Redefining Russia: Hybrid Regimes, Fieldwork, and Russian Politics

Abstract

All qualitative research faces fundamental hurdles in overcoming issues of access and ensuring the credibility of one's observations. These issues are particularly acute when conducting research in hybrid regimes when the area of investigation is explicitly political and local authorities are sensitive to scrutiny. In the study of Russian politics, growing authoritarianism has meant a shrinking of the field and a corresponding adjustment in fieldwork practices. The disciplinary silence concerning the impact of regime type on fieldwork further threatens the quality and usefulness of comparative research on non-democratic regimes beyond Eurasia. The danger is that interesting and necessary questions about hybrid regimes are sacrificed as scholars opt to conduct fieldwork in more congenial locales where high status methods may be utilized. One can already see this effect as Russianists leave Russia rather than risk isolation within the discipline.

Entering the Field

“…A more recent study on the political risks of field research in Central Asia found that '(s)everal respondents reported that they no longer work in Uzbekistan' and a 'few respondents singled out Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan as sites where they have experienced significant censorship/restrictions, chosen not to go, or experienced difficulty going'(CESS 2016, 7). Goode (2010) initially discerned a relation between Russia becoming more autocratic and a decline in fieldwork, but qualified his conclusions in a later study of the broader region (Goode 2016). Nonetheless, we would logically expect the most repressive regimes within the authoritarian universe to be less likely settings for field research: either because it would be too dangerous, or simply because it is impossible to gain access.…”

Socialization, Rationality, and Age: Generational Gaps and the Attitudes toward the Chechen War in Russia

“…Many members of this generation make the moral choices against the good, but other reject evil and are firm in their choice giving hope for the future. Political participation of this group will be observed sometime next decade and their impact may be greater than that of the three preceding generations (Goble 2015).…”

“…Russian historian Vladimir Pastukhov, of Oxford's St. Anthony College, similarly thinks that generations are a social, rather than a biological, phenomenon but offers a somewhat different classification of the generational cohorts in Russia. Following the work by Teodor Shanin, Pastukhov (2015) defines "generation" as a cohort of people typically born over a 15-year period (see also Goble 2015). To Pastukhov, the first generation are "the people of the front," born between 1910 and 1925, whose attitudes are shaped by the Great Terror and the Great Victory.…”

“…Fragments herein fromPastukhov's (2015) work areGoble's (2015) translation from the original Russian.2 The clandestine (re)production and dissemination of banned literature.…”

Engaging the Russian Elite: Approaches, Methods and Ethics

“…As Roberts has explained, the latter term serves to highlight, in the Russian case, ‘the somewhat confusing mix of democratic institutions, but also the lack of tolerance for adversarial politics, [and] the uncertainties of competitive elections’ (Roberts, , p. 338). As J. Paul Goode (, p. 1058) points out, for elites operating in what he calls hybrid regimes, this can result in a potential dilemma over ‘whether a foreign researcher's study somehow flows into a broader condemnation of the regime for which they will be held individually responsible. When the possibility appears credible or even just conceivable, the easiest (and safest) decision is to refuse participation in the study’.…”