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Fellows and Research Topics 2003-2004

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M
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A

Name: Zehra Arat, Professor
Institution: SUNY - Purchase College, Social Science Division
Country(ies): Turkey: Ankara and Istanbul
Funder: National Endowment for the Humanities
Title: The History of Human Rights in Turkey: The Changes in Discourse and Practices within Cycles of Politics

Abstract: This project involves the study of human rights discourse and practices in Turkey since the establishment of the Republic in 1923. By juxtaposing the rhetoric in documents produced by non-governmental advocacy groups and state agencies with statistical and event data on human rights practices and processes, it intends to identify the domestic and international factors that contributed to the advancement of specific rights or hindered their progress. Arguing that the Turkish politics vacillated between identity and class politics, it attempts to answer a broad theoretical question: Which type of politics - identity or class - is more likely to produce a human rights culture that is conducive to the improvement of human rights practices?

B

Name: Margarita Balmaceda, Assistant Professor
Institution: Seton Hall University, School of Diplomacy and International Relations
Country(ies): Ukraine: Kyiv, Dnepropetrovsk and Donetsk
Funder: Department of State (Title VIII Program)
Title: Between Private and State Interests: The Role of Energy in Ukrainian-Russian Relations (1991-2003)

Abstract: This project analyzes the role of energy in the Ukrainian-Russian political relationship since 1991, focusing on oil and gas, in which Ukraine is almost totally dependent on Russia. It is part of a larger book project (working title: Energy and Foreign Policies in Central-East Europe) examining the role of energy in the shaping of a new relationship between post-Soviet Russia and several former Soviet republics/allies in Central-East Europe. Research in Ukraine will focus on the interaction between domestic and foreign factors in Ukraine's energy relationship with Russia and on the role of private Russian energy companies (as compared to Russian state policy) in the Russian-Ukrainian relationship.

C

Name: Janis Cakars, Predoctoral Candidate
Institution: Indiana University, School of Journalism
Country(ies): Latvia: Riga
Funder: Department of State (Title VIII Program)
Title: The Liberation of Latvia: Media and Nonviolence

Abstract: In this project, I will uncover the central role media played in the Latvian independence movement from 1986 to 1991. This will provide new insight into the role of the press in the downfall of the Soviet Union and the development of democracies in Eastern Europe, and more broadly, nonviolent movements worldwide. Nonviolence was the key characteristic of the Latvian independence movement and media were instrumental in the strategy and tactics of this approach.

Name: Christina Ciecierski, Postdoctoral Researcher
Institution: University of Illinois at Chicago, Health Research and Policy Centers
Country(ies): Poland: Warsaw
Funder: Department of State (Title VIII Program)
Title: Tobacco Smuggling in Poland: Trends, Magnitude, and Consequences

Abstract: Cigarette use is the largest cause of preventable disease and premature death in Poland today and so a decline in smoking is one of Poland's major health objectives. While scientific studies show that raising the price of cigarettes through taxes is a key policy tool for curbing smoking (particularly among the young and poor), the tobacco industry argues that higher tobacco taxes will lead to massive increases in smuggling, reduce tobacco tax revenues and increase crime without reducing tobacco use. Although media reports state that every second cigarette smoked in the eastern region of Poland is smuggled, a country-level analysis that describes the magnitude of current cigarette smuggling and the impact of increased tobacco taxes and other control policies on smuggling and public health is vital for producing evidence to counter such arguments.

Name: Kathleen Collins, Assistant Professor
Institution: University of Notre Dame, Department of Political Science
Country(ies): Uzbekistan: Tashkent; Tajikistan: Dushanbe; Kyrgyzstan: Bishkek
Funder: Department of State (Title VIII Program)
Title: Islam, Identity and Conflict in Central Asia and the Caucasus

Abstract: This research project will investigate several problems of identity and conflict of interest both to pressing policy debates and to theoretical discussions. First, under what conditions does Islam become the basis for mass mobilization and violent conflict? More precisely, how, when, and why does Islamic identity become a factor in conflict? Second, why do we see such variation in the degree to which Islamic identities have unified and mobilized people to conflict? The IREX funding will cover my research in three cases (of six total): Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan.

