Please join us for a conference organized by the Andrew Gagarin Center for Civil Society and Human Rights of St. Petersburg State University, the Bard College Center for Civic Engagement, and the Harriman Institute at Columbia University. The first day of the conference is at Columbia University, the second day at the State University of New York Global Center.
Recent developments in electoral politics throughout the world tend to be associated with the victory of populism or the "new right." These newly-popular politicians and parties (Trump, Putin, Front National, Basic Finns, Alternative for Germany, etc.) usually have a dominant ideology, even if it is eclectic and hybrid. The traditional name of this ideology is "conservatism." It argues for exclusive and identitarian nationalism, a higher role for family and church, authoritarian structures of power, the need to defend against subversives—the rest is dependent on national tradition. Its more pejorative analogon, going back to the counter-revolutionary resistance to the French Revolution, is "reactionism."
How did this ideology evolve in the late 20th-early 21st century? What are its main principles? What makes it attractive? What classes/groups does it represent? How can one argue against it/for it? Is an ideological analysis still valid at all? These and other questions will be at the core of discussion with special focus on conservatism in contemporary Russia (where it has in fact become a ruling ideology).
The conference is free and open to the public, no registration is required. For more information email Bryan Billings
[email protected].
Columbia University
Room 1512 International Affairs Building
420 West 118th Street
9:15-9:25 a.m. Welcome
Alexander Cooley, Director Harriman Institute
Jonathan Becker, Director Center for Civic Engagement
9:25–11:05 a.m. Comparative Conservatism I
Moderator: Alexander Cooley, Barnard College & Harriman Institute
Marlene Laruelle, George Washington University
“Conservatism” in Russia and in Europe. Gaps and Overlaps
Sean McMeekin, Bard College
Paranoia and Reaction in the Ex-Communist East and the Ex-Capitalist West: Some Thoughts
Maria Snegovaya, University of Maryland
Post-Communist Transition and the Conservative Turn in Russia and Hungary
Karine Clement, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales
Reaction to Reaction : the Russian “Vatniki” and the French “Yellow Vests”
11:05-11:15 a.m. Coffee Break
11:15–1:00 p.m. Preserving What? Reacting Against What?
Moderator: Katerina Vrablikova, Columbia University
Aleksey Gilev, St. Petersburg State University
Sources of Support of State Institutions in Russia
Yana Gorokhovskaia, Columbia University
What It Takes to Win When the Game is Rigged: The Evolution of Opposition Electoral Strategies in Moscow, 2012-2017
Pavel Kononenko, St. Petersburg State University
Is There Anything “Conservative” in Conservatism? Reaction and Formal Institutions. Evidence from the Russian Regions
Medet Tiulegenov, American University of Central Asia
A Decade of Protests in Kyrgyzstan: Conservative Turnarounds in Contentious Claim Making
1:00–2:30 p.m. Lunch Break
2:30–4:15 p.m. Conserving the Past
Moderator: Elise Giuliano, Columbia University
Ilya Kalinin, St. Petersburg State University
The Politics of Secondary Style: Re-action as Re-flex
Yitzhak Brudny, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Political Conservatism and National Identity in Post-Communist Russia
Kevin Platt, University of Pennsylvania
Reaction as Reactive: History, Memory War, and Complementary Occlusions in the Baltic Region
Denis Skopin, St. Petersburg State University
Perception of Stalinism in Contemporary Russia
