Party politics in the former Soviet Union is fundamentally different from party politics in Western democracies in many ways. Since 1991, two crucial aspects of party politics in the less-than-democratic former Soviet republics have been the impact of authoritarian practices on party politics and the volatile nature of party politics. Starting with the observation that the creation and operatio...

f we were to issue a report card on the state of democracy in the world today, how would the twenty or so post-Communist states rate? And, while we are at it, how well do our professional efforts to understand the new states of the former Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact (as well as other former authoritarian states) measure up? The two sets of questions are inevitably related, for reality is alway...

Multimedia has emerged in recent years as a viable component in shaping built environments, where media, such as audio, visual and interactive content take on spatial significance. This has spurred multidisciplinary ventures exploring potential applications of multiple media in habitable spaces. Particularly relevant are the progressive insights emerging from works of multimedia installation ar...

As the world seemed undecided in praising China’s crisis management through what was formerly called networked authoritarianism (MacKinnon 2011), countries such as Iran showed no interest extending its notorious political surveillance practices into public health arena. Consequently, this paper asks if umbrella term “authoritarian surveillance” used by many Western and non-Western scholars (inc...

Drawing on research on authoritarianism, this study analyzes the relationship between levels of threat in society and representations of crime, law, and order in mass media, with a particular emphasis on the superhero genre. Although the superhero genre is viewed as an important site of mediated images of crime and law enforcement, cultural criminologists have been relatively quiet about this f...

In this case study of the impact of West German television on public support for the East German communist regime, we evaluate the conventional wisdom in the democratization literature that foreign mass media undermine authoritarian rule. We exploit formerly classified survey data and a natural experiment to identify the effect of foreign media exposure using instrumental variable estimators. C...

In Russia’s foreign policy, the central direction taken after September 11, 2001, was close cooperative relationship with both the U.S. and Europe. However, Vladimir Putin’s second term in office continues to be fraud with western complaints about his neo-authoritarianism and declining significance of democratic institutions in Russia. These voices are multiple with some U.S.-based organization...

pink floyd was a british band whose work began in the late 60s. roger waters, the main contributor of the band, wrote almost all the lyrics and was also a main figure behind producing the motion picture of the album. he deliberately attacks western media in both the lyrics he has written for the band and his solo projects. the present study finds this tendency of assaulting the media deeply roo...