D

Name: Tobias Dougherty, Master's Student
Institution: St. Antony's College
Country(ies): Russia: Moscow, Nizhnii Novgorod, St. Petersburg, and Irkutsk
Funder: Department of State (Title VIII Program)
Title: Selling Power: Russian Arms Transfers in the Post-Cold War Era

Abstract: The question I seek to answer is: in the post-Cold War world, why does Russia arm its large and powerful neighbors, states that the US is emphatically unwilling to arm? The study of Russian arms transfers provides useful insights in evaluating international relations theory (e.g. China is a rising power, Russia has become increasingly weak, yet Russia arms China—why?), understanding developing threats (such as the arming of Iran and Russia’s supplying the Chinese navy with weapons systems clearly directed at combating US carrier groups around Taiwan), and predicting future technological alignments (short term domestic interests are driving Russia further eastward in the long run). Russian military technical policy is understudied and will, in coming years, become increasingly difficult to research owing to mounting restrictions on future publications. I have developed a contact base in Russia and completed research in the US and Europe such that I am prepared to conduct essential, in-depth research over a three month period in Russia on a topic bearing great theoretical and policy importance.

E

Name: Jennifer Erickson, Master's Student
Institution: University of Oregon, Department of Anthropology
Country(ies): Bosnia-Herzegovina: Zenica, Sarajevo, and Tuzla
Funder: Department of State (Title VIII Program)
Title: Romani Women, a Neglected Population: Race, Class, Gender, and Policy in Bosnia-Herzegovina

Abstract: Roma in Bosnia-Herzegovina are experiencing widespread discrimination and racial prejudice in a post-war country facing a laborious transition from socialism to a free market economy. Current policy focuses on rebuilding, return, and reconciliation of the majority populations: Bosnian Serbs, Croats, and Bosnjaks (Muslims), to the exclusion of Roma. This project will expand on preliminary quantitative research on the standard of living of Romani women assess attitudes of non-Roma towards Roma, and of Romani men towards Romani women emphasizing the complex correlation between race, class, and gender. This project contributes to civil society by documenting how social policies toward Roma in Bosnia-Herzegovina have fared. Suggestions for future policy will be offered.

G

Name: Robert Geraci, Associate Professor
Institution: University of Virginia, Department of History
Country(ies): Russia: St. Petersburg, Moscow, Orenburg and Nizhnii Novgorod; Georgia: Tbilisi; Azerbaijan: Baku
Funder: Department of State (Title VIII Program)
Title: Nationality, Ethnicity, and Capitalist Enterprise in the Russian Empire

Abstract: The project investigates ethno-national diversity in the commercial-industrial elites of tsarist Russia from 1800-1917, and its socio-political, cultural and economic implications. It will trace the gradual decline of an economy of concessions and privileges that had allowed minority entrepreneurs to achieve considerable wealth and power, and the rise of two new and contradictory ideals: an economy of free markets and equal opportunities, and a "Russified" economy that would promote the dominance of the empire's titular group. A large part of the project will be a comparison of several major cities in the empire with respect to mutual perceptions, competition, and cooperation between Russian and minority or foreign entrepreneurs.

Name: Zsuzsa Gille, Assistant Professor
Institution: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Department of Sociology
Country(ies): Hungary: Budapest, Debrecen, Bekecsaba, Pecs, Szeged and Veszprem
Funder: Department of State (Title VIII Program)
Title: Apples, Milk, and Waste: Understanding the Environmental Implications of Hungary's Entry into the European Union

Abstract: I will study the environmental implications of Hungary's entry into the European Union. I have chosen three difficult areas of harmonization: 1) the replacement of biologically diverse apple orchards with monocultural orchards producing EU-standard apples; 2) regulation of packaging waste and their treatment given that Hungary received a ten-fifteen year exemption from implementing EU regulations concerning waste; and 3) harmonization of food safety and quality regulations in the dairy industry which are presently stricter than EU ones. The cases will be compared along the following dimensions: how the EU and Hungarian standards are negotiated, the role of NGOs and Hungarian experts, the effect of changing modes of consumption on environmental harmonization, and how actors affected by the accession in these specific regards experience the EU.

