Blog

By Liga Rudzite, Tallinn University of Technology liga.rudzite@taltech.ee Foto Credit Diego PH The world is experiencing an increasingly rapid expansion of information and therefore also of knowledge produced in higher education institutions. With the rise of knowledge-based societies, universities are increasingly tasked with the role of contributing to society not only through knowledge and technology creation…

By Liga Rudzite, Tallinn University of Technology liga.rudzite@taltech.ee Photo Credit Jason Blackeye As a number of reports on the physical limits to efficiency in production and consumption make the headlines in global media, the development cooperation sector is once again pushed to re-evaluate its implementation policies to help mitigate climate change. Economic growth, which has been…

By Maia Machavariani, Dublin City University mako.machavariani@gmail.com   Nursultan Nazarbayev is one of the few leaders among the countries of the former Soviet Union who has been dominating the political system of Kazakhstan since its independence, in December 1991. However, Nazarbayev is now 78 years old. The upcoming 2020 presidential elections have prompted heated discussion on…

By Robert Fredrick Chestnutt School of Law & Government Dublin City University robert.chestnutt2@mail.dcu.ie  Photo Credits Emile Perron Conducting field research in non-democracies carries additional risks for researchers. Some of those risks relate to issues of data protection, anonymity of interviewees and the ‘do no harm’ principle. While technology can be part of the problem, there…

By Elham Gharji, University of Coimbra.   Russia’s strategy for maintaining leadership in the wider Caspian region, encompassing the Caucasus and Central Asia, has been focused on close cooperation with Iran. Both strongly oppose Western influence in the region. As a peripheral power to Russia in the wider Caspian/Eurasian geopolitical space, Iran has historically played an…

By Maira Zeinilova, PhD researcher, Dublin City University   Opening the annual conference on gender policy in Kazakhstan, Ms Gulshara Abdykalikova, the head of the Commission on Women and Family Demographic Affairs, emphasised the role of women in Kazakh society referring to women’s active participation in the implementation of the national Strategy Kazakhstan-2050, gender policies…

By Shairbek Dzhuraev, University of St Andrews   A year ago, in November 2017, Sooronbai Jeenbekov was sworn in as Kyrgyzstan’s fifth president. The event made headlines as the first instance of peaceful transition of power from one elected president to another in Central Asia. Almazbek Atambaev’s decision to step down, while constitutionally prescribed, was an unusual…

By Dr Paola Rivetti, Assistant Professor in Middle East Politics, Dublin City University  This piece was previously published in the RTE Brainstorm, and it is available here. Analysis: the protests have come about as a result of the frustration many of the population have with poor economic conditions Iran is making headlines again. This time,…

By Robert F. Chestnutt, Dublin City University 1.0 Introduction Vladimir Putin has, arguably, been the scrutinised about global leader since his unexpected ascension to the Russian presidency in 1999. Interestingly, even since the election of Donald Trump in November 2016, analysis and discussion of Putin has grown even more. Putin succeeded Boris Yeltsin as Russian…

By Aytan Gahramanova, DCU   At the 2014 Resilience conference in Montpelier, France, resilience was described as a new paradigm for development. Since then, donors and implementing agencies started presenting ‘resilience’ as a new development work paradigm to the public. Once, during one of my interviews with the project manager of EU donor organisations I…

Olena Levenets, Tallin University This blog reviews the findings outlined in a book chapter titled “Coping mechanisms of Ukrainian patients: bribes, gifts, donations, and connections” that I wrote for the forthcoming book The illegal, the immoral and the criminal: transnational perspectives on informality (Polese, et al. 2019). The chapter explores how patients cope with barriers…

By Sofya Omarova  This blog was previously published by Esquire, and it is available here Every year, the interest of Kazakhstanis to travel to neighbouring countries increases .  According to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Azerbaijan , about 30 thousand of our compatriots annually visit Baku . Perhaps this is not such an impressive figure in comparison with 7.5 million foreigners vacationing…

By Sofya Omarova This blog was previously published by the Oxford Brookes University and it is available here  The 21st Annual Association for the Study of Nationalities (ASN) World Convention was held at the Harriman Institute, Columbia University from 14-16 April 2016. This year the ASN Convention hosted more than 150 panels. This included panels…

Sofya Omarova, PhD candidate in International Politics and Sociology Department of Social Sciences Oxford Brookes University This blog was first published on Siar Research Consulting and it is available here  Why would a country with one third of its population[1] living below the poverty line spend 2 billion sum from its state budget to organise “The World…

By Karolina Kluczewska This blog was previously published by the London School of Economics and is available here    The difficulty to reach practitioners and experts is one of the main challenges faced especially by young researchers and can overshadow fieldwork experiences and attempts to produce new knowledge. While researchers might get an impression that…

by Aytan Gahramanova, School of Law and Government, Dublin City University Executive summary: International democracy promotion programs are grounded on the belief that democracy progresses in a linear fashion and that civil society is the primary engine of such a progression. Consequently, aid strategies and the assessment of civil society in hybrid regimes are elaborated…

Gulnaz Isabekova There is a shortage of healthcare workers around the world, which is likely to increase in the upcoming years. Changing demographics and higher life expectancies are contributing factors to this trend. The research shows that qualified medical professionals are essential to patients’ access to quality healthcare, and their shortage may potentially lead to…

Tatia Chikhladze This blog addresses the political developments taking place immediately following the death of Saparmurat Niyazov: by whom and under what circumstances was his successor selected, and how did Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov manage to consolidate power after assuming his duties? In 2006, Niyazov passed away unexpectedly. Since he designated no potential successor, the regime faced…

by Maira Zeinilova, PhD researcher in Dublin City University When the CNN moderator Fareed Zakaria during the International Economic Forum held in June 2016 in St Petersburg, Russia, asked president Nazarbayev whether Kazakhstan was ready for a female president, Nazarbayev responded saying: “why not?” His answer sounded almost like the personification of Lenin’s historical statement…

By Chiara Loda (@ChiaraLoda) This post was originally published in Presidential Power and is available here April 2018 in Armenia was marked by massive grassroots protests, the resignation of the newly-nominated prime minister, and complex political negotiations. Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan, who formerly served as President for a decade, resigned on April 23, after 11 days of massive…