Latest Articles about Domestic/Social

Strategic Assessment: After Months of Political Campaign, Georgia Enters Post-Election Period
The following political landscape piece is a part of Eurasia Daily Monitor’s special quarterly series of strategic assessments of developments across Eurasia. These pieces examine recent important developments and trends in the region, particularly since this past summer, and anticipate where those trend lines may... MORE

Strategic Assessment: Russian Policy in the North Caucasus Remains in Flux
The following political landscape piece is a part of Eurasia Daily Monitor’s special quarterly series of strategic assessments of developments across Eurasia. These pieces examine recent important developments and trends in the region, particularly since this past summer, and anticipate where those trend lines may... MORE

Armenia’s New Defense Minister Proposes ‘Nation-Army’ Concept
The National Assembly of Armenia affirmed Karen Karapetyan as the country’s new prime minister, on September 13. Karapetyan’s previous career was predominantly linked in various ways to Russia’s natural gas producer Gazprom (with the exception of ten months in 2010–2011, when he served as mayor... MORE

Constitutional Majority Looms as Georgia’s Opposition UNM Party in Danger of Emaciation
Sunday’s runoffs in 50 precincts—which became necessary because none of the candidates in these single-mandate districts garnered an absolute majority of the vote in the first round of the October 8 Georgian parliamentary elections—were overwhelmingly won by the ruling Georgian Dream-Democratic Georgia (GDDG). On October... MORE

Does Mikheil Saakashvili Have a Political Future in Georgia?
The opposition United National Movement (UNM) came in distant second in the Georgian parliamentary elections that took place on October 8 (see EDM, October 13). The party of former president Mikheil Saakashvili received only 27.11 percent of the vote for the party list. And it... MORE

Far-Right Leader Dmitry Demushkin Arrested Ahead of Upcoming ‘Russian March’
The former leader of the now-banned “Russians” opposition movement as well as the outlawed skinhead gang Slavic Union (Slavianskii Soiuz), Dmitry Demushkin, was placed under house arrest by the Russian authorities on October 21. Ostensibly, the move was connected to an ongoing legal case against... MORE

Holding Up Half the Sky? (Part 2)—The Evolution of Women’s Roles in the PLA
This is Part 2 of a two-part series on women in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Part 1 examined the historical trajectory of and context for the expansion of women’s roles in the PLA. Part 2 examines the recruitment and organizational representation of the PLA’s... MORE

Downsizing the PLA, Part 1: Military Discharge and Resettlement Policy, Past and Present
This is Part 1 of a two-part series on the PLA’s planned personnel reduction and its implications in two parts. Part 1 summarizes Chinese military discharge mechanisms and discusses key trends and changes in discharge and resettlement policy since the last troop reduction in 2004.... MORE

Why Is Karachaevo-Cherkessia Quiet When Its Neighbors Suffer From Violence?
Karachaevo-Cherkessia, a small republic in the Northwestern Caucasus, was among the first areas of the Russian Federation to witness a rise in Islamic jamaats during the 1990s. Yet today, Karachaevo-Cherkessia is a relatively quiet place, unlike neighboring Kabardino-Balkaria and most other North Caucasus republics to... MORE

Russian Security Services Said Behind Electronic Circassian ‘Census’
In the past, Moscow has used population censuses to promote divisions within the Circassian nation. As part of its divide-and-conquer effort in the North Caucasus as well as to isolate them from the far larger Circassian nation abroad, Moscow has required members of that community... MORE