Renat Shaykhutdinov

Give peace a chance: Nonviolent protest and the creation of territorial autonomy arrangements

This study examines factors that predict the formation of territorial autonomy arrangements for regionally concentrated ethnic communities. Territorial autonomies are institutional arrangements that allow ethnic groups to express their distinct identities while keeping the borders of host states intact. Although an extensive literature has investigated the capacity of autonomy arrangements to manage interethnic disputes, little research has addressed the precise origins of these institutions. The existing literature considers violent tactics as a primary factor that enables ethnic collectivities to attain territorial autonomy. In this study, the reasoning from the extant literature is juxtaposed with the arguments developed in the research on nonviolent opposition. Nonviolent movements enjoy moral advantage vis-à-vis violent groups. Moreover, peaceful tactics have the advantage of garnering attention for the concerns of ethnic groups without the liability of provoking the animosity or distrust created by violent conflict. Based on the analysis of a dataset representing 168 ethnic groups across 87 states from 1945 to 2000, it is found that the peaceful tactics groups employ when seeking greater self-rule is the single strongest predictor of the formation of autonomy arrangements. In particular, this study concludes that groups that rely on peaceful tactics, such as protests and strikes, and demand territorial autonomy, as opposed to an outright independence, have a greater potential to achieve territorial autonomy in comparison to those groups making extreme demands through the use of violence.

Education for peace: protest strategies of ethnic resistance movements

While studying the consequences of violent and non-violent protests, the current literature is mostly mute on the question of why some ethnic collectivities prefer violent political action over non-violence. This question is especially interesting as recent empirical studies reveal functional effectiveness of non-violent tactics vis-à-vis violent strategies in achieving communal goals. Why then do some groups still employ violent tactics? Drawing on the literature that connects educational level with utilization of democratic practices, I argue that ethnic groups that enjoy a higher educational status are less prone to using violent strategies choosing instead peaceful protest. I test this hypothesis using data on 238 ethnic groups in 106 states from 1945 to 2000. The results of the statistical analysis indicate that groups with higher levels of educational attainment are more likely to engage in non-violent protest. Conversely, groups that enjoy lower educational status in their respective societies tend to use violent tactics.

State Regulation of Religion and Radicalism in the Post-Communist Muslim Republics

Analysis of state regulation of Islam in post-communist states shows that tolerant policies are associated with lower levels of religious radicalism, whereas restrictive policies appear to exacerbate the level of extremism.

Accommodation of Islamic Religious Practices and Democracy in the Post-Communist Muslim Republics

The literature on state accommodation of Muslim religious practices has focused on the regional context of Western Europe and North America. In this project, I identify and compare state policies toward Islamic religious practices using a sample of 22 former communist Muslim republics of Eurasia. For this purpose, I construct an original dataset collected from a variety of sources. Employing the number of mosques functioning in each post-communist Muslim republic as the measure of state accommodation of religious practices I find that among all factors the level of democracy is the single most important variable in explaining variation in accommodation of Islamic religious practices. To further demonstrate significance of these results I trace the process of democratic influence on state accommodation of religious policies examining in-depth the case of Tatars both in the pre-communist Imperial and revolutionary Russia and the contemporary republic of Tatarstan.

Muslims and Minority Politics in Great Britain

Abstract This paper reviews the history of immigration and demographics of British Muslims and analyzes the relevant characteristics that influence their political representation in the country. Such factors include immigration patterns, demographic characteristics of Muslim groups and coalition versus group competition trends, political mobilization patterns, the politics of race, and the dynamics of party–minority relations. The paper also provides original data on elected Muslims in British local and national government and examines the electoral power, political identity, social behavior, civic and political participation, and representation of Muslims in the larger British community.

Creative thinking and collective mobilisation in the Muslim world

ABSTRACT To what extent does openness to new ideas and creativity (ONIC) help explain the elite-challenging collective mobilisation in the Muslim world? Are religious Muslims who are open to creative and innovative thinking more or less likely to engage in pro-democratic collective action? Analysing 16 Muslim-majority countries, this study advances the debate of Muslim contentious politics by systematically examining the extent to which ONIC explains the variation in high-risk, pro-democratic collective mobilisation. A quad-dimensional analysis of creativity indicates that ONIC is an empirically distinctive measure to capture openness and creative thinking. The evidence further suggests that, ceteris paribus, Islamic religiosity and ONIC are not mutually exclusive and that both are positively associated with collective protests. Notably, ONIC does appear to intervene to mediate the positive relationship between Islam and engagement in high-risk collective action, implying that the effects of religiosity may not be independent from how Muslims position themselves towards being open to novel ideas or creativity. The findings also demonstrate that an individual-level ONIC may be boosting the likelihood of protest engagement among more devout individuals in Islamic societies.

The terrorist attacks in the Volga region, 2012–13: hegemonic narratives and everyday understandings of (in)security

ABSTRACT Discussions generated in Russian and Western academic, policy-making and media circles by recent terrorist attacks in the Middle Volga and Urals (İdel-Ural) derive primarily from hegemonic state discourses and as such miss the wealth of discussion generated in local-language sources about the causes and implications of these attacks. The goal of this study is to provide an examination of the various perspectives concerning terrorism in the region, focusing on the level of Tatar (and secondarily Russian) society. Employing insights from a recent body of literature on ‘everyday’ and ‘vernacular’ (in)securities as well as on conspiracy theories, I examine Tatar-language Internet forums posted on the Radio Free Europe website related to the terror events of July 2012. I detect no incitement to violence among the Tatar-speaking participants. However, my results suggest that Tatar publics use diverse interpretive repertoires to make sense of a securitizing reality. The study suggests that Tatar-speaking publics depart in important ways from the dominant narrative of the ‘police’ order as well as from the Weltanschauung of their Russian-speaking compatriots.

Critical Theory of International Politics: Complementarity, Justice, and Governance

which Holloway admits to having a connection, is rarely present in Marxist writings today. Bearing in mind the aforementioned issues and the points where I have stressed my divergence from Holloway’s line of thinking, I enjoyed reading Crack Capitalism word for word as I have no other text on contemporary Marxism. I hope readers of this book will not focus their attention on the state debate, but will instead look much deeper to its constructive analysis of core Marxist notions such as materialism, dialectics, totality, time and their connection to everyday life that Holloway brings to light.

The Chechen War and an Emerging Gender Gap in Russia

Abstract Scholarship on the impact of gender on political attitudes has shown that women have more liberal attitudes than men do, both generally and in relation to specific policy areas. One area of an especially large gender gap is in attitudes about foreign policy and the use of force, where women are much less likely to support war and armed conflict. An exception to this gender gap is found in post-communist countries, where men and women often do not display significantly different political attitudes. Employing a variety of survey data on public opinion about the Chechen conflict in Russia, we investigate whether a modern gender gap has emerged in Russia, and the form that this gender gap has taken. We find strong, diverse evidence of a gender gap in Russia, with women expressing more dovish attitudes towards the conflict in Chechnya.