Putin's Olympics

Putin's Olympics PDF Author: Robert W. Orttung
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1317813170
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 136

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Book Description
President Vladimir Putin’s Olympic venture put the workings of contemporary Russia on vivid display. The Sochi Olympics were designed to symbolize Russia’s return to great power status, but subsequent aggression against Ukraine, large-scale corruption, and the doping scandal have become the true legacies of the games. The Kremlin’s style of governance through mega-projects has had deleterious consequences for the country’s development. Placing the Sochi games into the larger context of Olympic history, this book examines the political, security, business, ethnic, societal, and international ramifications of Putin’s system.

Putin's Olympics

Putin's Olympics PDF Author: Robert W. Orttung
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1317813170
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 136

Get Book

Book Description
President Vladimir Putin’s Olympic venture put the workings of contemporary Russia on vivid display. The Sochi Olympics were designed to symbolize Russia’s return to great power status, but subsequent aggression against Ukraine, large-scale corruption, and the doping scandal have become the true legacies of the games. The Kremlin’s style of governance through mega-projects has had deleterious consequences for the country’s development. Placing the Sochi games into the larger context of Olympic history, this book examines the political, security, business, ethnic, societal, and international ramifications of Putin’s system.

Putin's Olympics

Putin's Olympics PDF Author: Robert W. Orttung
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317813162
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 140

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Book Description
President Vladimir Putin’s Olympic venture put the workings of contemporary Russia on vivid display. The Sochi Olympics were designed to symbolize Russia’s return to great power status, but subsequent aggression against Ukraine, large-scale corruption, and the doping scandal have become the true legacies of the games. The Kremlin’s style of governance through mega-projects has had deleterious consequences for the country’s development. Placing the Sochi games into the larger context of Olympic history, this book examines the political, security, business, ethnic, societal, and international ramifications of Putin’s system.

The 2014 Sochi Olympics

The 2014 Sochi Olympics PDF Author: Sergey Markedonov
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442228229
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 31

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Book Description
The 22nd Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, possess a singular symbolic character for Russia and its leadership. President Vladimir Putin considers the Games a demonstration of Russia’s growing international role and the success of his administration’s policies. Many view a successful Olympics as integral to his presidency. But also Sochi presents a number of challenges as an Olympic host city. It stands at the center of a number of thorny issues with geopolitical and security implications, including the turbulent insurgencies in the North Caucasus, ethno-political issues such as the “Circassian question,” and the Russia-Georgia-Abkhazia security triangle. It is also a focal point for many nonsecurity issues, including the environment, transportation, housing, and public services. By placing Sochi within the domestic political, regional, and geopolitical contexts, this report examines the myriad challenges facing the Sochi Olympics that could affect the Games. It also examines Russia’s policy response to these challenges and its preparations for the Games, as well as the work that still needs to be done.

Putin's Kleptocracy

Putin's Kleptocracy PDF Author: Karen Dawisha
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476795207
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 464

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Book Description
The raging question in the world today is who is the real Vladimir Putin and what are his intentions. Karen Dawisha’s brilliant Putin’s Kleptocracy provides an answer, describing how Putin got to power, the cabal he brought with him, the billions they have looted, and his plan to restore the Greater Russia. Russian scholar Dawisha describes and exposes the origins of Putin’s kleptocratic regime. She presents extensive new evidence about the Putin circle’s use of public positions for personal gain even before Putin became president in 2000. She documents the establishment of Bank Rossiya, now sanctioned by the US; the rise of the Ozero cooperative, founded by Putin and others who are now subject to visa bans and asset freezes; the links between Putin, Petromed, and “Putin’s Palace” near Sochi; and the role of security officials from Putin’s KGB days in Leningrad and Dresden, many of whom have maintained their contacts with Russian organized crime. Putin’s Kleptocracy is the result of years of research into the KGB and the various Russian crime syndicates. Dawisha’s sources include Stasi archives; Russian insiders; investigative journalists in the US, Britain, Germany, Finland, France, and Italy; and Western officials who served in Moscow. Russian journalists wrote part of this story when the Russian media was still free. “Many of them died for this story, and their work has largely been scrubbed from the Internet, and even from Russian libraries,” Dawisha says. “But some of that work remains.”

Russia’s Cultural Statecraft

Russia’s Cultural Statecraft PDF Author: Tuomas Forsberg
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000469247
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
This book focusses on Russia’s cultural statecraft in dealing with a number of institutional cultural domains such as education, museums and monuments, high arts and sport. It analyses to what extent Russia’s cultural activities abroad have been used for foreign policy purposes, and perceived as having a political dimension. Building on the concept of cultural statecraft, the authors present a broad and nuanced view of how Russia sees the role of culture in its external relations, how this shapes the image of Russia, and the ways in which this cultural statecraft is received by foreign audiences. The expert team of contributors consider: what choices are made in fostering this agenda; how Russian state authorities see the purpose and limits of various cultural instruments; to what extent can the authorities shape these instruments; what domains have received more attention and become more politicised and what fields have remained more autonomous. The methodological research design of the book as a whole is a comparative case study comparing the nature of Russian cultural statecraft across time, target countries and diverse cultural domains. It will be of interest to scholars and students of Russian foreign policy and external relations and those working on the role of culture in world politics.