Name: Helena Goscilo, Professor
Institution: University of Pittsburgh, Department of Slavic Languages & Literature
Country(ies): Russia: Moscow
Funder: National Endowment for the Humanities
Title: Fade from Red: Screening the Ex-Enemy During the Nineties

Abstract: My study examines the symbiosis between political relations and screen portrayals of former Cold War enemies in Russian and American cinema during the 1990s. Any ideologically-sensitive viewing of mainstream films released by both countries from 1985 to the present day reveals not only the micro-shifts in the Russo-American declared policy of cooperation, but also the extraordinary difficulties entailed in jettisoning Cold War rhetoric while simultaneously consolidating an image of national superiority within the broader framework of rapprochement. Given the inextricability of masculinist dominance and national supremacy, gender politics and racial alignments figure as crucial subthemes within the larger political context of Russo-American dynamics on screen.

Name: Jo-Ann Gross, Professor
Institution: The College of New Jersey, Department of History
Country(ies): Tajikistan: Dushanbe, Hissar, Kuliob, and Kurgon-Tube; Uzbekistan: Tashkent
Funder: National Endowment for the Humanities
Title: The Muslim Shrines of Tajikistan: Mapping the Religious Landscape

Abstract: The purpose of the proposed project is to examine the previously unstudied history and contemporary situation of the Islamic shrines of Tajikistan through a combination of archival research and fieldwork, the results of which will be published in the form of several scholarly articles and a book. The focus of archival work will be on Persian manuscript and Persian and Russian documentary sources, including hagiographies, shrine-guides, city histories, folkloric sources, property endowments (waqfs) and Russian geographical surveys. Fieldwork will consist of visits to the regional shrines of Tajikistan where I intend photograph the shrines, record my observations about the condition of the shrines, investigate and record the religious practices performed at the shrine, and conduct informal interviews with shrine staff.

H

Name: Irina Harris, Predoctoral Candidate
Institution: Boston University, Department of Archaeology
Country(ies): Russia: Elista, Astrakhan, Makhachkala, Moscow and Stavropol
Funder: IREX Scholar Support Fund
Title: The Politics of War and Trade between the Nomadic Khazar Empire and the Islamic Caliphate (7th - 10th centuries AD)

Abstract: The proposed research concerns the politics of war and trade between the nomadic Khazars and the Islamic Caliphate (7th -10th centuries AD), and its impact on the emergence, development, and collapse of the Khazar Empire. The economic dependence of the latter on the resources of the Caliphate--especially on luxury goods--promoted political manipulations that resulted in the intensification of trade in the Western Caspian Region along the latitudinal axis spanning the Caliphate with the Khazar Empire and as far north as Scandinavia. The dynamics of war and trade between the two empires, and its impact on the nomadic Khazar society will be investigated on the basis of archaeological evidence taken from the core of the Khazar Empire and its trade routes.

J

Name: Owen Johnson, Associate Professor
Institution: Indiana University, School of Journalism
Country(ies): Slovakia: Bratislava; Czech Republic: Prague
Funder: Department of State (Title VIII Program)
Title: Media and Nation in Twentieth-Century Slovakia

Abstract: This project investigates aspects of national formation and expression in Slovakia in the twentieth century, with particular focus on the roles of media and their consumers in this process. While growth of a shared national identity is difficult to gauge, my research combines measurement of the consumption of media and professional, governmental and political comment about this process to draw conclusions about the changing impact of the media, both national and political, in twentieth-century Slovak history. The research -- which will result in a book -- analyzes archival documents, surveys of media use and journalists, and secondary literature.

L

Name: Irina Liczek, Predoctoral Candidate
Institution: New School University, Department of Political Science
Country(ies): Turkmenistan: Ashgabat; Kyrgyzstan: Bishkek; Uzbekistan: Tashkent
Funder: Department of State (Title VIII Program)
Title: The Development of the Women’s Movement in Post-Soviet Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan

Abstract: The proposed study examines the socio-historical circumstances that caused the establishment of new institutional agencies to advance the status of women in Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan. My research aims to explain the internationalization of norms of gender equality caused by international organizations and its interaction with the domestic actors determining the actual impact of these new women's machineries, created in the post-Soviet Central Asia. Using a comparative approach, this study is the first comprehensive analysis to capture the history of the development of the women’s movement in the post-Soviet Central Asia, and promises to be useful to the donor community (especially the United Nations Development Program), area studies researchers and policy makers.

