Women political leaders in pandemic times: comparing Jacinda Ardern’ and Donald Trump’s representation of the COVID-19 crisis

In the context of the Covid-19 meta-crisis, leadership styles have emerged as a key factor for determining a country’s ability to contain the contagion and recover. In what follows, we want to explore the features of such leadership styles by taking a gender perspective. This article argues that women leaders have successfully governed the crises originated by the pandemic not only because of their inherent ability to build relationships, enhance community bonds, and “tune” with the anxieties of citizens; the women leaders’ approach to science has proven to be decisive as well. Contrarily to common-sense expectations, when compared with men leaders, women have demonstrated to be more responsive and attentive to scientific advice, and to use their understanding of science as a factor of legitimacy. Our data are based on a wider research project granted by the Italian Ministry of Research and coordinated by prof. Saccà. We have analyzed the discourses of two case studies, Donald Trump and Jacinda Ardern, as they identify ideal-typical features of two opposing leadership styles as far as science is concerned. The analysis of rhetorical formulas and frames highlight the differences in their discourses and approaches and proves how the women leaders’ ability of listening to experts’ advice and the needs of specific sectors of the population has been decisive for the success of the measures of containment of the virus.

Results of the Parliamentary Elections in Netherland and their Impact on Russian-Netherlands Relations

The article examines the results of the parliamentary elections in the Netherlands, held on March 15-17, 2021. It compares the results of the leading political parties in the elections of 2017 and 2021, and describes all the leading Dutch political parties that were represented in parliament in the period from 2017 to 2021. The results of the activities of the government headed by the leader of the “People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy” M. Rutte, formed following the results of the 2017 elections, are presented. The reasons for the resignation of this government, which took place on the eve of the elections, and its impact on the course of the election campaign are revealed. It was noted how the coronavirus pandemic and the government’s actions to overcome its consequences affected the course and results of the election campaign. The activity of the main opposition parties in this country is evaluated: the right-wing Eurosceptic Freedom Party of Wilders, the center-left Labor Party and others. The course of the election campaign and its main topics, as well as the new political parties that were elected to the parliament as a result of these elections, are considered. The positions of the country’s leading political parties on their possible participation in the new government coalition are shown. The state of Russian-Dutch relations is analyzed. A forecast is given of how the election results will affect the formation of the new government of this country and the political, trade and economic relations between Russia and the Netherlands.

Muslim female activism in social discourse of the republic of Tatarstan

Nowadays the stress turns from traditional forms of activism to new forms of it and mostly it is implemented in internet sphere. Today social nets become the place of formation and development of social discourse. In framework of this paper, several prominent Muslim female blogs in Instagram are examined. So contemporary Muslim women actively join in the information field, find their niche and ac- quire audience in social nets too. At the present point they represent themselves primarily as wives and mothers, thus they get social approval for being in public sphere. However, the example of contemporary Muslim bloggers tends to transform traditional conception of religious women and her behavioral pat- terns. Now Muslim women-bloggers do not make any statements, denoting their civil rights or political positions, generally they are oriented on female auditory. Their activity is an example of the way to imple- ment your right of appearance in public sphere, saving your religious identity.

Analyzing social representation of gender-based violence throughout media discourse. The case of the Italian press

This work aims to provide a tool to analyze social representations of gender-based violence, an issue that is receiving increasing media attention in recent years. Focusing on the Italian case, the re- search questions we try to answer are: 1) How is gender-based violence represented in the Italian press? 2) How does Italian press represent the women victims of gender-based violence and the men authors of such violence? Particularly, we try to understand how press contributes to the social discourse on gender-based violence and what role it plays in the perpetuation of a social structure based on unequal power relations between genders.The starting hypothesis is that the press can contributes to create and reinforce stereotypes and prejudices about the role of women in society, thus favoring the persistence of those relations of material and symbolic domination, that still too often lead to gender-based violence.Our work is based on the data collected within the research project STEP – Stereotypes and prejudice. Toward a cultural change in gender representation in judicial, law enforcement and media narrative. It relies on the analysis of a corpus containing more than 16,000 articles published in Italian newspapers in the period between the 1st of January 2017 and the 31st December 2019, dealing with the issue of gender-based violence and with the crimes connected to it: domestic violence, rape, femicide, stalking, women trafficking.

