Bokomtale av "Reforming Child Welfare in the Post-Soviet Space: Institutional Change in Russia"

Antologin Reforming Child Welfare in the Post-Soviet Space: Institutional Change in Russia behandlar Rysslands satsning under senare år på att etablera ett fosterhemssystem i stället för de ökända institutionerna för omhändertagna barn. Den praktiska implementeringen redogörs för från olika aktörers perspektiv, myndighets- och NGO-personal såväl som fosterföräldrar och barn, med fokus både på institutionella bromsklossar och reformens mer välfungerande aspekter

Social Welfare or Moral Warfare? : Popular Resistance against Children’s Rights and Juvenile Justice in Contemporary Russia

Since the mid-2000s, Russia has increased its efforts to strengthen the legal rights of children and to improve the systems of social assistance to vulnerable families in in line with the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child. The reform drive has met fierce resistance by a grassroots mobilization in defence of ‘traditional Russian family values’. Child rights are conceived of as weapons in a Western moral war against Russia, but simultaneously, the popular appeal of the campaign stems from a profound distrust in Russian state administrators, who purportedly use the CRC for personal gain. This paper suggests that this disbelief makes the protesters locate notions of citizenship primarily to the intimate social sphere, prioritizing ‘parental rights’ rather than ‘civil rights’ defined by the state-citizen relationship. It is also suggested that the confidence of citizens in their own state administration must be considered if the Convention is to be successfully implemented

Nationalism and Civicness in Contemporary Russia: : Grassroots Mobilization in Defense of Traditional Family Values

The so-called Parents' Movement is a Russian conservative grassroots mobilization against a presumed Western cultural attack on Russian tradition and sovereignty. The primary target is an ongoing legal implementation of the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child, which is conceived of as a Western feint contrived by hostile global agencies and a Russian fifth column of treacherous NGOs and state administrators. This article elucidates how the Parents' Movement navigates between seemingly incompatible ideals to construct itself as an authentic “voice of the people. The notion of civil society is vital in this pursuit, although Western conceptions of liberal democracy are rejected in favor of President Putin’s vision of a patriotic civil society loyal to common national goals. The movement is harshly critical to many government policies, however, and rejects the state administration as well as other elites as corrupt and morally polluting. At the same time, it has to negotiate the fact that attempts to influence the despised political elite also imply the risk of becoming usurped by it. Since the movement’s campaigns to a large extent take place on-line, this study is based on Internet sources as well as interviews with activists. Exploring how concepts such as civil society and civic activism are translated and operationalized into the contemporary Russian sociopolitical context, it contributes to the understanding of contemporary popular nationalisms and how these are shaped by a simultaneous negotiation of local tradition and global discursive flows

Fatherland, Faith and Family Policy: Parental Mobilization against Children’s Rights in Contemporary Russia

Policies related to family, children, and birthrates have since the mid-2000s become increasingly central to the general ideological shift toward nationalism and conservative values in Russia. A symptom of, and a response to, this development is the so-called Parents’ Movement; a rapidly proliferating grassroots mobilization in the defense of presumably traditional Russian family values against allegedly Western forms of moral degeneration. The catalyst and main target of the Movement is a current reform of the state structures of child protection in line with the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child. The parental opponents claim the reforms to be a conspiratorial Western attack against Russian “tradition” and its presumed core, the family. Nonetheless the popular appeal of the Parent’s Movement also stems from a proliferated distrust in the Russian state administration, which is expected to intentionally exploit the CRC to increase corruption and authority abuse. The recent success of the Parents' Movement, this paper argues, resides in a simultaneous distrust in “Western” models of governance as well as in the Russian state bureaucracy. (Mis)representations of Western systems of child protection are used to draw up apocalyptic scenarios of a domestic future, and as the critique against Russian authorities are expressed in anti-Western terms an explicit challenge of an increasingly repressive regime is avoided

Fosterland, familj och föräldraföreningar: moralisk mobilisering och myndighetsmisstro i dagens Ryssland

Abstract in UndeterminedI Ryssland har familj och familjevärderingar sedan mitten på 2000-talet kommit att bli centrala för en allmän ideologisk svängning mot konservativa värderingar och patriotism. Symptomatisk för denna tendens är den så kallade Föräldrarörelsen, en växande och starkt nationalistisk gräsrotsmobilisering med syfte att försvara föregivet traditionella ryska familjevärderingar mot förmodat destruktiv västerländskt moraliskt inflytande. Föräldrarörelsen primära fokus är en pågående anpassning av rysk lagstiftning till FN:s konvention om barnets rättigheter, vilket av ortodoxa ultranationalister ses som en konspiratorisk västerländsk strategi med syftet att eliminera familjen som institution och, därmed, även rysk kultur och tradition som helhet. Men kampanjens popularitet bottnar även i den generella ryska misstron mot den egna statsadministrationen, som antas missbruka Barnkonventionen för att förvärra korruption och maktmissbruk. Dessa skilda lokaliseringar av ansvar – ”våra” byråkrater versus ”deras” fientliga imperialism – förenas i svartmålningar av västerländska (i synnerhet skandinaviska) system för barnskydd som får representera en dystopisk rysk framtid. Artikeln diskuterar implikationerna av denna sammanblandning för Familjerörelsens förmåga att locka anhängare och få sin röst hörd offentligt