Publications

This article contributes to the growing body of research on the increasing role of judicial systems in regulating politics and religion (‘judicialization of politics and religion’) across the globe. By examining how academic expertise is deployed in anti-extremist litigation involving Russia’s minority religions, this article reveals important processes involved in this judicial regulation, in particular when legal and academic institutions lack autonomy and consistency of operation. It focuses on the selection of experts and the validation of their opinion within Russia’s academia and the judiciary, and identifies patterns in the experts’ approach to evidence and how they validate their conclusions in the eyes of the judiciary. Academic expertise provides an aura of legitimacy to judicial decisions in which anti-extremist legislation is used as a means to control unpopular minority religions and to regulate Russia’s religious diversity. As one of the few systematic explorations of this subject and the first focused on Russia, this article reveals important processes that produce religious discrimination and the role that anti-extremist legislation plays in these processes.

This work serves as a comprehensive collection of global scholarship regarding the vast fields of public administration and public policy. Written and edited by leading international scholars and practitioners, this exhaustive resource covers all areas of the twin fields of study. In keeping with the multidisciplinary spirit of these fields, the entries make use of various theoretical, empirical, analytical, practical, and methodological bases of knowledge. The encyclopedia provides a snapshot of the most current research in public administration and public policy, covering such important areas as: 1.       organization theory, behavior, change and development 2.       administrative theory and practice 3.       bureaucracy 4.       public budgeting and financial management 5.       public finance and public management 6.       public personnel and labor-management relations 7.       crisis and emergency management 8.       institutional theory and public administration 9.       law and regulations 10.   ethics and accountability   Relevant to professionals, experts, scholars, general readers, and students worldwide, this work will serve as the most viable global reference source for those looking for an introduction to the field.​

Policy implementation refers to a phase of the strategic planning process, when actions are taken to realize policy objectives. The implementation stage consists of identifying policy actors who are responsible for policy implementation, allocating funds, developing infrastructure, building strategic support among actors who deliver services, and other actions taken to administer political decisions.

In this conclusion we provide a summary of the chapters and consider the benefits of applying the protest publics’ conceptual lens to the waves of protest that have broken out across the world in recent years. More specifically, we focus on the features of protest publics that were outlined in the introductory theoretical chapter and the extent to which these features can be found in the different country cases presented in the volume and how they help to understand local sociopolitical contexts. In this volume we argue that protest publics are a new phenomenon, though one that is variably connected with existing forms of social activism, and it allows for new kinds of collective civic engagement: protest publics, even though loosely organized and in certain circumstances can provide only modest immediate political results, still can be perceived as a collective actor that is capable of bringing about social and political change. As protest publics are often fluid and dynamic, at least compared with other, more institutionalized social and political actors, it is important to examine and thematize the dimensions of this fluidity. Further, the application of the protest publics framework in different political regimes will have strengths or limitations depending on the different functions that protest publics perform, which also needs to be specified. Finally, as this volume urges a renewed focus on protest studies, we will conclude with some principle questions that can be pursued in future research.

This paper addresses the conceptual problem of defining the origin, the structure and social foundations of massive and lasting peaceful street protests, which appeared spontaneously at the beginning of the new millennia in countries with very different levels of public wealth and socio-political development. Driven by different reasons, addressing different targets, these mass street actions have many common features that allow us to consider them a single phenomenon, which we define as a new type of social engagement, distinguished both from civil society organizations and social movements. This type of engagement is characterized by the formation and activities of protest publics, which can have deep and lasting impact on both society and policy process by transforming the public sphere through changing dominant public discourses. Such activities are largely based on a common demand of an ethical nature that can bring together many diverse social groups and mini-publics, focused on particular clusters of issues. The paper explores self-organized publics as collective social actors with unique features and capacities. It also develops a conceptual frame for protest event analysis as manifestations of protest publics, which allows us to identify the type of specific public assembled for each event, its “qualities of actorness” and its transformative potential. This conceptual frame is then applied to reconstruct the “Bolotnaya actions” in Moscow and the protests against construction of the Gazprom office tower in St. Petersburg, which makes it possible to compare the types of publics that were involved in those protests. The results include suggestions and theorizing protest actions based on the qualities of protest publics.