M

Name: Fran Markowitz, Associate Professor
Institution: Ben-Gurion University, Department of Behavioral Sciences
Country(ies): Bosnia-Herzegovina: Sarajevo
Funder: Department of State (Title VIII Program)
Title: Ethnic Entanglements: Sarajevo's Cultural Legacies in Discourse and Practice

Abstract: The proposed research is an ethnographic study of the daily practices of identity and the discourses that inspire and are expressed through them in contemporary Sarajevo. It aims to delineate how the competing, yet dialectically engaged and mutually animated stances of cosmopolitan multiculturalism and hostile ethnic exclusivity come to bear in Sarajevans' residential patterns, in their networks of kin and friends, and in their personal narratives.

Name: James Meyer, Predoctoral Candidate
Institution: Brown University, Department of History
Country(ies): Azerbaijan: Baku
Funder: Department of State (Title VIII Program)
Title: A Search for Embeddedness: "Pan-Turkism" and the Russian Roots of Turkish Nationalism

Abstract: This study is an examination of the identity concepts of the group of Russian-born Muslim intellectuals who were to form the core of the “pan-Turkist” movement in Russia and the Ottoman Empire at the beginning of the twentieth century. Exploring the manifold identity options available to and debated among the Muslims of Russia after the Revolution of 1905, my project then destabilizes these identity categories through a discursive analysis which highlights the shared rhetoric of embeddedness among supposedly “competing” identity conceptions such as “pan-Turkism”, “Islamism” and socialist internationalism. This critical chapter in the history of both Russia and the Ottoman Empire is then used as a means of engaging the theories of a broader range of scholarship concerning the nature and development of nationalism, the relationship between nationalism and Islam, and the factors contributing to the shaping of community identity during periods of modernization and political change.

P

Name: Lisa Pohlman, Predoctoral Candidate
Institution: University of Pittsburgh, Department of Political Science
Country(ies): Czech Republic: Prague; Slovakia: Bratislava
Funder: Department of State (Title VIII Program)
Title: Self-Interest or Symbolic Attitudes? The Case of EU Membership in the Czech Republic and Slovakia

Abstract: Why do the attitudes of Czechs and Slovaks toward membership in the European Union differ significantly, despite sharing more than a half century of political
history? This study seeks to sort out the relative importance of two competing attitude components to explain national variation in attitudes toward EU membership: self-interest vs. symbolic attitudes. This research forms the first step toward a
generalizable framework to explain national variation in attitudes about salient political issues in post-communist Central and East Europe.

S

Name: Paula Sabloff, Senior Research Scientist
Institution: University of Pennsylvania, Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology
Country(ies): Mongolia: Ulaanbaatar, Houd and Housgol
Funder: National Endowment for the Humanities
Title: Recent Changes in Mongolian Political Culture

Abstract: Have the Mongolian people returned to their Communist-period understanding of democracy and capitalism now that they have returned power to the former Communist Party, or has the culture of Western (liberal) democracy adopted in the 1990s endured? By comparing 1998-99 cognitive data collected during the Democratic Coalition regime with the proposed follow-up study in 2003, I can learn whether or not Mongolians’ political culture has changed. Upon completion of this study, plans for comparative research on the durability of democratic political culture in other former Soviet countries will be solidified.

