Post-regime-change Afghan and Iraqi media systems: Strategic ambivalence as technology of media governance

This article investigates the governance of post-US invasion Afghan and Iraqi media systems by analyzing provisions pertinent to public broadcasting, licensing, and defamation in 14 laws and policy documents in the two nations. The author argues that the results point to a regime of regulatory ambivalence whereby state authorities have established an ontologically incongruent complex of legal and policy structures characterized by a simultaneous cohabitation of democratic and authoritarian tendencies. This ambivalence, born of struggles and contestations between state authorities, domestic civil societies and external supporters and donors, is a deliberate technology of media governance. The authoritarian tendencies of this regulatory regime have implications for media/journalists’ self-regulation as they are designed to curtail the agency of media institutions and journalists, and assert government control over speech and the flow of information.

The Role of Civic Identity in the Evolution of Relations Between Serbian and Croatian Civil Societies

For decades, Croats and Serbs lived together in a common political construction: Yugoslavia. It is difficult to date the appearance of animosity between Croats and Serbs. Nevertheless, two events proved particularly traumatic for their relations. The Second World War, when the Ustasha led a genocide against the Serbs, and the 1991-1995 war, when the two sides fought a merciless civil war. This article examines the evolution of relations between Serbian and Croatian civil societies from the beginning of the Yugoslavian project to 2021 and how the rise of civic identity in the future might help the process of reconciliation. The main hypothesis of the article is that the failure to construct a viable Yugoslavian civic identity in the past is the cause of ethnic tensions during the 90s. The article entails both qualitative and quantitative methods through which the authors offer explanations about the failure to construct a common Yugoslavian civic identity, how this failure impacted the relations between Serbian and Croatian civil societies, and, finally, what are the prospects of reconciliation and constructing civic identities in the newly formed countries of Serbia and Croatia. Today, relations between the two civil societies remain tense. Serbs in Croatia and Croats in Serbia are subject to unsystematic discrimination, which hinders exchanges between the two countries. This study shows that Serbian and Croatian citizens under 35 years of age, mainly agree that tensions exist. Nevertheless, two-thirds of those questioned in Serbia and three-quarters of those questioned in Croatia believe that reconciliation is possible. This reconciliation becomes even more realistic since an overwhelming majority in both groups want reconciliation.

The Future of Democratic Civil Societies in a Post-Western Cybered Era

This chapter discusses cyberspace’s evolution in terms of technical shoddiness and misperceptions. Once cyberspace left the confines of the consolidated democratic societies, their legal systems, and the controls of Western regulated telecommunications firms, it moved beyond the power of Westernized nations’ to keep the world both deeply cybered and guided by the rule of law. With commercialization as it occurred, the Internet was never going to be the utopia. Rather, the globalized Internet became a resource rich frontier and substrate over which nations and organizations would fight overtly, covertly, and in every other way possible. The chapter then identifies two available remediating strategic responses to this new cybered reality (recognition of sovereignty and balancing scale), and offers three possible interstate futures depending upon which of these two responses is chosen. It argues that achieving the best possible future will rest on pursuing strategic well-being and international influence through a ‘cyber operational resilience alliance’ across consolidated democratic civil societies.

The Impact of Civil Society on Control of Corruption: A Comparative Study of Russia and Iran

This paper studies the role of civil society in controlling corruption in public services in two developing countries: Russia and Iran. Research on the relationship between civil society and corruption control in these two countries is insufficient. Selecting Russia and Iran for comparison is based on similarities between them in terms of economic and political systems, and the developments of their civil societies. This paper compares the historical developments and the status of corruption and civil society in both countries; the efforts that civil society actors have made in battling corruption; and the state’s reaction to these attempts. This study covers a period of almost three decades from the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 to 2020. The findings of the study show that the civil societies in both countries have had limited impact on controlling corruption over the period. Although these findings do not support a prominent role for civil society in control of corruption in past, the author argues that, according to some evidence, there is a possibility of a stronger role for civil society in combatting corruption in both countries in the future.

