James W. Warhola

This chapter is concerns the manner in which the Soviet experience has shaped the interplay of religion and politics under the Putin and Medvedev presidential administrations. Four areas are examined: (1) the post-Soviet governments' engagement with religion to redress what they perceive as moral bankruptcy and civilizational decoupling in the Russian Federation due to 74 years of atheistic propaganda undertaken in the name of 'communist construction;' (2) the use of religion to buttress a sense of regime legitimacy, national cohesion, and to some degree even national identity at home, and to augment Russian influence abroad; (3) control of religion in order to manage its effect on society and particularly to keep it from generating the sort of social capital that could pose a credible political challenge to the political system created by the Putin administration; and (4) control of the more explicitly seditious manifestations of religiosity, largely but not exclusively in the form of Islamist jihadism. The first two of these four areas involve positive dimensions of religion as it pertains to public authority, whereas the latter two pertain to the control of negative manifestations. This chapter explores how each of these four exist within the echoes and shadows of the Soviet experiment.

The political landscape of the Caucasus region has changed dramatically since the initial eruption of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in the late 1980s-early1990s. Among other changes, Turkey and Russia have experienced a rapprochement in the 2000s that places them in a strong position to influence both the political leadership and the mass publics of Azerbaijan and Armenia to open negotiations with a new willingness to consider hitherto unacceptable solutions to the Nagorno-Karabakh problem. Because of the domestic political tension-ratcheting knot within both Armenia and Azerbaijan that make concessionary approaches to N-K politically suicidal, external influence is essential. It is precisely here that Turkey and Russia are now – unlike earlier-uniquely and fortuitously positioned: Turkey is arguably in as effectual a position to influence Azerbaijan as Russia is to influence Armenia. Again, the Russian-Turkish rapprochement has changed the calculus of prospective resolution decisively, if not inevitably. Savaş ve Barış: Rusya, Türkiye ve Kafkaslar Sorununun İç Siyaset Boyutu Özet Kafkasya bölgesinin siyasi ilişkileri Dağlık-Karabağ sorununun ortaya çıktığı 1980'lerin sonu ve 1990'ların başından günümüze büyük ölçüde değişmiştir. Bu değişimlerin arasında önemli bir yer ise 2000'li yılların başından giderek artan Türkiye ile Rusya arasındaki yakınlaşma politikasıdır. Türkiye ve Rusya'yı Dağlık-Karabağ sorununun çözümünde özellikli bir yere konumlandıran dinamikler ise bu iki ülkenin Azeri ve Ermeni siyasi liderliğini ve kamuoyunu Dağlık-Karabağ sorununun çözümü doğrultusunda etkileme güçleridir. Azerbaycan ve Ermenistan'ın iç siyasetinin içerisinde bulunduğu kör düğüm ve Dağlık-Karabağ sorunu etrafında gelişen hassasiyet nedeniyle soruna uzlaşmacı bir çözüm yolunu dış ülkelerin müdahalesine muhtaç hale getirmektedir. Tam da bu noktada Türkiye ve Rusya'nın ilişkilerinin gelişmesi ve Rusya'nın Ermenistan Türkiye'nin ise Azerbaycan üzerindeki etkin rölü bu iki ülkeyi geçmişin aksine çözüm sürecinde biricik bir konuma yerleştirmiştir.

By the time of Vladimir Putin’s return to the presidency of Russia in May 2012, the Russian–Turkish rapprochement that began over a decade earlier had become a significant fixture of the Eurasian landscape. Nonetheless, numerous questions remain about the nature of the relation, implications for the region of western Eurasia, and its likely future directions. Four general characteristics of the bilateral relation have emerged, and recognizing them enables a deeper understanding of the opportunities and limits likely to be afforded, for Russia, Turkey, and the region: (a) pragmatism, (b) a multivectored approach to the bilateral relation, (c) commonalities despite contradictions, and (d) durability even despite episodic antagonism. The Russian–Turkish rapprochement has become a defining feature of the Eurasian landscape, but remains an unequal one, on several counts: energy resources, geopolitical strength, military capability, and underlying demographics. Nonetheless, various factors make a deepening rapprochement likely: mutual desirability of increased trade, wariness toward the West, Turkey’s pursuit of a “no enemies” foreign policy, Russia’s interest in regional great-power status, and common interest in regional conflict resolution.

