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@cpcs.bsky.social
Communist and Post-Communist Studies (CPCS) is an international, peer-reviewed scholarly journal featuring comparative research on current and historical developments in the communist and post-communist world. Editor: Paul Goode (@jpaulgoode.bsky.social)
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CPCS is proud to be a Bronze level sponsor for #ASEEES25.
If you have a manuscript that might fit the journal, Editor-in-Chief @jpaulgoode.bsky.social will be at the conference and happy to meet with prospective authors.
aseees.org/convention/2...
One big puzzle in China’s market reform is how the government maintained popular support during the rapid socioeconomic transformation. This article argues that while the market transition aggravated economic inequality, the housing privatization reform of the late 1990s, in which public housing was sold at deeply discounted prices, provided a much-needed welfare benefit to the urban residents before a functioning welfare system was established. Using survey data collected in Beijing during the period of housing privatization reform, this study finds that urban residents who purchased public housing reported higher evaluations of China’s market reform and were more satisfied with government performance. The effect was stronger among SOE blue-collar workers, lower-income earners, and those without social insurance. Further analysis shows that the purchase of public housing had a long-lasting effect on shaping pro-market policy preferences among these former proletariats. These findings suggest that housing privatization contributed to a widely dispersed coalition that supported the government’s market-oriented policies, serving as a source of political legitimacy during the period of dramatic changes.
Free to access for one week:
Ownership Society of the Proletariat: Housing Privatization and Public Support in China
by Zhiyuan Zhang
👉 doi.org/10.1525/cpcs...
Under authoritarianism, electoral malpractice not only can be manifest in violations prohibited by law, but also occurs under the guise of legality, thereby acquiring an institutionalized character. Multi-day voting in Russia, while portrayed by the authorities as a measure of convenience for the voters, effectively increases the propensity for malpractice by creating permissive environments for electoral fraud and workplace mobilization of voters, which often involves coercion to vote and bribery of electors. The analysis shows that in the 2021 national legislative elections, the pro-government party was indeed the sole beneficiary of multi-day voting in terms of increasing its officially reported vote share. The impact of multi-day voting upon the electoral performance of the permitted opposition parties was uneven, reflecting the differences among the niches occupied by the permitted opposition parties in Russia’s electoral arena.
New in Advance Articles:
Institutionalizing Electoral Malpractice: The Case of Multi-Day Voting in Russia
by Grigorii V. Golosov & Lev Osipov
👉 doi.org/10.1525/cpcs...
#Russia #elections #authoritarianism
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
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...
This article examines the evolving identities and solidarity among Russia’s anti-war movement, particularly focusing on the convergence between feminist and decolonial activism. Using the Feminist Anti-War Resistance (FAR) and ethnic or decolonial activists as case studies, the research highlights how solidarity influences the activists’ understanding of their objectives, reshapes identities, and introduces new grassroots coalitions. In the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine, these interactions challenge traditional boundaries between movements and foster a growing solidarity. The study draws on diverse data sources, including interviews with FAR activists, interviews with ethnic/decolonial activists, and online ethnography, to explore how discursive shifts, particularly regarding ethnic discrimination and intersectionality, redefine activist identity and solidarity. The study provides a comprehensive understanding of the convergence of decolonial activism and feminism in the context of the war against Ukraine. By analyzing these changes, the article contributes to a deeper understanding of how activist identities and alliances evolve under authoritarian conditions, providing insight into the broader dynamics of civil resistance and identity politics.
New in Advance Articles:
Transformations in Russian Activism: Navigating Identity and Solidarity in Russia’s Anti-War Movement
by Vlada Baranova
#Russia #activism #feminism #decoloniality
👉 doi.org/10.1525/cpcs...
Free to access for one week, from the latest issue:
Media Freedom, Bias, and Manipulation in the Eurasian Post-Socialist Space
by Krzysztof Rybinski
doi.org/10.1525/cpcs...
Happy to share my new article (open access) with B. Smith and C. Schenk in @cpcs.bsky.social We examine how Russia’s war has shaped youth activism in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan finding that young people’s agency and awareness of decolonialism long predated the war. online.ucpress.edu/cpcs/article...
04.11.2025 04:27 — 👍 2 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0Free 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...
Free to access for one week:
The Language of the Witness, the Language of the Researcher: Verbal and Nonverbal Communication in “Emergency Research”
by Katarzyna Jędraszczyk
From the themed section on Emergency Response Research and Documentation
doi.org/10.1525/cpcs...
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...
