Abstract:Following a review of current scholarship on identity and integration patterns of Russian speakers in the Baltic states, this article proposes an analytical framework to help understand current trends. Rogers Brubaker's widely-employed triadic nexus is expanded to demonstrate why a form of Russian-speaking identity has been emerging, but has failed to become fully consolidated, and why significant integration has occurred structurally but not identificationally. By enumerating the subfields of political, economic, and cultural 'stances' and 'representations' the model helps to understand the complicated integration processes of minority groups that possess complex relationships with 'external homelands', 'nationalizing states' and 'international organizations'. Ultimately, it is argued that socio-economic factors largely reduce the capacity for a consolidated identity; political factors have a moderate tendency to reduce this capacity; while cultural factors generally increase the potential for a consolidated group identity.

Much existing analysis of Russian state-society relations focuses on public, active forms of contention such as the "opposition" and protest movements. There is need for a more holistic perspective which adds study of a range of overt, "co-opted", and hidden forms of interaction to this focus on public contention. A theoretical and empirical basis for understanding state-society relations in today's Russia involves broadening the concept of "contentious politics" to include models of "consentful" as well as "dissentful" contention. A diffused model of contentious politics can situate claim-making along the axes of consentful and dissentful motivations, and compliant and contentious behaviours.Keywords: Russia; contentious politics; protest; opposition; civil society Prior to the contested 2011-2012 elections in Russia, many commentators held the view that Russian society did not pose an existential threat to the country's political status quo (Gel'man 2013, 6). While sporadic protests had occurred before 2011, they had been largely confined to specific geographic areas and tended to focus on relatively narrow issues (Evans 2012; Koesel and Bunce 2012, 412). Indeed it is no exaggeration to say that the vibrant street protests after the elections caught most analysts by surprise (Volkov 2012, 55). Since then, there has been a compensatory focus on new forms of opposition and public protest, evidence of instability within the Putin regime and a (partial) movement away from the perception of the Russian state as an efficiently operating presidential vertikal (e.g. Monaghan 2012; Greene 2013; Judah 2013).Much of the existing analysis, however, continues to focus on public, active forms of contention such as the "opposition" and social, issue-based movements that mobilise public protest (e.g. Koesel and Bunce 2012;Robertson 2013;White 2013;Ross 2015). These accounts provide a vitally important perspective on the interactions between state and society in contemporary Russia. However, as Evans (2012, 234) notes, "We should not expect that the study of groups in Russia that carry out public protests against the decisions of those in authority can give us a comprehensive understanding of Russian civil society". Chebankova (2015, 244) Vol. 31, No. 3, 261-273, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21599165.2015 Downloaded by [University of Glasgow] at 09:34 26 August 2015 arguing that researchers "tend to confine their analysis to the visible side of mobilisation, thus ignoring its latent dimensions". This special issue therefore joins a growing body of works that seek to switch the analytical lens more fully from state-centric analyses focusing on the mechanics of the Putinite presidential system towards the emergent Russian politics "from below". Such analyses (e.g. Beznosova and Sundstrom 2009; Chebankova 2009; Robertson 2010; Gladarev and Lonkila 2013) make several common arguments: (a) there has long been greater political contention in post-Soviet Russia than many acknowledge; (b) such contention is often more marked at loc...

IN RECENT YEARS, THERE HAS BEEN SUSTAINED ACADEMIC AND political scrutiny of externally located 'kinsfolk': that is, groups of individuals located outside of a nominally national 'kin-state', and over whom the state in question lays claim to various forms of symbolic and/or legal jurisdiction (Duvold 2015; Pogonyi 2017). Academically, this literature is often nestled within broader, critical discussion of contemporary nations and nationalisms (Agarin & Karolewski 2015), with scholars noting 'the increasingly transnational character of global migration flows, cultural networks and socio-political practices' (Smith & Bakker 2008, p. 3). Often premised on the assumption that globalisation has the capacity to erode traditional borders, these transnational developments have spurred significant research interest into kin-state policies across the globe. These policies are typically enacted by states to construct diasporic identities that create strong bonds of identity between co-ethnics and their supposedly external homeland (Stjepanovi c 2015, p. 144). The kinsfolk question is consequently salient for the foreign policy actions of self-designating external homelands, but can also be heavily securitised by states that house groups of individuals who have the potential to be 'diasporised'. Owing to the scale of its potentially diasporic kinsfolk, the Russian Federation stands out globally as a significant agent of kin-state nationalism. Indeed, in recent years the Russian authorities have directed substantial resources towards kin-state activities, even codifying Russian-speaking 'compatriots' as central elements of the country's assertive foreign policy (Grigas 2016, pp. 57-93). While much has been written on Russia's politicisation of Russian speakers in its so-called 'near abroad' (Cheskin 2016; Grigas 2016; Duvold 2015; Schulze 2018), the essays in this volume place greater emphasis on the exploration of trends within the various communities of Russian speakers themselves. In this endeavour, we are influenced by Rogers Brubaker, who admonishes us to think of a diaspora as 'a category of practice … used to make claims'; diaspora, he goes on to say 'does not so much describe the world as seek to remake it' (Brubaker 2005, p. 12). This special issue consequently investigates trends in how 'Russian

In this article, I adopt a structural approach to Russian soft power, switching focus from the supposed agent of power (Russia), towards the subjects of power (Ukrainians). I outline the applicability of this approach to empirical studies into soft power, demonstrating how soft power can be examined from bottom-up, discursively-focused perspectives. The empirical analysis then traces how Ukrainians (do not) link their self-identities to discursive understanding of “Russia”. Reviewing recent insights into the relationship between soft power and affect, I argue that Ukrainians’ cultural, historical and linguistic ties with Russia often lack necessary emotional force to generate meaningful soft power.

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