Paul Goode

And that's a wrap! Really interesting way to start the morning.

Making the rounds on CBC radio this morning to talk about Witkoff, Russia, Ukraine, and back channel diplomacy. Three interviews down, eleven to go!

Find me on the ASEEES conference program or shoot me a note if you’d like to chat!

Authoritarian regimes widely involve non-state actors in social welfare to increase output legitimacy and regime stability. Despite the volume of corporate social investments, the role of private companies in authoritarian welfare is still poorly understood. This study analyzes the functioning of corporate social programs in the Russian authoritarian welfare state by focusing on corporate grant competitions and corporate volunteering as means of engaging both the local population and the companies’ employees in the regions. Drawing on stakeholder theory, it investigates how companies position themselves as welfare providers and how they legitimize their role with regard to key stakeholders, including state officials, employees, and the local population. The analysis is based on in-depth interviews with company representatives and key stakeholders in four Russian regions: Kemerovo, Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Region, Tiumen′, and Volgograd. In addition, corporate social reports from 2018 and information for beneficiaries were evaluated to identify program guidelines, motivations, and stakeholder assessments. The study argues that companies play an important role as welfare providers through the financial support of social organizations and employee initiatives at the regional and the local level. By providing social investments in geographically defined “territories of presence,” Russian companies pursue a double legitimation strategy, both demonstrating their social responsibility and loyalty toward the regime and strengthening authoritarian welfare provision through private social investments. With a detailed analysis of corporate social programs, this study contributes to our understanding of the specific conditions and mechanisms of social policy in authoritarian regimes and the place that companies occupy within it.

Free to access for one week:

Russian Business and the Authoritarian Welfare State: Corporate Social Programs as Legitimation for Companies and the State
by Ulla Pape

👉 doi.org/10.1525/cpcs...

#Russia #authoritarianism #welfare #legitimation

YouTube video by euronews Putin 'booed' at Moscow martial arts event

13 years ago, shortly after announcing that he would run for a 3rd term as president, Putin was booed live on national television. The booing was edited out of re-broadcasts, but censors couldn't edit out the nervous glances of the people on the stage with him.

youtu.be/nS48UuVXbjQ?...

This article examines the historical trajectory of the closed-top electric furnace (CTEF), an industrial technology designed to revolutionize metallurgical smelting in Soviet industrial manufacturing. By tracing the CTEF’s evolution from initial proposal through experimental trials to its ultimate resolution through Japanese technology importation, this study illuminates the inherent contradictions within the Soviet system and situates metallurgical innovation within the broader political context of de-Stalinization. The CTEF project emerged during a critical period when Soviet technological priorities were being redefined, offering an illuminating case study of post-Stalinist scientific enterprise. Through analysis of primary source materials, this work reveals how Georgian scientists strategically navigated the institutional landscape of the era, leveraging Soviet policy frameworks while pursuing professional advancement and cultural aspirations. These scientists legitimized their work not only through economic justifications—particularly the potential for waste gas utilization in the chemical industry—but also by deliberately connecting their innovations to Georgia’s ancient metallurgical heritage. The technological solutions they developed exemplified the socialist approach to science while reflecting systemic contradictions that highlighted the persistent gap between ambitious political directives and practical realities. By focusing on this single industrial innovation, the article provides nuanced insights into the complex negotiations between regional scientific communities, industrial priorities, and central state power within the Soviet Union’s pursuit of technological progress and national development.

New in Advance Articles:

Melting Points: Furnace Technology at the Crossroads of Socialist and Georgian Imaginaries
by Tamar Qeburia

👉 doi.org/10.1525/cpcs...

As a professor, the most common advice to grad students is to identify a gap in the existing scholarship for your research.

Not once did I ever think the gap was "the role of fungi and, specifically, the entheogenic mukhomor," and now I'm insanely jealous.

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Free to access for one week:

Witnessing the Crisis: The Political and Ethical Challenges of Migration Regime Activist Research at the Polish-Belarusian Border
by Justyna Straczuk

From the new issue's themed section Emergency Response Research and Documentation.

doi.org/10.1525/cpcs...

I'm guessing Harvard alumni in the GOP view this as a genius move to increase the perceived value of their degrees by leveraging scarcity.

www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

Configure Framework Laptop 13 DIY Edition (AMD Ryzen™ 7040 Series) Choose from AMD and Intel system options, select your preferred memory and storage, operating system, and more customizations. Available in DIY and pre-built configurations.

@frame.work is great. Kind of the ship of Theseus of laptops: everything is replaceable, which makes it cheaper in the long run. Check out the FW13 w/ 7640u, 2.8k display, 16gb ram, 1 tb storage (cheaper if you get the DIY version and bring your own ram & storage). frame.work/ca/en/produc...

Free to access for one week:

Multiple Positionalities of a Researcher: The Case of Polish Researchers Interviewing Ukrainian War Refugees in Poland
by Elżbieta Kwiecińska & Małgorzata Łukianow

From the themed section on Emergency Response Research and Documentation.

doi.org/10.1525/cpcs...

