Russian nationalism shifting: The role of populism since the annexation of Crimea

This article focuses on the on-going war in a borderland between the European Union and Russia, the 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 the 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, in the context of Crimea’s annexation and the war in Donbass, the Russian political leadership deployed a discourse of Russian identity, which is 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 according to the audience: Russian leadership has used discursive strategies associated with populism to articulate this new vision of identity in relation to Crimean residents, and nationalist ones when addressing the domestic audiences.

Le Olimpiadi di Soči, specchio del nazionalismo e del multiculturalismo russi

La storia recente della provincia delle Asturie, nel nord della Spagna, fornisce un esempio particolarmente interessante da studiare della relazione tra le ideologie regionaliste e la crisi d’identità della sinistra operaia attualmente in corso. A partire dai tardi anni Ottanta del XX secolo, la coalizione a guida comunista di Izquierda Unida (IU), capeggiata da Gaspar Llamazares, ha fatto propria in maniera crescente la retorica e il programma del regionalismo asturiano, abbracciando le sue richieste di bilinguismo ufficiale e di maggiore autonomia. Di conseguenza, la visibilità del regionalismo e del nazionalismo nelle Asturie è stata recentemente messa in stretta connessione con la tensione tra apertura e ortodossia nell’ambito del comunismo spagnolo, un primo campo di battaglia nella ridefinizione della sinistra in Spagna. The recent history of the northern Spanish province of Asturias provides a particularly interesting case study of relationship between regionalist ideologies and the ongoing identity crisis of the working-class left.  From the late 1980s, the Communist-led coalition United Left (IU), led by Gaspar Llamazares, increasingly co-opted the rhetoric and program of Asturian regionalism, embracing its demands of official bilingualism and greater self-government. Accordingly, the visibility of regionalism and nationalism in Asturias has recently been strongly linked to the tension between openness and orthodoxy within Spanish communism, an early battleground in the re-definition of the left in Spain

Hegemonie und Populismus in Putins Russland

Die kontroversen Diskussionen um die politische Entwicklung in Russland seit der Machtübernahme durch Wladimir Putin im Jahr 2000 reißen nicht ab. Der Abbau demokratischer Rechte, wirtschaftliches Wachstum und Stabilität werden als Kennzeichen der Putin'schen Herrschaft hervorgehoben. Philipp Casula fokussiert in seiner Analyse hingegen auf die Genese des politischen Diskurses im Zeitraum 2000-2008 und erarbeitet dessen hegemoniale und populistische Tendenzen mithilfe der Ansätze von Ernesto Laclau. Die Studie wirft ein neues Licht auf die russische politische Entwicklung und produziert Erklärungen für die Regime-Stabilität Russlands unter Putin jenseits üblicher transformationstheoretischer Modelle

Diplomatie und Intervention: Moskaus "Krieg gegen den Terror" in Syrien

Russland hat sich bereits vor seinem militärischen Eingreifen in Syrien intensiv diplomatisch in den Bürgerkrieg eingeschaltet. In Kooperation mit den USA aber auch mit Staaten des Nahen Ostens, leistete Russland einen wichtigen Beitrag, die internationalen Verhandlungen in Wien und die unterbrochenen Friedensgespräche in Genf zu ermöglichen. Der folgende Beitrag diskutiert Moskaus Militärintervention und die diplomatischen Bemühungen des Kremls vor dem Hintergrund der Wahrnehmungen des syrischen Bürgerkrieges in den russischen Medien

Bürgerkrieg oder Antiterror-Kampf? Der Syrienkonflikt im Spiegel der russischen Medien

Die russische Berichterstattung über den Syrienkonflikt unterscheidet sich deutlich von jener in vielen westlichen Medien. Russische Journalisten berichten vor allem aus der Perspektive des syrischen Regimes und blenden die Perspektive der Opposition weitgehend aus. Letztere wird überwiegend als militant und fundamentalistisch disqualifiziert. Auffallend ist, wie knapp politische Einschätzungen und Hintergrundanalysen ausfallen. Der Konflikt wird vor allem als Kampf des Regimes gegen den Terrorismus gedeutet, eine Sichtweise, die nicht nur das Vorgehen der syrischen Regierung, sondern auch russische Politik im Äußeren und Inneren legitimiert

Satellites and large doping- and temperature-dependence of electronic properties in hole-doped BaFe2As2

Over the last years, superconductivity has been discovered in several families of iron-based compounds. Despite intense research, even basic electronic properties of these materials, such as Fermi surfaces, effective electron masses, or orbital characters are still subject to debate. Here, we address an issue that has not been considered before, namely the consequences of dynamical screening of the Coulomb interactions among Fe-d electrons. We demonstrate its importance not only for correlation satellites seen in photoemission spectroscopy, but also for the low-energy electronic structure. From our analysis of the normal phase of BaFe2As2 emerges the picture of a strongly correlated compound with strongly doping- and temperature-dependent properties. In the hole overdoped regime, an incoherent metal is found, while Fermi-liquid behavior is recovered in the undoped compound. At optimal doping, the self-energy exhibits an unusual square-root energy dependence which leads to strong band renormalizations near the Fermi level

Linear behavior of the optical conductivity and incoherent charge transport in BaCoS2{\mathrm{BaCoS}}_{2}

Optical conductivity measurements on a BaCoS2 single crystal unveil an unusual linear behavior over a broad spectral range. In the paramagnetic phase above 300 K, the spectrum shows no gap, which contradicts the previously proposed scenario of a charge-transfer Mott insulator. Ab initio dynamical mean field theory calculations including a retarded Hubbard interaction explain the data in terms of an incipient opening of a Co(3d)−S(3p) charge-transfer gap concomitant to incoherent charge transport driven by electronic correlations. These results point to a non-Fermi liquid scenario with Hund's metal properties in the paramagnetic state, which arises from an incipient Mott phase destabilized by low-energy charge fluctuations across the vanishing 3d−3p charge-transfer gap

Azimuthal anisotropy of charged jet production in root s(NN)=2.76 TeV Pb-Pb collisions

We present measurements of the azimuthal dependence of charged jet production in central and semi-central root s(NN) = 2.76 TeV Pb-Pb collisions with respect to the second harmonic event plane, quantified as nu(ch)(2) (jet). Jet finding is performed employing the anti-k(T) algorithm with a resolution parameter R = 0.2 using charged tracks from the ALICE tracking system. The contribution of the azimuthal anisotropy of the underlying event is taken into account event-by-event. The remaining (statistical) region-to-region fluctuations are removed on an ensemble basis by unfolding the jet spectra for different event plane orientations independently. Significant non-zero nu(ch)(2) (jet) is observed in semi-central collisions (30-50% centrality) for 20 <p(T)(ch) (jet) <90 GeV/c. The azimuthal dependence of the charged jet production is similar to the dependence observed for jets comprising both charged and neutral fragments, and compatible with measurements of the nu(2) of single charged particles at high p(T). Good agreement between the data and predictions from JEWEL, an event generator simulating parton shower evolution in the presence of a dense QCD medium, is found in semi-central collisions. (C) 2015 CERN for the benefit of the ALICE Collaboration. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).Peer reviewe