Philipp Casula

This article discusses how the Soviet Union perceived and related to Middle Eastern revolutionary movements, using a case study from South Yemen and the War in Dhofar. This specific Soviet encounter will be analysed through selected Soviet material from published and archival sources. The article highlights how Soviet representatives assessed prospects for socialism in Yemen, and how they interacted with their partners on the ground. The article is divided into three parts: the first discusses the theoretical debates in Soviet academia and the press, the second section contrasts these theoretical views with Middle Eastern ‘socialist’ theories during the Cold War and the third shows how a symbiosis developed between Soviet and Yemeni institutions and organisations. The article argues that due to an Orientalist take on South Yemen and Dhofar, the Soviet side could not appreciate the political importance and potential of socialist currents in the region, reducing cooperation to ‘pragmatism’.

This article focuses on the ongoing conflict in Eastern Ukraine (Donbass) that started with the events on the Euromaidan and the swift annexation of Crimea by Russia. Our analysis of key speeches by Vladimir Putin regarding the annexation of Crimea and the war in Donbass demonstrates that in this case, populism extends beyond the dichotomy of the people against the establishment, since it relies on complex notions of enmity and alliance. We argue that the Russian political leadership deployed a discourse of Russian identity based on an overstretched definition of the Russian nation, a new discursive division of the political space, and the introduction of new and the reaffirmation of old symbols of unity. We also conclude that populism and nationalism were used interchangeably depending on the audience: the Russian leadership has used discursive strategies associated with populism to articulate this new vision of identity to residents of Crimea and nationalist ones when addressing domestic audiences.

How did selected Soviet cultural representatives in late socialism see the Middle East? What were their opinions or understanding of it? This paper replies to these questions by analysing the statements, reports and communications of the Soviet Afro‑Asian Solidarity committee (SKSSAA), which is analysed as a case study. It scrutinizes archival material of the SKSSAA and discusses the interaction between the Solidarity Committee and various liberation movements and “fronts”. In doing so, it highlights the peculiarities of a Soviet Orientalism. In the first section, the paper sets the context of the Soviet “Third World” engagement with a description of the myriad of “public organisations” tasked with spreading socialism; while dependent on the CPSU International Department, the SKSSAA claimed to enjoy some autonomy. In the second part of the paper, it is shown that the Solidarity Committee engaged in four identity‑crafting activities vis‑à‑vis its foreign partners: it drew a line between friends and enemies, it “certified” its partners as revolutionary, and it continuously assessed and evaluated their behaviour, both on an institutional and on an individual level. What emerges is a peculiar Orientalism, in which the Self is obviously more powerful, but in which the Other is continuously deemed as having the potential for becoming similar to the Soviet Self.

The Crimea Crisis of 2014 and the subsequent conflict in Eastern Ukraine have brought to the fore the troubled relations between Putin’s Russia and the West. Observers have been oscillating between disbelief and alarm, trying to figure out Russia’s conduct in foreign affairs by referring to imperialism, a new Cold War, or to an inherently autocratic character of Russia to explain its foreign policy. The 2015 Russian intervention in Syria has further buttressed these interpretations. Instead, this paper investigates Russia’s foreign policy along three key types of modern power in political history: sovereignty, reason of state, and biopolitics. It highlights how their respective instruments are fielded by Russia in four different cases: South Ossetia (2008), the conflicts in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine (2014 and ongoing) as well as and during the Syrian civil war (esp. since 2015). The aim of the paper is not to explain the reasons underlying Russia’s foreign policy but rather to highlight its formal mechanisms, which often resemble those of traditional great powers, including sovereignty and reason of state. However, in the context of global governance, biopolitics plays an increasingly important role for Russia.

As the Syrian Civil War continues to rage relentlessly, the Russian position seems unchanged. While the Kremlin supports the regime in Damascus, Russian media continue to portray the conflict as a legitimate government’s struggle against terrorism. This paper analyzes the coverage in Russian media outlets and discusses the Russian diplomatic efforts, which have unfolded particularly since mid-2014. It argues that, at least for the time being, the Russian military intervention complements rather than contradicts Russian diplomatic efforts. While criticized by the West over its role in Syria, Russia has at least contributed to bringing a variety of actors around one negotiating table in Vienna in late October 2015.

The Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and the two Russian wars in Chechnya were the longest, most protracted conflicts of the USSR and Russia after WWII. Both were conducted under conditions of unprecedented violence in peripheral territories. Despite their distance in time and space, both wars are closely linked to each other on the level of cultural representations in contemporary Russia. This paper analyses how the conflicts were represented in a key Soviet and Russian newspaper as the wars unfolded. It analyses the textual and visual coverage of the wars in the Krasnaia zvezda (1980–1986; 2000–2003), in order to disclose changing interpretations of violence and the Other. The paper argues, first, that Krasnaia zvezda told the story of two different types of violence prevailing in each conflict. The Afghan case was presented as one that put the social and cultural transformation of the population at the center of its attention – violence was hence not only physical and excessive but also cultural, as it aimed at the social fabric of society. The Chechen case focused on the recapture of territory and the restoration of sovereignty. Therefore, physical violence appeared more bluntly in the coverage of the conflict. Second, the paper shows that these two different types of violence implied two different visions of the Other. In Afghanistan, the Other was represented as becoming more and more similar to the socialist Self. This dynamic is visually underscored by numerous images of Afghans who have embarked on the path to Soviet modernity. In Chechnya, in contrast, the Other was presented as traditional, backward, and immutable. The Other was usually reduced to complete cultural difference and depicted a dehumanized fashion. This orientalization of the Other was a precondition for the use of excessive physical violence.