In this chapter we aim to consider the interdependence between total factor productivity, economic welfare, and political institutions using BRICS as an empirical example. While relationships between each pair of factors have already been subject to scientific inquiry, we attempt to look at the productivity-institutions nexus in conjunction with economic development. We utilize nonparametric methods (data envelopment analysis) to estimate productivity levels for a large sample of countries and investigate the mutual relationships between productivity, GDP, and institutions for every year in the sample, as well as look into possible connections between dynamics of the three factors. We also analyze productivity trajectories of the BRICS countries in order to gain further insight into how capital-labor ratios might affect further economic development given each country’s institutional context. We show that levels of institutional development are a significant predictor for per capita GDP levels, as well as TFP levels. However, our tests for differences in TFP and growth remain inconclusive.

In the late 2000s, a number of analysts were optimistic about Brazil’s future. Their expectant analyses did not bear out, however, as a political and economic crisis developed just as Brazil was gearing up to host two mega-events, the World Cup in 2014 and the Olympic Games in 2016. This paper has two aims. The first is to deepen our understanding of the crisis through examining one of the foremost social actors to emerge in this period: the Landless Workers’ Movement (Movimento de Trabalhadores Sem-Teto, MTST). The second is to use this case to consider the potential for the sociology of critical capacity—a field of theory that emerged out of the Political and Moral Sociology Research Group in Paris in the 1980s—to contribute to theorising the ‘justification work’ of movements and protest publics.

In 1976 Richard Dawkins coined the term meme as a way to metaphorically project bio-evolutionary principles upon the processes of cultural and social development. The works of Dawkins and of some other enthusiasts had contributed to a rise in popularity of the concept of memetics ("study of memes"), but the interest to this new field started to decline quite soon. The conceptual apparatus of memetics was based on a number of quasi-biological terms, but the emerging discipline failed to go beyond those initial metaphors. This article is an attempt to rebuild the toolkit of memetics with the help of the more fundamental concepts taken from semiotics and to propose a synthetic conceptual framework connecting genetics and memetics, in which semiotics is used as the transdisciplinary methodology for both disciplines. The concept of sign is used as the meta-lingual equivalent for both the concepts of gene and meme. In the most general understanding, sign is a thing which stands for another thing. In genetics this translates into gene that is a section of DNA that stands for the algorithm of how a particular biomolecule is built. In memetics, the similar principle works in meme that is a thing that stands for the rules of how a particular cultural practice is performed.

There has been a call for a “second wave” of scholarship on policy advice to expand our understanding of the relational dynamics within a policy advisory system (PAS). In this article, we use a case from Brazil to address two key gaps in the PAS literature – the lack of attention to understand policy advice through the lens of network governance and the current predominance of “Westminster” empirical cases. To better understand the impact of policy advice within a system of networked governance, we apply the frame of “metagovernance” – the steering of governance networks. We then introduce and employ the concepts of funnelling, political brokering and gate-keeping to better understand how policy advice is shaped, modified and then either rejected or accepted. The contribution of the article is that, while much of the existing PAS literature describes the contours and key actors within an advisory system, we develop new conceptual scaffolding to better understand the trajectories and impact of policy advice, and the interplay between actors and agents, within a broader system of metagovernance.

