retained loyalty to the Kremlin to the end. The union worked out new forms, for example, drew public organizations to its side and for the first time used «name tactics» in the 1995 elections. These developments were useful in the creation of the next, much more successful pro-regional project - the «United Russia».

scholarly journals Neutral bots probe political bias on social media

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Wen Chen ◽  
Diogo Pacheco ◽  
Kai-Cheng Yang ◽  
Filippo Menczer
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
The Political ◽  
User Interactions ◽  
Political Bias ◽  
News Sources ◽  
Political Center ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Twitter Users ◽  
The Right ◽  
To Receive

AbstractSocial media platforms attempting to curb abuse and misinformation have been accused of political bias. We deploy neutral social bots who start following different news sources on Twitter, and track them to probe distinct biases emerging from platform mechanisms versus user interactions. We find no strong or consistent evidence of political bias in the news feed. Despite this, the news and information to which U.S. Twitter users are exposed depend strongly on the political leaning of their early connections. The interactions of conservative accounts are skewed toward the right, whereas liberal accounts are exposed to moderate content shifting their experience toward the political center. Partisan accounts, especially conservative ones, tend to receive more followers and follow more automated accounts. Conservative accounts also find themselves in denser communities and are exposed to more low-credibility content.

Chicherin, Boris Nikolaevich (1828–1904)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary Hamburg
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
The Political ◽  
Classical Liberalism ◽  
Individual Liberty ◽  
Public Figure ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
Russian Version ◽  
Soviet Russia

Chicherin was a Russian liberal historian of law, a political and religious philosopher and a public figure, who briefly served as Moscow’s elected mayor (1882–3). Before the mid-1860s he advocated ‘conservative-liberalism’, his term for a partnership between strong central government and the educated public designed to promote civil rights and the rule of law. After 1866, he championed constitutional guarantees of individual liberty against state and societal interference, fashioning in the process a Russian version of ‘classical liberalism’. Chicherin was modern Russia’s most significant liberal thinker and one of its most influential philosophers in the Idealist tradition. He is still read today by Russian philosophers and historians of social thought. Moreover, his political ideas gained wide currency among the political elites in the late Soviet period and especially in post-Soviet Russia.

scholarly journals Historical, legal, ideological and political prerequisites for the formation and development of the institution of people’s control in the USSR

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 323-328
Author(s):  
Elena V. Berdnikova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Legal Regulation ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Concept ◽  
State Administration ◽  
Historical Role ◽  
Three Stages ◽  
Soviet Russia ◽  
Controversial Nature ◽  
Popular Control

Introduction. The controversial nature of most of the aspects related to the content and essence of people’s control, the assessment of its historical role and significance in the system of state administration of the Soviet period, the effectiveness of legal regulation and the political problems of its implementation still arouses a genuine interest of the scientific community in the study of this phenomenon. Theoretical analysis. People’s control in the USSR was both a developed ideological and political concept and a real political and legal institution. The founder of the concept of people’s control was V. I. Lenin, who, in his numerous works, described a clear justification of its relevance in the conditions of socialist democracy. Empirical analysis. It was revealed that the process of development of the institution of people’s control in Soviet Russia was largely influenced by the worldview of the country’s top leadership, which demonstrated polymorphism of opinions on the role and significance of popular control in the system of socialist governance. There are three stages of formation and functioning of the system of people’s control in Soviet Russia, which had their organizational and institutional features. Results. The study of the ideological, political and historical and legal prerequisites for formation of popular control led to the conclusion that popular control was a specific institution characteristic of the socialist type of government. It passed a rather difficult historical path: from workers’ control in the first years of Soviet power to a very complex organizational and institutional system of state and public control in the last decades of the existence of the USSR.

scholarly journals Getting the Picture: Airtime and Lineup Bias on Canadian Networks during the 2006 Federal Election

2008 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marsha Barber
Keyword(s):  
Agenda Setting ◽  
Media Bias ◽  
The Political ◽  
Federal Election ◽  
Political Bias ◽  
Research Article ◽  
Political Spectrum ◽  
The Right

Abstract: This research article addresses the issue of media bias as it played out on Canada’s three major television networks during coverage of the 2006 federal election. The data suggest that in spite of critics’ concerns that networks exhibit political bias, this was not evident. However, a more subtle and systemic bias was apparent. Front-runners (i.e., parties that polls indicated would do well) received substantially more coverage than other parties. Conversely, parties that were perceived as being less successful received less coverage than political front-runners. In addition, reports about front-runners were placed higher in the lineup. These empirical findings should be of interest to critics on both the right and left of the political spectrum who are concerned about the gatekeeping and agenda-setting functions of the media.Résumé : Cet article de recherche adresse la question de partis pris dans les médias lors de la couverture des élections fédérales de 2006 effectuée par les trois chaînes canadiennes principales. Les données obtenues indiquent que, malgré ce que pensent certains critiques, il n’est pas évident que ces chaînes avaient des penchants politiques particuliers. Cependant, un penchant systémique plus subtil est apparent. En effet, les favoris (c’est-à-dire les partis qui selon les sondages allaient réussir le mieux) ont reçu une couverture plus approfondie que les autres partis. En revanche, les partis perçus comme étant moins en avance ont reçu une couverture moindre. Par surcroît, les reportages sur les favoris passaient sur les ondes avant les autres. Ces données empiriques devraient intéresser les critiques tant de droite que de gauche qui se soucient des fonctions d’agenda et de garde barrière des médias. 

Nazistowski mord na Żydach w prasie polskich komunistów (1942–1944).