All the Kremlin's Men

All the Kremlin's Men PDF Author: Mikhail Zygar
Publisher: Public Affairs
ISBN: 1610397398
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 396

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Book Description
"Charting the transformation of Vladimir Putin from a passionate fan of the West and a liberal reformer into a hurt and introverted outcast, All the Kremlin's Men is a historical detective story, full of intrigue and conspiracy. This is the story of the political battles that have taken place in the court of Vladimir Putin since his rise to power, and a chronicle of friendship and hatred between the Russian leader and his foreign partners and opponents..."--

Putin's People

Putin's People PDF Author: Catherine Belton
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374712786
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 405

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Book Description
A New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller | A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice Named a best book of the year by The Economist | Financial Times | New Statesman | The Telegraph "[Putin's People] will surely now become the definitive account of the rise of Putin and Putinism." —Anne Applebaum, The Atlantic "This riveting, immaculately researched book is arguably the best single volume written about Putin, the people around him and perhaps even about contemporary Russia itself in the past three decades." —Peter Frankopan, Financial Times Interference in American elections. The sponsorship of extremist politics in Europe. War in Ukraine. In recent years, Vladimir Putin’s Russia has waged a concerted campaign to expand its influence and undermine Western institutions. But how and why did all this come about, and who has orchestrated it? In Putin’s People, the investigative journalist and former Moscow correspondent Catherine Belton reveals the untold story of how Vladimir Putin and the small group of KGB men surrounding him rose to power and looted their country. Delving deep into the workings of Putin’s Kremlin, Belton accesses key inside players to reveal how Putin replaced the freewheeling tycoons of the Yeltsin era with a new generation of loyal oligarchs, who in turn subverted Russia’s economy and legal system and extended the Kremlin's reach into the United States and Europe. The result is a chilling and revelatory exposé of the KGB’s revanche—a story that begins in the murk of the Soviet collapse, when networks of operatives were able to siphon billions of dollars out of state enterprises and move their spoils into the West. Putin and his allies subsequently completed the agenda, reasserting Russian power while taking control of the economy for themselves, suppressing independent voices, and launching covert influence operations abroad. Ranging from Moscow and London to Switzerland and Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach—and assembling a colorful cast of characters to match—Putin’s People is the definitive account of how hopes for the new Russia went astray, with stark consequences for its inhabitants and, increasingly, the world.

The Sochi Predicament

The Sochi Predicament PDF Author: Bo Petersson
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 144385445X
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
For a variety of political, climatic, ecological, security-related and other reasons, the Russian summer resort of Sochi by the Black Sea would seem a most unlikely candidate for the Olympic Winter Games. Despite this, the Games will be held there in February 2014, and the Russian leaders regard the Games as a highly prestigious project underlining Russia’s return to a status of great power in the contemporary world. This book conducts a thorough inventory of the contexts, characteristics and challenges facing the Sochi Games. It deals with the problems from Russian, Georgian, Abkhazian and Circassian perspectives and makes in-depth analyses of profound challenges related to matters such as identity, security, and ethnic relations. The book brings together an international group of eminent scholars representing different disciplinary perspectives, including political science, sports science, ethics, ethnology, and Caucasian studies.

The Ideals of Global Sport

The Ideals of Global Sport PDF Author: Barbara J. Keys
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812295994
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 246

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Book Description
"Sport has the power to change the world," South African president Nelson Mandela told the Sporting Club in Monte Carlo in 2000. Today, we are inundated with similar claims—from politicians, diplomats, intellectuals, journalists, athletes, and fans—about the many ways that international sports competitions make the world a better place. Promoters of the Olympic Games and similar global sports events have spent more than a century telling us that these festivals offer a multitude of "goods": that they foster friendship and mutual understanding among peoples and nations, promote peace, combat racism, and spread democracy. In recent years boosters have suggested that sports mega-events can advance environmental protection in a world threatened by climate change, stimulate economic growth and reduce poverty in developing nations, and promote human rights in repressive countries. If the claims are to be believed, sport is the most powerful and effective form of idealistic internationalism on the planet. The Ideals of Global Sport investigates these grandiose claims, peeling away the hype to reveal the reality: that shockingly little evidence underpins these endlessly repeated assertions. The essays, written by scholars from many regions and disciplines and drawn from an exceptionally diverse array of sources, show that these bold claims were sometimes cleverly leveraged by activist groups to pressure sports bodies into supporting moral causes. But the essays methodically debunk sports organizations' inflated proclamations about the record of their contributions to peace, mutual understanding, antiracism, and democracy. Exposing enduring shortcomings in the newer realm of human rights protection, from the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games to Brazil's 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Rio Olympics, The Ideals of Global Sport suggests that sport's idealistic pretensions can have distinctly non-idealistic side effects, distracting from the staggering financial costs of hosting the events, serving corporate interests, and aiding the spread of neoliberal globalization. Contributors: Jules Boykoff, Susan Brownell, Roland Burke, Simon Creak, Dmitry Dubrovsky, Joon Seok Hong, Barbara J. Keys, Renate Nagamine, João Roriz, Robert Skinner.

Sexual Diversity and the Sochi 2014 Olympics

Sexual Diversity and the Sochi 2014 Olympics PDF Author: H. Lenskyj
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137399767
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 112

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Book Description
This book examines Russia's 2013 anti-gay laws and their implications for the Sochi 2014 Olympics. Lenskyj argues that Putin's Russia and the International Olympic Committee wield power in similar ways, as evident in undemocratic governance, fraudulent voting processes, hypocrisy and absence of accountability.