This article focuses on responses to Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine among establishment intellectuals in the People’s Republic of China, exploring how shifting geographies of power are reshaping ideas around ethnoracial identity in Eurasia. President Vladimir Putin justified the war, arguing that Ukrainians had no legitimate existence separate from Russians. In China where, despite long-standing opposition to countries “interfering in internal affairs” of others, officialdom has broadly supported Putin, intellectuals have engaged seriously with ideas around Russian and Ukrainian “sameness” as grounds for invasion. These distinctive PRC-based perspectives, sampled over the war’s first year from Aisixiang.com, a repository for intellectual commentary on current events, have significant ramifications for understandings of ethnic difference in the “global order.” From this material emerges a world in which certain “great” states possess the right to project possibly mutually incommensurable ethnicizing paradigms domestically and internationally. Tellingly, in the Sino-Russian context, while Putin condemns Lenin’s historic state-building role in “creating” Ukraine, the PRC party-state’s own Leninist legacy (including its categorization of ethnic groups) is irreconcilable with such views. Amid increasingly heated global debates around geopolitics, ethnicity, and race where PRC-based voices are central, scholars must attend to translingual framings of difference and the actions they justify.
New in Advance Articles:
War and Eurasia’s Ethnic Boundaries: Chinese Intellectuals on the Russian Invasion of Ukraine
by Ed Pulford
👉 doi.org/10.1525/cpcs...
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...
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...
Also in the September issue, research articles on:
🔸Media freedom in Eurasia
🔸Russian business and corporate welfare
🔸Housing privatization in China
🔸Populist communication in Czechia
online.ucpress.edu/cpcs/issue/5...
(2/2)
Table of Contents for September issue of Communist and Post-Communist Studies
The September issue is now online! Featuring a special section on "Emergency Response Research and Documentation in Comparative Perspective," with guest ed.s Natalia Otrishchenko and Anna Wylegała
The section draws on the experience of Polish and Ukrainian research teams following Feb 2022.
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🚨Announcing the CPCS Global Collaborative Research Award. 🚨
The award is unique in recognizing and promoting cross-regional collaboration in published research on the communist or post-communist world.
More details are 👇
online.ucpress.edu/cpcs/pages/g...
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...
New in Advance Articles:
Media Literacy and the Interpretation of the War—A Study of Uzbekistani Youth’s Perceptions on the Russia-Ukraine War
by Mukhammadsodik Donaev
doi.org/10.1525/cpcs...
New in Advance Articles (🚨Open Access🚨):
The Birth of Collective Action Out of Influencer Culture?: Individual Visibility and Power Dynamics in the Feminist Anti-War Resistance
by Daniil Zhaivoronok
doi.org/10.1525/cpcs...
Excellent transparency of the journal. I wish all journals published such informative reports. @cpcs.bsky.social 👍
02.09.2025 13:05 — 👍 2 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0(9/9) We're proud of what we've accomplished since the journal's re-launch in 2020, and we're grateful to everyone who has contributed to the journal's success.
More announcements to come, so check out the report and watch this space!
(8/9) Félix Krawatzek also joins as Assoc. Editor. He is snr researcher at ZOiS, where he heads up the ERC-funded Moving Russia(ns): Intergenerational Transmission of Memories Abroad and at Home, and coordinates the research cluster on Youth & Generational Change. www.zois-berlin.de/en/about-us/...
28.08.2025 01:40 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0(7/9) Myunghee Lee (Michigan State University) joined as Associate Editor in August. Her research focuses on authoritarian politics, democratization, protest and foreign policy, with a regional focus on East Asia, particularly the Korean Peninsula and China. msutoday.msu.edu/for-media/ex...
28.08.2025 01:40 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0(6/9) Meet the new members of the editorial team:
Anna Kozlova started as Managing Editor in May. She is finishing her PhD in History at Carleton U. on transnational post-Soviet German migrants. She also worked for Canadian Journal for European and Russian Studies. carleton.ca/history/cu-p...
(5/9) Gender balance among authors continues to improve steadily. There was no difference in acceptance rates for manuscripts with male or female corresponding authors.
28.08.2025 01:40 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0(4/9) The highest number of submissions in 2024 were received from:
🔸China (28)
🔸Poland (24)
🔸United Kingdom (15)
🔸United States (14)
🔸Czechia (12)
🔸Russia (9)
🔸Germany (8)
🔸Kazakhstan (8)
(3/9) Review/decision times:
🔸From submission to decision based on reviews: 63 days
🔸From submission to desk reject: 20 days
🔸Number of reviewers invited per manuscript: 3.2
🔸Number of days to complete reviews: 23
(2/9) 188 manuscripts submitted in 2024
🔸Accepted: 20%
🔸Desk rejected: 33%
🔸Rejected: 15
🔸R&R: 26%