2006 ◽  
pp. 54-75
Author(s):  
Klaus Peter Friedrich
Keyword(s):  
Shared Responsibility ◽  
The Political ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Social Democrats ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Government ◽  
Post War ◽  
Polish Government ◽  
The Right ◽  
Political Right

Facing the decisive struggle between Nazism and Soviet communism for dominance in Europe, in 1942/43 Polish communists sojourning in the USSR espoused anti-German concepts of the political right. Their aim was an ethnic Polish ‘national communism’. Meanwhile, the Polish Workers’ Party in the occupied country advocated a maximum intensification of civilian resistance and partisan struggle. In this context, commentaries on the Nazi judeocide were an important element in their endeavors to influence the prevailing mood in the country: The underground communist press often pointed to the fate of the murdered Jews as a warning in order to make it clear to the Polish population where a deficient lack of resistance could lead. However, an agreed, unconditional Polish and Jewish armed resistance did not come about. At the same time, the communist press constantly expanded its demagogic confrontation with Polish “reactionaries” and accused them of shared responsibility for the Nazi murder of the Jews, while the Polish government (in London) was attacked for its failure. This antagonism was intensified in the fierce dispute between the Polish and Soviet governments after the rift which followed revelations about the Katyn massacre. Now the communist propaganda image of the enemy came to the fore in respect to the government and its representatives in occupied Poland. It viewed the government-in-exile as being allied with the “reactionaries,” indifferent to the murder of the Jews, and thus acting ultimately on behalf of Nazi German policy. The communists denounced the real and supposed antisemitism of their adversaries more and more bluntly. In view of their political isolation, they coupled them together, in an undifferentiated manner, extending from the right-wing radical ONR to the social democrats and the other parties represented in the underground parliament loyal to the London based Polish government. Thereby communist propaganda tried to discredit their opponents and to justify the need for a new start in a post-war Poland whose fate should be shaped by the revolutionary left. They were thus paving the way for the ultimate communist takeover

Process Philosophy and Political Liberalism

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel A. Dombrowski
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Reflective Equilibrium ◽  
Process Philosophy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Nonhuman Animals ◽  
Static View ◽  
Process Oriented ◽  
The Right ◽  
Political Right

In this work two key theses are defended: political liberalism is a processual (rather than a static) view and process thinkers should be political liberals. Three major figures are considered (Rawls, Whitehead, Hartshorne) in the effort to show the superiority of political liberalism to its illiberal alternatives on the political right and left. Further, a politically liberal stance regarding nonhuman animals and the environment is articulated. It is typical for debates in political philosophy to be adrift regarding the concept of method, but from start to finish this book relies on the processual method of reflective equilibrium or dialectic at its best. This is the first extended effort to argue for both political liberalism as a process-oriented view and process philosophy/theology as a politically liberal view. It is also a timely defense of political liberalism against illiberal tendencies on both the right and the left.

Palestinian Diaspora Communities in Latin America and Palestinian Statehood

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-120
Author(s):  
Yousef M. Aljamal ◽  
Philipp O. Amour
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
South America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
The Political ◽  
Middle Classes ◽  
Latin Americans ◽  
Political Views ◽  
The Right

There are some 700,000 Latin Americans of Palestinian origin, living in fourteen countries of South America. In particular, Palestinian diaspora communities have a considerable presence in Chile, Honduras, and El Salvador. Many members of these communities belong to the professional middle classes, a situation which enables them to play a prominent role in the political and economic life of their countries. The article explores the evolving attitudes of Latin American Palestinians towards the issue of Palestinian statehood. It shows the growing involvement of these communities in Palestinian affairs and their contribution in recent years towards the wide recognition of Palestinian rights — including the right to self-determination and statehood — in Latin America. But the political views of members of these communities also differ considerably about the form and substance of a Palestinian statehood and on the issue of a two-states versus one-state solution.

Translation and Transformation: English-Language Children's Literature in (Soviet) Russian Guise

2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Inggs
Keyword(s):  
Children's Literature ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
English Language ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Socialist Realism ◽  
The Political ◽  
Philosophy Of Action ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Free Translation ◽  
Soviet Russia

This article investigates the perceived image of English-language children's literature in Soviet Russia. Framed by Even-Zohar's polysystem theory and Bourdieu's philosophy of action, the discussion takes into account the ideological constraints of the practice of translation and the manipulation of texts. Several factors involved in creating the perceived character of a body of literature are identified, such as the requirements of socialist realism, publishing practices in the Soviet Union, the tradition of free translation and accessibility in the translation of children's literature. This study explores these factors and, with reference to selected examples, illustrates how the political and sociological climate of translation in the Soviet Union influenced the translation practices and the field of translated children's literature, creating a particular image of English-language children's literature in (Soviet) Russia.

Victim Participation in Parole Proceedings in South Africa

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jamil Mujuzi
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
South African ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Criminal Procedure ◽  
Prison Inmate ◽  
Parole Board ◽  
Victims Of Crime ◽  
The Right

South African law provides for circumstances in which victims of crime may participate in the criminal justice system at the investigation, prosecution (trial), sentencing and parole stages. In South Africa, a prison inmate has no right to parole although the courts have held that they have a right to be considered for parole. In some cases, the victims of crime have a right to make submissions to the Parole Board about whether the offender should be released on parole. Section 299A of the Criminal Procedure Act 51 of 1977 provides for the right of victims of crime to participate in parole proceedings. The purpose of this article is to discuss section 299A and illustrate ways in which victims of crime participate in the parole process. The author also recommends ways in which victims’ rights in section 299A of the Criminal Procedure Act could be strengthened.

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