Belarus III: Belarus as a Battleground: Resistance, Activism, Control

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

Since 2020, Belarus has become a key site where authoritarian consolidation, grassroots resistance, and geopolitical maneuvering collide. This panel explores the evolving tactics of both the Belarusian regime and the oppositions, examining how governance, activism, sabotage are used as tools of power and resistance. By analyzing these dynamics across different domains—digital, infrastructural, governmental, and geopolitical—this panel sheds light on the complex and shifting landscape of Belarusian politics.
Tatsiana Chulitskaya investigates how the Belarusian regime strategically adopts the concept of good governance, selectively implementing different international projects while deepening authoritarian consolidation in the country. Markus Vaher examines the 2022 ‘Rail War,’ in which Belarusian partisans sabotaged railway infrastructure to disrupt Russian military operations, echoing historical resistance tactics. Victoria Leukavets looks into how, since the 2020 presidential elections, Belarusian elites have become sharply divided over the country’s geopolitical orientation, with the Lukashenka regime framing Russia as Belarus’s key ally while the democratic forces advocate for EU integration, though nuanced differences remain within the opposition.
Together, these papers reveal how Belarus functions as both a laboratory for authoritarian strategies and a site of persistent, evolving resistance.

Sub Unit

• International Relations, Security Studies, Foreign Policy

Chair

• Timur Mukhamatulin, U of Alberta (Canada)

Papers

• Good Governance Promotion in the Context of Authoritarian Consolidation: The Case of Belarus - Tatsiana Chulitskaya, Vilnius U (Lithuania)

• The ‘Rail War’ in Belarus and Its Impact on Russian Logistics During the Invasion of Ukraine - Markus Vaher, Harvard U

• Belarus at a Crossroads: Geopolitical Orientations of Belarusian Elites after 2020 - Victoria Leukavets, Stockholm Centre for Eastern European Studies (Sweden)

Discussant

• Sasha Razor, UC Santa Barbara