a b s t r a c tThis article discusses the use of informal practices in negotiating welfare with state institutions in Azerbaijan. One of the effects of transition to market economies in the postsocialist countries has been the partial withdrawal of the state from welfare provision and residualization of welfare. Recent research has shown that informal practices play an important role in "structuring welfare from below" (Morris & Polese, 2014b) across postsocialist realm. Based on in-depth interviews with engineers at different periods of their careers, namely mid-career, working pensioners, and engineering students, this article demonstrates how formal and informal institutions and practices are strategically used by individuals, families, and low level bureaucrats to achieve desired career and welfare goals. Rather than compensating for the deficiencies of formal rules and institutions, formal and informal are intertwined and merged and are actively employed both by the citizens and state institutions.

No abstract

No abstract

In 2013, Bulgaria's political system was shaken to its core by an unprecedented wave of mass protests.The protests, which began with dissatisfaction over the government's policy towards household electricity bills, brought down the government and led to new elections in June 2013. But after the new government was formed, a new wave of protests began. The renewed protest movement demanded transparency and accountability. Under the slogan 'Who?', the movement protested against corruption by the new government, and demanded to know who was governing the country 'behind the scenes'.Political developments in Europe and beyond have demonstrated links between protests and the rise of populist parties. Yet, the Bulgarian case stands apart from these developments. In Bulgaria, the protest movement and the populist parties remain disconnected from each other; the agenda of populist parties does not correspond with the demands of the protest movement. In this paper, we attempt to investigate why this is the case. We argue that the disjuncture between the protest movement and the populist parties in Bulgaria can be explained by the increasing polarization of Bulgarian society. The protest movement represents the proEuropean and pro-democratic part of the electorate; the nationalist populist parties that entered parliament appeal to the euro-sceptic and socially conservative part of society, and ultimately those who hope for a restoration of social order through a 'strong hand' and authoritarian rule. The paper is based on the analysis of secondary qualitative and quantitative materials.

The Lezgin irredentist movement is one of the less-studied national movements in the post-Soviet space, despite affecting the strategically important Russian-Azerbaijani borderlands and the bordering process between the two post-Soviet states. This article aims to fill this gap and to examine the impact of the Lezgin national movement on the development of territorial nationalism in early post-Soviet Azerbaijan. Based on the analysis of media publications in three Azerbaijani newspapers between 1992 and 1996, I argue that the movement contributed to consolidating the territorial vision of the Azerbaijani nation as incorporating groups historically settled in this territory. While media coverage stressed friendship between ethnic Azerbaijanis and Lezgins, the responsibility for secessionist claims was placed on external forces, particularly Russia and Armenia. In the long term, this framing led to the securitization of ethnic minority activism as a major threat to Azerbaijani statehood.