Sufian Zhemukhov

The 2014 Sochi Olympic mega-project and Russia's political economy

This article examines Russias political economy through the prism of mega-projects, using the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics as a case study. Such projects help Russias leaders promote the countrys image abroad, define development priorities for Russias urban landscape, and gain support for the incumbent regime. Events like the Olympics help to justify Russias overall political and economic systems and to funnel state resources to specific regions. By setting investment goals and implementing projects through a closed system that allows for little public input and accountability, mega-projects create numerous corruption opportunities. Ultimately, this system works to benefit a small group of elites, with uncertain contributions to the larger population.

The birth of modern Circassian nationalism

This article focuses on problems of the national movement of the Circassians – a small nation in the Caucasus, most of whose population is dispersed all over the world. The paper researches the development of the Circassian movement from 1989–2000 and its contemporary structure since 2005. The modern Circassian movement as a whole has never been approached from a political science viewpoint. This research aims to answer several core questions: What are the different strands of the movement? What principles are they based on? Who are the participants? What political forces support them? How do these political forces interact with each other?

From Mecca with tolerance: religion, social recategorisation and social capital

Does participation in mass religious rituals promote intergroup conflict or does it promote intergroup tolerance? We assess these claims by examining the effects of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca (the hajj) on sociopolitical views of Muslims in Russia’s North Caucasus. Participant observation during the hajj and a quasi-experimental focus group study of pilgrims and non-pilgrims produced paradoxical findings. While the hajj strengthened their ingroup pride as Muslims, the pilgrims came through as more outgroup-tolerant and prosocial than the non-pilgrims. We develop a synthetic theoretical solution: in high-identity-value, high-diversity common group settings social recategorisation and social capital become transitive – that is, inclusive views and social capital effects within an ingroup extend to outgroups. This means that intergroup conflict could be reduced by not only maximising contact across conflicting groups, but also by bringing together as many subgroups as possible within each conflicting group in settings where their common identity is positively affirmed in a non-discriminatory fashion.

Ethnic and state sports in the context of the 2014 Sochi Olympics

Sports have long been an important point of expression in communal identity in the North Caucasus and recently came to serve as a forum for political dissent. This article examines the emergence and transformation of ethnic sport projects in the North Caucasus in connection with the 2014 Sochi Olympics. It charts the history and progress of two projects known as the Circassiada and the Caucasus Games and evaluates the debate of the sport-nation nexus in the North Caucasus. While the Circassiada and the Caucasus Games reflect the typical elite-driven narratives of border security and terrorism, they also highlight discussions over historical and cultural practices of nationhood and the boundaries of national identity.

Mass Religious Ritual and Intergroup Tolerance: The Muslim Pilgrims’ Paradox

The book examines how Muslims from Russia’s North Caucasus returned from the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca both more devout as Muslims and more tolerant of out-groups. Drawing on prominent theories of identity and social capital, the authors resolve seeming contradictions between the two literatures by showing the effects of religious rituals that highlight within-group diversity at the same time that they affirm the group’s common identity. This theory is then applied to explain why social integration of Muslim immigrants has been more successful in the USA than in Europe and how the largest Hispanic association in the US defied the clash of civilizations theory by promoting immigrants’ integration into America’s social mainstream. The book is part of Cambridge Studies in Social Theory, Religion and Politics.