This paper examines the contemporary urban transport policies, and the policy advisory practices that shape then, in the capitals of the two largest authoritarian countries in the world: Moscow in Russia and Beijing in China. Policy advice has generally been analysed in the Westminster government system countries and part of the EU, where there is greater transparency and more pluralistic political systems, however, transport policies provide a window into better understanding of how policy advice could work in authoritarian environment, because this sphere is a less politically sensetive. Authoritarian decision-making is generally concealed from public view, so to avoid speculation this this paper examines policies that are relevant for both cities and their respective regimes: the problem of urban transport policy in a large megapolis. Moscow and Beijing as capitals can be considered good cases for comparison, because of significant public attention to the quality and results of transport policy implementation

This chapter aims to examine how mass protests affected processes of socio-political changes in Russia and China in the case of Hong Kong and Turkey. All three countries (with certain exceptions in the case of Hong Kong) are characterized as authoritarian states where blast of mass protests happened during the period 2011-2017. In each case, the situation with authoritarian rule has different aspects: Russia slowly moves from a democratic hybrid regime to authoritarianism since 2003 under control of president Vladimir Putin; In Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is trying to unite the nation around his figure and changing political regime to achieve undisputed power; Hong Kong was under British rule till 1999 and returned into China on a particular agreement that the political regime established during the “colonial” period, which will not be reduced to all-China conditions. Nevertheless, different pathways led to similar results – shrinking space for independent political institutions and violations of fundamental rights and freedoms are not tolerated by the part of society in all three countries. Without working mechanisms to launch policy change, citizens choose protests as a way to show authorities their disagreement and anger over the authoritarian manner of policy-making.

The Arab Spring affected a large number of countries North Africa, but the intensity and nature of protests were different from one country to another. In some cases, protests led not only to the overthrow of authoritarian leaders, but to civil war and harsh clashes among ethnic and religious groups. Nonetheless, the nature of the regime type that might be said to depict these groups is the “hybrid regime” which combines authoritarianism and some aspects of electoral democracy. Hence, mass protests played the same role among the three hybrid regime countries: Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt.

The political situation in Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt after the Arab Spring revolutions witnessed multi-faceted changes. Based on the theory of political change, we can track different situational, institutional and policy changes that occurred in the three countries after the protests: “New Political Elite” in Tunisia: from Islamists to a regime of technocrats and democrats; Constitutional reforms in Morocco: The steady "Palace" knows well how to play the game with Islamists; The Islamist failure and rise of the army into power in Egypt.

In the selected countries mass protests served as specific triggers for change that led to different kinds of democratic development. The features of every state and a combination of involved actors and key factors determined the nature of such changes, but taking into account general patterns, we could say that the main trend of political and democratic change was certainly close in each case. Therefore, the role of protest publics in hybrid regimes can be described as “triggers” of democracy whereby efforts to democratize are slowly getting off the ground under authoritarian conditions.

In the last decade, protests in India, Brazil, and South Africa have affected political, social, and cultural processes in a number of ways. Various scholars have studied individual protests in these countries through different lenses on the causes, triggers, and reasons for protests, political economic and social context of these protests, and so on [Heller (BRICS from below: Counterpower movements in Brazil, India and South Africa. Open Democracy, 2015); Yadav and Chopra (International Journal of Trade and Commerce-IIARTC 4:411–422, 2015); Bastos et al. (First Monday 19(3), 2014); Gokay and Shain (Estudos Ibero-Americanos 41(2):242–260, 2015); Mendonça and Ercan (Policy Studies 36(3):267–282, 2015)]. In this chapter we attempt to address the conceptual understanding of the significant and lasting street protests that have burst out in large numbers across the varied geographical space in the global south, particularly in the countries of India, Brazil, and South Africa. We try to examine the origin, structure, and the social foundations of this publics’ outrage against authorities and their demands for greater accountability, transparency, and better governance. We argue that the protests in these countries have led to the emergence of new political actors—“protest publics” who have acted as watchdogs by raising concerns about the “quality of democracy” [Morlino (Changes for democracy: Actors, structures, processes. Oxford University Press, 2012)]. These protests have also led to significant social and political changes within these three nations by transforming the public sphere through a varied public discourse. Through this chapter, we argue that these demands have amalgamated into a meta demand which has consequently changed the dominating public discourses that are largely based on common peoples’ all-encompassing demands. These demands are ethical in nature and have been shaped considerably by common peoples’ understanding of what is right and what is wrong and what the government must do and must refrain from doing, giving these demands an extra normative layering. It has led to the emergence and convergence of diverse social groups and mini-publics [Della Porta (Mobilizing for democracy: Comparing 1989 and 2011. Oxford University Press, 2014)] who are focused on issue-based protests to generate a “meta-issue”—lack of governance which includes law and order problem, health and education problem, corruption, and economic inequality. The protest public emerges as a large tidal wave with an actorness for change having plurality of concerns, interests, and demands. It splashes the shores of the authorities forcefully with transformative demands. This chapter wants to further examine whether this horizontal bottom-up tidal wave demanding change among the mainstream political systems of the global south has expanded and increased the democratization of the polity and policy process.