Another memorable moment from Gorby's visit: all questions for his talk at the Bodleian had been vetted well in advance by Archie Brown, but a rogue questioner on the floor somehow got the mic and asked Gorby for his advice for future generations.

His answer went for nearly 40 minutes.

Russian and Eurasian Studies Centre: 2000-2025 - St Antony's The Russian and East European Centre (as it was called for its first fifty years) at St Antony’s was established in 1953. This was three years after the College opened its doors to its earliest studen...

Oh I remember this. Gorby was surrounded by profs who wanted him to sign their books (Alex Pravda had a stack of them). Gorby finally lost patience and burst out, "Where are the young people?!" And so our lowly MPhil cohort was allowed to come forward and meet him.
www.sant.ox.ac.uk/anniversary/...

Unfortunately, we didn't have the budget for streaming or recording this time.

Still time to register for tomorrow's workshop!

Free for one week! The next article in Emergency Response Research and Documentation in Comparative Perspective:

Ukrainian Researchers in a War Documentation Project: Intertwined Experiences and Methodologies
by Natalia Otrishchenko, Artem Kharchenko, Valentyna Shevchenko

doi.org/10.1525/cpcs...

ICYMI: join us next Friday! The workshop schedule and speakers are now on the registration page.

All in the name of objective rankings for the sake of rankings, apparently.

The escalation of Russian aggression against Ukraine—an attack launched throughout almost all of its territory in February 2022—has triggered numerous initiatives aiming at documentation of war experiences through methods of interviewing. The war and refugee crisis in Central and Eastern Europe brings us closer to similar situations in different regions of the world, which also have been documented and researched. Our special section explores various methodologies of emergency response projects and traces how different positionalities are combined and contested during the unfolding conflict. While we focus on the Ukrainian case, our aim is to engage in dialogue with various geographies of the post-communist world, where researchers are (or were) exposed to straightforward challenges in terms of safety and security. We invited scholars who studied their own societies or communities they are related to; therefore, the duality between “insider” and “outsider” as well as the very concept of “field” as something external is challenged in their writing. Assembled articles make visible tensions inherent in the projects that document the present moment: between different roles researchers have, different ethical justifications and academic standards, different audiences and social groups scholars engage with. Following the question that Ghislaine Boulanger posed, “How do we fit our understanding of the individual survivor into the larger picture of a catastrophe without losing sight of individual struggle?”, authors show various possibilities of analytical work with collected materials and ways to conceptualize the experiences of both the interviewers and the interviewees who live through violent conflicts.

Free to access for one week:

Introduction to the Special Section on "Emergency Response Research and Documentation in a Comparative Perspective"
by Natalia Otrishchenko & Anna Wylegała

👉 doi.org/10.1525/cpcs...

Russia’s disinformation concerning its war in Ukraine remains a significant challenge for Canada and for the international community. This workshop brings together academic and policy perspectives from Canada, the United States, and Europe, in understanding the reach and effectiveness of Russian disinformation and propaganda. The sessions will consist of three panels devoted to emerging research on disinformation, policy and practitioner perspectives, and countering disinformation. This event is sponsored by SSHRC and the McMillan Chair in Russian Studies. For more information or queries, please contact Prof. Paul Goode (paul.goode@carleton.ca).

For those of you in Ottawa on October 10th, save the date!

"Disinformation, Propaganda, and Russia's War on Ukraine," sponsored by SSHRC and the McMillan Chair in Russian Studies.

The workshop will be open to the public, registration required.

Details 👇
carleton.ca/eurus/cu-eve...

Ooph, my condolences.

Immigrants to the UK also pay an "immigration healthcare surcharge". For a skilled worker, that's £1,035/yr plus visa fees (£769-£1,519 per person), and you still pay tax for NHS.

...Of course, that's a bargain compared to $100k for an H1-B visa in the US (and you're on your own for healthcare).

Important section of the latest CPCS, dedicated to the challenges of “emergency response research” by Ukrainian and Polish researchers following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Harriman Carnegie Corporation Russian Studies Capstone Conference Please join the Harriman Institute for the Carnegie Corporation Russia Studies Capstone Conference.

Looking forward to today's presentations in this conference. I'll be talking about research agendas and methods in Russian studies since 2022 and will be sharing the findings a bit later.

The first panel will be live streamed, for any interested parties:
harriman.columbia.edu/event/harrim...

The first award will be made in 2026 for articles published this year!

America is having its Kukly moment.

New in Advance Articles (Open Access):

Proxy Games and Freezing Conflict: Trilateral Identifications, Fear, and Agency in Russia-Georgia Relations Post-Crimea
by Julie Wilhelmsen & Salome Minesashvili

online.ucpress.edu/cpcs/article...

I’ve been researching the impact of the war on Russian studies, looking at everything published in key journals since 2022.

I’ll share the findings later, but this much I can say for certain: the last thing we need is yet another IR think piece with no data or method. You’re not helping.

Submissions for the 2025 CAS Undergraduate and Graduate Student Essay Contests are open! See our website for further details: slavists.ca/association/...