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Exploring Civil Society in the North-Western Caucasus: The State, Local Government, and Communities on a Convoluted Path toward Social Stability
- Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization
- Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies, The George Washington University
- Volume 28, Number 2, Spring 2020
- pp. 269-303
- Article
- Additional Information
Abstract:
Human rights violations and the persecution of NGOs have made civil society a topic of public discourse. These mainstream debates, however, take a conventional view of civil society, seeing it as an essential democratic institution. Informal modes of civic participation that contribute to local-level stability, meanwhile, remain outside public and academic discussions. Drawing on empirical data, this article provides a comprehensive analysis of the role of local civil society in stabilizing intra-societal relations between the state, local government, and communities in the north-western republics of the Russian Caucasus: Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachay-Cherkessia.