State Regulation of Organized Civil Society in Hybrid Regimes: A Systematic Assessment of Cross-National Variations in the Regulation of Civil Society Organizations in Seven Post-Soviet Countries

How do the post-Soviet countries differ in their regulatory approaches to organized civil society? This study provides a systematic and comprehensive assessment of relative differences and similarities in the regulation of civil society organizations in seven post-Soviet countries: Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, and Ukraine. Empirically, the study offers a regulatory index that makes it possible to map and compare relative differences and similarities between these countries’ regulatory approaches to civil society. The findings show that post-Soviet authoritarian countries do not use similar levels of repression against organized civil society. The study provides an account of how different political configurations explain relative differences in the extent to which post-Soviet authoritarian countries repress their respective civil societies.

Becoming a normative power? China's Mekong agenda in the era of Xi Jinping

Maintaining robust diplomatic relationships with neighbouring countries in the Mekong region has become strategically critical to China. Since President Xi Jinping took office, China has been renovating normative power in the Mekong region, endeavouring to socialize the Mekong countries into accepting normative Chinese concepts, such as ‘community of shared destiny’, by mobilizing and reconfiguring their material and normative recourses. This article argues that China's normative power stems from two primary mechanisms: 1) an organized, top-down diffusion driven by political elites, involving inter-governmental dialogues, socialization via bilateral and multilateral cooperation mechanisms, and negotiations with countries co-opted into China-led connectivity and infrastructure initiatives; 2) a bottom-up diffusion of ideas from practices (i.e. exchange of goods, trade, aid) and the physical presence of China in the Mekong region, exemplified by the massive scale of infrastructurewidely constructed in the region. Taken together, China's expanded normative engagement in the Mekong subregion is comprised of multiple, oscillating modes of normative production that have been ‘synchronized’ across riparian countries with varied geoeconomic and geopolitical circumstances. Our findings suggest that while normative Chinese discourses have been accepted by the ruling classes of certain Mekong countries, China's attempts to build normative power have been largely shunned by the civil societies in the region.

Practice Theory and Postsocialist Civil Society: Toward a New Analytical Framework

When discussing postsocialist civil societies in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), scholars have predominantly focused on the nonparticipatory and advocacy-oriented activities of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), effectively narrowing the concept of “civil society” to that of the “civic sector.” This actor-focused and normative approach has resulted in a systematic obfuscation of less structured forms of everyday resistance, civic engagement, active citizenship, contentious politics, and social movements, giving only a partial view of civil societies in the region. Through a critical dialogue between state-of-the-art research on postsocialist civil society and the practice turn in international political sociology (IPS), this article postulates an analytical distinction between contentious and compliant practices in order to arrive at a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the ways in which postsocialist civil societies are manifested, enacted, and actualized. On the one hand, the proposed practice turn moves the research agenda away from abstract, universalist, and normative assumptions of what civil society should be in favor of an embedded, contextual, and critical understanding of what it actually is; on the other hand, this shift opens venues for theorizing not only about, but also from the “postsocialist condition” of civil societies in the transnational space of CEE.

Confucianism’s Prospects, Perfectionism and Liberalism

In this article, I recapitulate the main arguments of my book “Confucianism’s Prospects: a Reassessment” in response to commentators on the book. I elaborate on its capabilities approach normative perspective, its evaluation of Confucian cultural attributions to contemporary East Asian societies, its criticisms of communitarian and political perfectionist arguments for Confucian democracy, and its alternative, modest vision for Confucianism as one of many comprehensive doctrines that can find a safe home within the civil societies of East Asia’s representative democracies.

Organization of Social Pre-School Education in Bukovyna (Late ХІХ – Early ХХ Cent.)

The article elucidates issues of originating and development of pre-school institutions in Bukovyna in the late XIX – early XX century, which took place under influence of Western European public and pedagogical thought. It has been discovered that the beginning of Bukovynian pre-school education is connected with founding of a distinction pre-school institution at Chernivtsi State Women’s Seminary according to the order of Austrian Ministry of Faith and Education of August 16, 1875. Part of public religious and civil societies has been shown in formation of pre-school education system, particular role in the process taken by Catholic charity society, Catholic nun community «Maria’s Family», Greek-Catholic society «Mirth Carriers», Society of orthodox Rus Women, Society of Romanian Women of Bukovyna. Peculiarities of founding and functioning of first pre-school institutions which were divided into kindergartens and shelters («zakhoronkas»), as well as forms of public and state support in practice have been researched. The idea has been grounded that a particular feature of pre-school education during the period under analysis was functioning of multilingual pre-school educational institutions which laid traditions of pre-school education in the conditions of polycultural environment of Bukovyna.