Two U.S. political scientists analyze the electoral geography of the 2000 Russian presidential election with a focus on the ethnic dimension of support for Vladimir Putin. In exploring the impact of ethnicity on voting patterns, the authors focus on the ethno-territorial line of division between Russia's ethnic and non-ethnic regions, as well as Putin's policies toward the ethnic regions. In an effort to determine the extent to which patterns from previous elections persisted into the 2000 election, the authors examine a range of socioeconomic correlates and compare support for Putin with support for Boris Yel'tsin in the 1996 presidential election. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: H10, O50, Z10. 2 figures, 1 table, 35 references. In the 26 March 2000 presidential election, Vladimir Putin won a decisive first-round victory with over 53.4 percent of the vote, thus securing for himself by democratic means the seat that Boris Yel'tsin passed on to him upon his resignation on the New Year's Eve of the millennium. With voter turnout just below 69 percent, moreover, this seemingly was also a decision most citizens were interested in and supportive of. While turnout was consistently high from region to region, with all but four regions having between a 60 and 80 percent turnout, Ingushetia and Kabardino-Balkaria had turnout rates that greatly exceeded the national average, with 92.8 and 88.5 percent, respectively. Incidentally, these two regions also were among the most supportive of Putin, giving him 86.1 and 75.5 percent of their votes. Is it a mere coincidence that these regions, with exceptionally high levels of electoral participation, were also some of the most supportive of Putin's bid for the presidency? Moreover , is there something to the fact that these two regions happen to be " ethnic " regions, i.e., subjects of the Russian Federation with special legal standing based on the ethnic status of their titular nationalities? Given the highly complex and multi-faceted nature of ethnic identity in the Russian Federation; the persisting specter of ethnic disintegration hanging over the country; and the emergence of Putin's centralizing policies toward the regions (particularly the ethnic regions)—any discernible patterns between voting behavior, ethnic identity, and support for the president warrant further investigation. We provide evidence below that such connections are indeed discernible from close regional analysis of the March 26, 2000 presidential election.

The interaction between Orthodoxy and Islam during the years of the Putin presidency was complex, dynamic and fraught with potential for conflict. Indeed a number of political, demographic and economic factors created conditions that were particularly hospitable for the eruption of religious-based conflict. This is particularly so given the ongoing problems of Islamic radicalism, which by the early Putin years had spread beyond Chechnya itself, and by the concomitant appearance and spread of xenophobia, racism and various strains of extremism. Nonetheless, despite rising tensions among communal groups, and also despite a general but unmistakable trend toward increasingly authoritarian tendencies by the central government, there was considerable evidence of the sort of leadership within both religious and governmental bodies that had the effect of mitigating or at least containing conflict. Such leadership at the national level may have been pivotal in containing tendencies toward conflict. While admirable and almost certainly driven more by prudential than idealistic motives, such leadership will necessarily need to develop a greater degree of accountability to the public than that which was in evidence as the Putin presidency completed its second term amid deepening concentration of power by the Kremlin.

The Arab Spring, or “Arab Awakening,” that began in Tunisia in early 2011 has spawned numerous developments across the region, some of them surprising in nature and perhaps in scale. One such development has been a major re-alignment of regional power relations, resulting both in new patterns of relations among countries and in complications of longstanding disputes. The regional re-alignment engendered by the Arab Awakening has reshaped the contours of possible armed conflict in the South Caucasus over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, and has also reshaped the contours of possible resolution. Among the newly emerging patterns, Russian steps towards diplomatic solution of the Syrian conflict, including forestalling a US-led military intervention, could work as an example of US-Russian cooperation in preventing an outbreak or escalation of other regional disputes. An agreement brokered largely by US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as a diplomatic de-escalation of the Syrian crisis might serve as a general template for de- escalating the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. In such a scenario, however, US-Russian
cooperation would almost certainly need to include direct and heavy Turkish involvement, and given currently evolving realities, would need to account for rising Iranian influence as well.