Stereotypes and prejudices in the legal representation of violence against women. A socio-cultural analysis of the judgments in the Italian courts

The paper presents and discusses data from the research «STEP – Stereotype and Prejudice. For a Cultural Change in Gender Representation in the Judiciary, Law Enforcement and Media Reporting». The research is coordinated by Professor Flaminia Saccà, and financed by the Italian Presidency of the Council of Ministers - Department for Equal Opportunities. The analysis conducted on a sample of 283 judgments relating to crimes of violence against women (domestic violence; sexual violence; murder / femicide; human trafficking; stalking) shows how stereotypes and prejudices regarding gender relations, role expectations and women representation are still strongly rooted in our society and, at least partially, in our courtrooms. The paper identifies and describes the main critical elements found in the representation of violence against women proposed by the judgments’ language: the representation of the victim (and the key role of her testimony); the presence of three recurrent biases (family dispute bias, jealousy bias and raptus bias); the almost total lack of references to the main international regulatory sources (CEDAW and the Istanbul Convention).

Russian social reality on the eve of a new stage of the State Duma work

Review of a research: Rossiiskoe obshchestvo i gosudarstvo v usloviyakh pandemii: sotsial’no-politicheskoe polozhenie i demograficheskoe razvitie Rossiiskoi Federatsii v 2020 godu [Russian society and state in a pandemic: the socio-political situation and demographic development of the Russian Federation in 2020] / Osipov G.V. [et al.]; ed. by G.V. Osipov, S.V. Ryazantsev, V.K. Levashov, T.K. Rostovskaya; otv. red. V.K. Levashov. M.: PERSPEKTIVA Publ., 2020. 532 p. ISBN 978-5-905790-48-5. DOI 10.38085/978-5-905790-48-5-2020-1-532.The main event of 2020, which determined the situation in the world and in Russia, was the COVID-19 pandemic. The influence of the covid crisis, directly or indirectly affected all spheres of life in Russian society, reflected on the functioning of government institutions and public organizations, on the nature of relations between civil society and the state. The structure and procedure for the formation of national goals and programs were rethought, society reacted more meaningfully and responsibly to assessing the current state and ways of developing the Russian economy and social sphere, in particular, to the healthcare sector. The explosive growth of various forms of digital communications under conditions of forced self-isolation made it possible to assess the socio-political aspects of the digital transformation of Russian society in a new way, more competently, and to substantively investigate the challenges and threats that the process of shaping the digital future entails.In the context of large-scale socio-political changes, the importance of studying the key trends in the development of the global world and Russian society, a comprehensive analysis of the spheres of life of Russian society: socio-political, socio-economic and socio-demographic is growing. These are the tasks set for themselves by the authors of a scientific monograph prepared by scientists from the Institute for Social and Political Research and the Institute for Demographic Research of the Federal Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences based on the results of research in 2020.

Pridnestrovian fork: on the question of the basis and implementation of the choice of the Pridnestrovian people

The article presents a comprehensive analysis of the process of state building in Pridnestrovie based on the identification of the Pridnestrovian people. The issues of acquiring the mechanism of legitimacy of the Pridnestrovian state are considered, as well as tools for ensuring the Pridnestrovian choice in the realities of the XX-XXI centuries are presented. The analysis widely uses the historical method and systematic approach, which form an understanding of the degree of Russia’s involvement in regional processes, as well as the place of the foreign policy choice of the people of Pridnestrovie in the structure of Russian interests and the opinion of the citizens of the Russian Federation about the Pridnestrovian settlement. The author highlights the historical milestones in the formation of the Pridnestrovian identification code, comes to the conclusion that there is a significant difference in the content of the Moldovan foreign policy from the Pridnestrovian on this basis. Based on the data presented at the republican referendums in Pridnestrovie, as well as on the basis of the results of sociological surveys conducted on the territory of Pridnestrovie and on the territory of the Russian Federation, the peculiarities of the choice of Pridnestrovie are revealed, the opinion of Russians regarding the fate of Pridnestrovie is reflected. In addition, the official position of Russia on the Pridnestrovie settlement is indicated, which at present cannot be called strictly formed. It is shown that, being at the fork in the next cycle of the space-time continuum, the basis of the Pridnestrovian choice was the historical heritage of the republic, as well as the position of the Russian Federation on the settlement of Moldovan-Pridnestrovian relations. The hypothesis about the continuously growing role of Russia in the fate of Pridnestrovie, as well as the significant importance of Pridnestrovie for Russia, filled with historical, geopolitical and cultural content, was confirmed. The conclusion is made about an increase in the demand for protection of the national interests of Russia in certain segments of Russian public opinion.