This book examines the waves of protest that broke out in the 2010s as the collective actions of self-organized publics. Drawing on theories of publics/counter-publics and developing an analytical framework that allows the comparison of different country cases, this volume explores the transformation from spontaneous demonstrations, driven by civic outrage against injustice to more institutionalized forms of protest. Presenting comparative research and case studies on e.g. the Portuguese Generation in Trouble, the Arab Spring in Northern Africa, or Occupy Wall Street in the USA, the authors explore how protest publics emerge and evolve in very different ways – from creating many small citizen groups focused on particular projects to more articulated political agendas for both state and society. These protest publics have provoked and legitimized concrete socio-political changes, altering the balance of power in specific political spaces, and in some cases generating profound moments of instability that can lead both to revolutions and to peaceful transformations of political institutions.

The authors argue that this recent wave of protests is driven by a new type of social actor: self-organized publics. In some cases these protest publics can lead to democratic reform and redistributive policies, while in others they can produce destabilization, ethnic and nationalist populism, and authoritarianism. This book will help readers to better understand how seemingly spontaneous public events and protests evolve into meaningful, well-structured collective action and come to shape political processes in diverse regions of the globe.

A book review for 'Favela media activism' by Leonardo Custódio

This review explores the book French Populism and Discourses on Secularism written by Per-Erik Nilsson and published in 2018. The book deals with the phenomenon of populism from a unique perspective: by placing populist discourses on French secularism – la laïcité – at the centre of the analysis. Nilsson’s study lies at the intersection of three major strands of empirical research focusing on French secularism, radical nationalism and populism, and anti-Muslim activism but offers an in-depth analysis combining simultaneously all the three above-mentioned perspectives.

This study contributes to debate on three related questions in Policy Advisory System research. Is the Policy Advisory System concept applicable in countries other than developed democracies? How does it function in a state-centred authoritarian regime? How does the authoritarian environment affect tendencies such as “politicization” and “externalization”? These questions are addressed using materials on the current Russian governance structure and advisory practices, focusing on two broadly defined “governance subsystems” in the Presidential Administration of Russia, “Political Bloc” and “Economic Bloc”, both acting as regular customers for advisory communities. One finding is the phenomenon of “Dual Demand” from the same centre of power—“stability” for “Political Bloc” and “innovation” for “Economic Bloc”—which contributed to creation of two different clusters of policy advisory agencies with different statuses. Other findings include transformation of “politicization” to policy control mechanisms and attempted “externalization” turning into the reverse—“internalization”—bringing independent advisory organizations under the supervision of government structures.

In the Post‐Soviet period, domestic policies of Central and Eastern European countries have been marked by a ‘problem of minorities’. ‘Nationalizing’ state policies in regard to large Russian minority in Estonia and Latvia have been the issue of concern for both the kin‐state and European institutions ever since. Could pressure from Russia be effective in terms of change of minority policies in the Baltic states? What are the effects of EU accession on minority policies? These are the principle questions addressed by Jennie L. Schulze in Strategic Frames: Europe, Russia, and Minority Inclusion in Estonia and Latvia. The book focuses on the indirect influence of the EU institutions and Russia, adopting a framing approach. It consists of comparative cases covering the areas of language, citizenship and electoral policies.