After reviewing various themes in classical Greco-Roman and Islamic political thought pertaining to political stability and accountability, this analysis considers large-scale patterns of political unrest and conflict in the late-modern world, particularly as they manifest within the larger political context of the modern, so-called global ‘Westphalian system’ of nation-states. One of the most primal functions of government – provision of security – must be taken into consideration if the political effects of the global financial crisis are to be even partly understood.

One of the brighter aspects of the late-modern human condition is the remarkable decline in incidence of inter-state conflict since the mid-20th century. Despite the seeming plethora of wars, international violence, and apparently chronic instability in some regions of the world, the objective fact is that there has been a remarkable, global decrease in inter-state conflict since the end of WWII. As an unfortunate counterpoint to the previous point, there was a dramatic increase in the number and frequency of civil wars, or within-country conflicts, during the second half of the 20th century. In some respects this might be viewed as a derivative of the ‘gelling’ of the Westphalian system of nation-states during the entire 20th century. Much of the proliferation of nation states came during the Cold War, when the Atlantic Alliance/Soviet Bloc rivalry had an oddly stabilizing global effect regarding inter-state conflict. There was a striking increase in the incidence of ethnic-based conflict in the second half of the 20th century. Although the apparent rate of “onset of new societal wars” has remained constant, the type of those societal wars appears to have shifted somewhat from predominantly ethnic-type conflicts to conflicts having a religious dimension.

If there is an underlying, common denominator it appears to be the marginal or absent degree of political accountability by national leaderships, combined with a failure of the international community to intervene in cases where doing so would be not only morally justifiable, but compelling on pragmatic grounds of prevention of conflict-escalation.

By the time of Vladimir Putin’s return to the presidency of Russia in May 2012, the Russian–Turkish rapprochement that began over a decade earlier had become a significant fixture of the Eurasian landscape. Nonetheless, numerous questions remain about the nature of the relation, implications for the region of western Eurasia, and its likely future directions. Four general characteristics of the bilateral relation have emerged, and recognizing them enables a deeper understanding of the opportunities and limits likely to be afforded, for Russia, Turkey, and the region: (a) pragmatism, (b) a multivectored approach to the bilateral relation, (c) commonalities despite contradictions, and (d) durability even despite episodic antagonism. The Russian–Turkish rapprochement has become a defining feature of the Eurasian landscape, but remains an unequal one, on several counts: energy resources, geopolitical strength, military capability, and underlying demographics. Nonetheless, various factors make a deepening rapprochement likely: mutual desirability of increased trade, wariness toward the West, Turkey’s pursuit of a “no enemies” foreign policy, Russia’s interest in regional great-power status, and common interest in regional conflict resolution.

Relations between Turkey and Russia have taken significant turns for the better in the past several years, culminating in the visit of Turkish Prime Min- ister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Moscow in December 2004 and followed by Rus- sian President Vladimir Putin’s reciprocal trip to Ankara in January 2005. How can we begin to account for this rather sudden warming of relations between Turkey and Russia, and what does this mean for the region? These questions can perhaps best be approached from the perspective of the larger regional landscape of issues whose substance and potential resolution are of particular importance to Turkey and Russia. These can be conveniently parsed into matters of (1) mutu- al economic and financial advantage, (2) regional security concerns, and (3) domestic political considerations. The present improvement of relations between Russia and Turkey has unfolded in the context of Turkey and Russia’s simulta- neously complex and somewhat conflicted orientations toward the Western world in general, and post-Soviet increase in U.S. global influence in particular. In any case, the improvement of Turkish-Russian relations will significantly alter the geopolitical landscape of Eurasia for the foreseeable future.