Where do they lead Ukraine?

Review of the scientific report of the Institute of Sociology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine: Where is Ukraine going in the 21st century? Social changes in Ukrainian society in the context of economic globalization: sociological dimension. Scientific report/ T.Petrushyna, A.Arseienko, V.Butkaliuk. Kyiv: Institute of Sociology, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, 2020. 120p. ISBN 978-966-02-9424-0. The authors of the report set themselves a goal: to give the most complete and holistic picture of the processes taking place today in Ukraine in the context of global social changes in a concise form, in order not only to convey their conclusions to the scientific community, but also to inform the general public and the authorities about the real situation in the country. And the real situation, according to the authors of the report, "threatens the ability of our state to reproduce its sovereignty and ensure the preservation of the country's territorial integrity". The impression after reading the report is such that it is still putting it gently about threats! Not even gently, but veiled. Indeed, the words about Ukraine's inability to reproduce its sovereignty and ensure the preservation of the country's territorial integrity are a euphemism for stating Ukraine's dying, sliding towards ruin, towards death. And not because Russia or some other state will dismember it, but because the state's economy is withering, the social sphere is deteriorating, the population is becoming impoverished, young people are leaving to live abroad, and, ultimately, Ukraine is dying.

Territorial factor of segregation of Russian citizens living abroad

A person’s place of residence often plays a significant role in his fate; moreover, it can act as a discriminatory moment. Specifically, the place of residence of a Russian citizen contributes to his reckoning with a certain caste, which can only be changed by changing the place of residence, and even then not always. In the conditions of modern Russian society, Russian citizens living abroad, especially in the countries of the “black list”, are often impaired in their rights; find themselves in a discriminatory position, which may indicate a kind of unofficial segregation. At the same time, legislatively at the federal level, this defeat in rights depending on the place of residence does not exist; however, it is implemented through laws of a lower order, as well as in the form of an unofficial policy in diplomatic missions, which, according to the convention, should, on the contrary, protect the interests of fellow citizens. Taking into account migration statistics, this type of segregation affects about 16-18% of Russian citizens, and this is a large part of Russian society. Such unofficial segregation can definitely deform Russian society in two directions: lead to a change in the structure of Russian civil society with the allocation of different degrees of citizenship to those more or less impaired in rights - this would legitimize Russia as a country disloyal to its own citizens - or force it to abandon discriminatory laws and traditional concepts, raising a new generation of officials and diplomats, which would contribute to strengthening the international authority of Russia in the world.

New forms of employment in the context of digitalization of the labor market

Nowadays as part of the process of digitalization of the labor market there are structural changes: new forms and types of employment appear. A global trend in recent years is the increase in the number of employees working remotely, which has significant value in difficult epidemiological situation in the world. Today, women are far more at risk of being deprived of the benefits of digital innovations, job losses due to robotics and automatization, have to put much more effort to achieve wage levels of male workers. The article examines the typology of new non-standard forms of employment, their distinctive features. The author highlights the main advantages and risks associated with the wide spreading of new forms of employment in the context of the digitalization of the labor market. The study touches upon the gender aspect, special attention is paid to the analysis of innovative forms of employment and the involvement of women in innovative teams, ICT and STEM-specialties. The factors influencing the formation of innovative behavior in national innovation systems are described. The ways of coordination of state, business and research structures within the framework of "collective action" aimed at stimulating scientific and technological progress in the development of the knowledge economy, the digital economy are outlined. The author also highlighted a number of fundamental reasons for the socio-psychological insecurity of male and female workers associated with the use of non-standard employment, noted in general terms ways of solving problems in the field of precarious employment and leveling gender inequality in the context of the development of the digital economy.