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Contemporary Issues in Russian Civil Society

Fri, July 1, 1:30 to 3:00pm, Campus Ersta, Sal 3

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

Civil Society in Russian and its development has received increased attention over the past few decades. Whereas early research focused on environmental issues (Crotty 2006; Henry 2010), women’s rights (Johnson and Saarinen 2011), human rights (Mendelson and Gerber 2007), or trade union organisations (Baglione and Clark 1998), more recently attention has turned to what makes up the bulk of civil society agents in Russia – social focused organisations (Jakobson and Sanovich 2010). Although past research suggest that Russian civil society development has stalled (Sundstrom and Henry 2006) and its agents such as NPOs suffer organisational constraints(Crotty 2009), more recent work suggests that things are changing (Fröhlich 2012; Javeline and Lindemann-Komarova 2010). Since access to foreign funding is extremely limited by recent legal reforms and domestic discourse on civil society becomes increasingly nationalized (Belokurova 2010), the question of organizational survival hinges more and more on the relation to state structures and the ability of leaders to navigate a precarious public sphere. Moreover, the choice of citizens to participate in civil society becomes politicized and related to deeper cleavages in general society.
Paper 1 will shed light on how the Russian state supports third sector development by country-wide grant giving schemes for NGOs. The paper´s question of how this effects organizational development and divide within the NGO community is crucial for evaluating the state of Russian civil society under conditions of general austerity. Paper 2 touches on another important issues affecting Russian civil society – the existence and activities of, as outlined in the paper, conservative civil society. Thus much has been said about the state’s attempts to classify NPO into being part of civil and uncivil society (Richter and Hatch 2013), this paper takes an organisational and conceptual approach to discuss civil society agents which are undemocratic or anti-western (see also Lyytikäinen 2013). Paper 3 continuous with the organisational focus and examines an increasingly pertinent issue for Russian NPOs dealing with health and health related causes – leadership succession. Though in the NPO literature the issue of leadership succession is not a new one(Balser and Carmin 2009), the lack of organisational development and growth as well as declining outside support both financial and managerial means that Russian NPOs lack succession planning and/or clear strategic leadership about what will happen to organisations once natural attrition requires current executives to retire. Paper 4 rounds up the considerations of issues by engaging into the discussion on how individuals civic participation influences the intention to emigrate, and therefore connects the status quo of civil society to overall social development in Russia.
Thus it remains pertinent to examine and discuss the current and contemporary issues that shape Russian civil society and its development trajectory. Hence, in this panel we bring together a variety of scholars to discuss issues currently faced by Russian civil society and its agents such as non-profit organisations (NPOs). The panel explores this at the organisational and macro-level both empirically and conceptual.

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