Throughout the 1990s, Russia's regions exhibited patterns of political behavior related to their ethnic status and levels of socio‐economic development. The ethnic regions tended to support the Yeltsin regime while tending to lag behind the rest of the country in levels of development and inclination to undergo economic reforms. Using quantitative analysis, we analyse the complex interrelationship of ethnicity, socio‐economic development, and regime support in Russia's regions under Yeltsin, and offer a series of possible explanations as to why the ethnic regions exhibited the patterns of electoral behavior they did during the years of the Yeltsin presidency.

... Pertinent are the com-ments of one participant, Archbishop Kirill of Smolensk and Vyazma: Subjective factors also had great significance such as, for example, the de-gree of ideological tolerance of the local commissioner (upolnom-mochenny) of the Council for Religious ...

Abstract: Three political scientists analyze the electoral geography of the 2004 Russian pres-idential election with a focus on the ethnic and regional dimensions of support for Vladimir Putin. In an effort to determine the extent to which patterns from previous elections ...

Recent research on ethnic conflict has also sought to find underlying patterns in the escalation or de-escalation of violent relations among ethnic groups. Victor Levine, in particular, has developed a useful model describing the “modal ontogeny” of ethnic ...

This article addresses the condition of Russian democracy by focusing on the developing political relations between the central government and regional governments. A situation of profound ambivalence and ambiguity has evolved since ratification of the Russian Federation Constitution in December 1993. Regional governments have found it possible to gain a degree of political autonomy uncharacteristic of Russia's long historical experience, yet increasingly in line with global trends toward decentralization of governmental authority. Two political patterns in the current Russian Federation are explored, both of them promising broad and enduring significance. First, the political ambiguity of relations between the national government and regional authorities may provide the context in which divided government serves to enable democracy, despite the appearance of authoritarian rule in many regions themselves. Second, the nature of the interaction between the centre and regional authorities may be breaking new ground, in terms of flexible solutions to intra‐state relations among different levels of government. Because certain aspects of centre‐regional relations in the Russian Federation replicate comparable issues elsewhere (particularly regarding the ethnic‐territorial dimension of politics), the Federation's approaches and solutions to this aspect of state‐formation could suggest useful lessons for other parts of the world.

The identity of the Slovak people can be traced to the 9th century a.d., yet they did not experience full national independence until 1993. The political culture of independent Slovakia appears to be a curious combination of traditionally parochial orientations and modern participatory attitudinal and behavioral patterns. Although citizens' trust of fellow citizens and of the country's political institutions are markedly lower than those in other countries of the region, the Slovakian citizenry also exhibits numerous civic virtues that have appeared to make Slovakian democracy take strong and durable root in the post-communist era despite significant and enduring social divisions. This study seeks to arrive at a deeper understanding of the patterns of mass beliefs, attitudes, values, and actual political behavior that emerged in the time period from genuine independence in 1993 until Slovakia joined the EU and NATO in the Spring of 2004. Although their political culture may be described as generally parochial during their centuries under Magyar, Nazi, and communist rule, they nevertheless possessed certain political cultural traits that kept their identity alive and vibrant. Many of those traits have undergone transformation as Slovakia has modernized in the 20th century, yet in other respects numerous characteristics of traditional Slovakian political culture show remarkable persistence. This study seeks to identify those and indicate their significance for governance in the 21st century in Slovakia and beyond. * Today we have the obligation to begin creating. That is, to create outwardly the image that is written deep within us and within our ancestors. And upon this foundation of self-awareness, to establish for Slovakia a country that is prepared to fulfill its destiny in the development of Europe and its activity in the world.

The emergence and entrenchment of authoritarian rule in post-Soviet Eurasia in the form of patronalism has been well described and documented. The present essay explores the religious dimension of patronalism in greater depth than that provided to date. Doing so will shed useful light on the persistence and acuity of this mode of rule, and also deepen our understanding of the comparative role of religion in shaping regime-type in the contemporary world. Richard Sakwa recently noted that in post-Soviet Eurasia, "the relationship between democratization and religion (and political spirituality more broadly) remains substantially underresearched." Despite a growing body of research on this theme, Sakwa is essentially correct in this claim, and the present essay seeks to help redress this shortcoming.