Name: Audrey Selian, Predoctoral Candidate
Institution: Tufts University, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy
Country(ies): Armenia: Yerevan
Funder: Department of State (Title VIII Program)
Title: Technologies of Power: The Impact of New Information & Communication Technologies (ICTs) on Political Governance, Innovation and Economic Development in Post-Communist Countries in Transition: Case Study – Armenia

Abstract: This research project is aimed toward an examination of the impact of information and communication technologies (ICTs) on the political governance and economic stability of post-communist countries in the Caucasus and Eastern Europe. New technologies are increasingly facilitating the multi-directional flow of information (data, voice, video), functioning horizontally across social/political/commercial sector boundaries that have traditionally been delineated by vertical, hierarchical power structures; implications for the processes of democratization and the emergence of good governance abound. How these flows translate to the realm of power in a variety of broad regional and international contexts - for example, in the development of national innovation systems that support economic growth - and whether ICTs will precipitate fundamental improvements to the political, economic and investment situations of countries of the Caucasus (and Eastern Europe) are the key focal points of this analysis.

Name: Michael Smith, Predoctoral Candidate
Institution: Sarah Lawrence College, Department of Social Science
Country(ies): Czech Republic: Prague, Tabor, Plzen and Brno
Funder: Department of State (Title VIII Program)
Title: Developing Civil Engagement: Environmental NGOs and Participatory Democracy in Local Czech Politics

Abstract: Drawing on the theories of democratic consolidation and institutional change, this study analyzes the role of environmental NGOs in promoting civic engagement and developing participatory practices in local Czech politics. Through four cases, this study tests the thesis that the manner and degree to which environmental groups are likely to promote participatory practices depends on the capacities of NGOs to coordinate actions, municipal-NGO relations, and whether national politics is inhibitive or facilitative. By helping develop such practices where they are weak, civic groups can transform state-society relations and open up new pathways for participatory democracy in the region.

Name: Jennifer Smith, Predoctoral Candidate
Institution: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Science, Technology, and Society
Country(ies): Russia: Moscow and Irkutsk
Funder: Department of State (Title VIII Program)
Title: Ground Control: Agricultural Reform in Southern Siberia, 1954-1963

Abstract: What are the capabilities and limitations of state power at its most extreme borders and how did the USSR's involvement in the Cold War affect its rural frontiers? In my dissertation project I propose to examine the history of Khrushchev's state-sponsored agricultural reforms and their larger implications in the Irkutsk province of South-Central Siberia. Contrary to the standard historical interpretation of the Virgin Lands Campaign, I believe that when considered in a broad cultural, political and economic context these reforms should be judged as a success rather than a failure because they achieved the goal of creating a modernist industrial system of food production and established permanent settlement on a historical frontier that was considered to be geopolitically significant.

T

Name: Benjamin Tromly, Predoctoral Candidate
Institution: Harvard University, Department of History
Country(ies): Russia: Moscow
Funder: Department of State (Title VIII Program)
Title: Shaping a Post-Stalinist Elite: Political Relations between the Soviet State and Students in Institutions of Higher Education, 1947-1965

Abstract: My research project will analyze elite formation by studying political relations between university-level students and the Soviet state from 1947 to 1965. In the 1950s and early 1960s, the Soviet leadership focused its education and political socialization programs in institutions of higher learning on producing an elite more devoted to state interests and ideology than that which ruled during the Stalin era. My study explores the tensions between state and student that impeded these efforts by examining student politics in four key institutions of higher education in Moscow where the elite of the future was being prepared.

V

Name: Hrag Varjabedian, Predoctoral Candidate
Institution: University of Wisconsin at Madison, Department of Anthropology
Country(ies): Armenia: Yerevan, Gyumri, Meghri and Nagorno-Karabagh
Funder: Department of State (Title VIII Program)
Title: Identity Constructions at Border Zones: The Re-Territorialized Armenian

Abstract: During different historical events, various Armenian communities, from different cultural and historical backgrounds, have settled in Armenia. The purpose of this research is to study the construction of identities at the border zones of those communities with different historicities.

Z

Name: Jonathan Zartman, Predoctoral Candidate
Institution: University of Denver, Graduate School of International Studies
Country(ies): Tajikistan: Dushanbe
Funder: Department of State (Title VIII Program)
Title: Success in Political Transitions: Stability versus State-Society Consolidation

Abstract: Comparing the political transition of two Central Asian States, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan reveals factors to explain the failure of opposition movements and the success of civil war settlements. This study tests hypotheses derived from three perspectives -- rational choice, primordialism and social constructivism --for their explanatory power. Insight derived from this suggests better negotiation design and intervention strategies.