The 2008 Russo-Georgian war in South Ossetia marked a deep change in the order of the post-Soviet space and posed a direct challenge to the Western monopoly on military intervention and state building. The focus of this article, however, is not a military or political analysis, but rather a comparative investigation into the Russian and Western representations of this conflict. What accompanied and followed the war was an intense strife over who caused it. This battle for truth was also conducted on the plane of popular culture with two movies presenting two contrasting stories, operating with similar plots, characters and forms of representation: Russian-produced Olympus Inferno (2009) and the US-made Five Days of War (2011). Using the concepts of mimetic politics and security as analytic lenses, the article discusses how the movies depicted Self/Other relations as well as the telos and ethos of the conflict.

Russia and the European Union approach their shared borderlands differently. Making use of "sovereignty" and "security" as guiding concepts reveals commonalities and differences and highlights the connections among identities, borders, and power.

The Crimean Crisis of 2014 has emphasized once more the troubled relations between Putin’s Russia and the West. It has also brought to the fore a lack of understanding of Russia’s foreign policy in the West. Many observers are oscillating between disbelief and alarm, trying to figure out Russia’s conduct in foreign affairs by referring to imperialism, the Cold War, or to an inherently autocratic character of Russian politics. But how special or different are the drivers of Russian foreign policy compared with those of other powers? This paper investigates Russia’s foreign policy along three key terms of political history, reason of state, sovereignty, and bio-politics, highlighting what they have meant historically and how they are put into practice by Russia’s current regime, especially during the Crimean Crisis.

The Russian coverage of the ongoing conflict in Syria differs significantly from its depiction in most Western media outlets. Russian journalists report mostly from the perspective of the government and disregard the opposition’s standpoint. The opposition itself is mostly portrayed as radical and fundamentalist. There is a particular lack of political and background analysis. The conflict is usually presented as the regime’s struggle with terrorism, a view which not only legitimizes the Syrian regime, but which also appears to conform to Russian domestic and foreign policies.

The break between sovereign power and government is one of the key distinctions that Michel Foucault elaborated in his writings. Drawing on de La Perrière, Foucault argues that modern government is «not a matter of imposing a law on men, but of the disposition of things, that is to say, of employing tactics rather than laws (...); arranging things so that this or that end may be achieved through a certain number of means. (...) Whereas the end of sovereignty is internal to itself and gets its instruments from itself in the form of law, the end of government is internal to the things it directs; it is to be sought in the perfection, maximization, or intensification of the processes it directs» (STP, 137). Government is thus the right disposition of things. Hence, modern power has to gauge different means to achieve certain ends. These thoughts are the point of departure for the class: its main aim is to scrutinize to which extent Foucault's ideas are pertinent for rethinking «development» and the role states and development agencies play in it. The seminar will inquire how states set themselves development goals in a remarkably modern fashion, employing modern means of analyzing and measuring populations, setting specific goals of development and employing suitable means, often by intervening in the details of citizens' daily lives. China's one-child policy is a very obvious example for a conjunction of market-based considerations and bio-political interventions affecting the lives of individuals. In international cooperation, too, government seems to be the prevailing mode of operation of aid agencies and their local counterparts. The vaccination programmes implemented in contemporary Africa recall vividly how Foucault placed the invention of vaccines in the context of security, with clear political implications, including the rise of metapolitical expertise («the rule of experts») which complements and then slowly displaces sovereign power. Finally, Foucault offers distinctive views on the role of war, which is nowadays waged on behalf of the existence of everyone and for which at the same time «massacres have become vital». Again, Foucault offers a modern understanding of wars and conflicts waged in the North as well as in the South.

The Arab Spring - including the Lotus and Jasmine revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia, respectively - surprised politicians and social scientists alike. The events were hailed as the beginning of a move toward more democracy, although, months after the upheavals, there are also growing reasons for skepticism. History seems to repeat itself: the 1989 collapse of "communism" also marked an unpredicted revolutionary change, which was celebrated in the West as the "end of history" (Fukuyama). Hence, the Arab Spring, offers a point of departure to reconsider theories of revolution and political change. The seminar is aimed at discussing the most important approaches to the concept of revolution and its derivates, like "transition", and at analyzing their hidden or explicit premises, which might have deceived theorists or even those who applied revolutionary recipes. In addition, alternative concepts will be discussed. Particular attention will be paid to the cultural level of revolution. As will be seen, culture has an intimately political dimension. The focus of the seminar will thus be less on concrete analyses of revolutions and rather more on how these Events have been represented, including the Iranian Revolution, the fall of "communism", and the Arab Spring. Attention will be paid also on how the perceptions of revolutionary events have shaped and are shaping the relations between North and South.

Populismus wird meist als Strategie der Opposition diskutiert, auch bei uns. Doch was passiert, wenn populistische Bewegungen und ihre Führer an die Macht kommen? Die Beispiele Russlands und der USA, aber auch Venezuelas oder der Türkei sind erhellend.