Miscommunicating Social Change: Lessons from Russia and Ukraine

Description

Miscommunicating Social Change analyzes the discourses of three social movements and the alternative media associated with them, revealing that the Enlightenment narrative, though widely critiqued in academia, remains the dominant way of conceptualizing social change in the name of democratization in the post-Soviet terrain. The main argument of this book is that the “progressive” imaginary, which envisages progress in the unidirectional terms of catching up with the “more advanced” Western condition, is inherently anti-democratic and deeply antagonistic. Instead of fostering an inclusive democratic process in which all strata of populations holding different views are involved, it draws solid dividing frontiers between “progressive” and “retrograde” forces, deepening existing antagonisms and provoking new ones; it also naturalizes the hierarchies of the global neocolonial/neoliberal power of the West. Using case studies of the “White Ribbons” social movement for fair elections in Russia (2012), the Ukrainian Euromaidan (2013–2014), and anti-corruption protests in Russia organized by Alexei Navalny (2017) and drawing on the theories of Ernesto Laclau, Chantal Mouffe, and Nico Carpentier, this book shows how “progressive” articulations by the social movements under consideration ended up undermining the basis of the democratic public sphere through the closure of democratic space. Cover Miscommunicating Social Change Miscommunicating Social Change: Lessons from Russia and Ukraine Copyright Contents Acknowledgments Introduction Theoretical Foundations Chapter 1 Democratic Globalization or Global Coloniality? The Uniprogressive Discourse of Soviet Perestroika The Uniprogressive Discourse of the Movement for Fair Elections in Russia The Uniprogressive Discourse of the Euromaidan The Uniprogressive Discourse of an Anti-Corruption Movement in Russia Totalitarianism in the Name of Democracy and Progress Notes Chapter 2 The Genealogy of the Uniprogressive Imaginary Breaking the Link Between Uniprogressivism and Democratic Theorizing Note Chapter 3 Discourse Theory by Laclau and Mouffe and Its Further Elaborations Nico Carpentier’s Discursive-Material Knot The Uniprogressive Discourse of Social Movements in Russia Chapter 4 “They Were Very Far Removed from the People . . .” 2004–2005: The Anti-Monetarization Uprising Soviet Nostalgia 2011–2013: Russia without Putin! 2017: New Protests, Old Problems Notes Chapter 5 White Ribbons and the Echo in the Dark “Us” vs. “Them”: Echo’s Framing of Putin Supporters Notes Chapter 6 The New Protest Generation Putin’s Russia and Its Barbarians The “Non-Whipped Generation” and the West Notes Chapter 7 Antagonism without Agonism Was There Really Nothing Positive about “Sovok”? Note The Uniprogressive Discourse of the Euromaidan Chapter 8 Shadows of the Past Ukraine’s Difficult Totality Donbas Uprising Notes Chapter 9 The Uniprogressive Imagination of the Euromaidan A European Dream The Euromaidan’s Outside We Are “The People” Notes Chapter 10 The Antagonisms of the Euromaidan “Not All of Them Are Here for Money” Notes Chapter 11 The Discursive-Material Knot of the Euromaidan The Lack of Vision Provocateurs vs. Activists Euromaidan Radicals The Spiral of Animosity The Wounds of the Anti-Maidan The Materiality of Destruction The Agency of the Anti-Maidan Note Chapter 12 In the Name of National Unity From “Anti-Maidan” to “Separatism” From “Separatism” to “Terrorism” Notes Conclusions Chapter 13 Global Coloniality Instead of Democratic Globalization Alternative Articulations Global Democratization Epilogue Note Bibliography Index About the Author