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ABSTRACT
This article investigates positions on network governance-type arrangements in Russian non-oppositional media. State-based actors articulated a discourse of mutual dependency, akin to observations in liberal parliamentary democracies. The state described itself as possessing necessary funding and competence to regulate and coordinate, while non-state actors were described as possessing resources necessary to fulfil state policy. Non-state actors occasionally cast doubt on the state's competence to regulate, but fears of state cooptation were rarely articulated. The hegemonic discourse on mutual dependency, and the state as an active network manager, mirrors the observed growth of state-controlled arenas for civil society inclusion in Russia.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributor
Marthe Handå Myhre is a PhD Candidate in Russian studies at the Department of Literature, Area Studies and European Languages, University of Oslo. Her PhD project focuses on the politics and perceptions of citizenship in post-Soviet Russia. Handå Myhre has formerly published her Master’s thesis on labour migration from Central Asia to Russia as a report at the Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research. Her scholarly interests are related to migrant issues, citizenship studies, governance structures and national identities.
Mikkel Berg-Nordlie is a researcher at the Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research (NIBR) at the Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences, who holds a master’s degree in Peace and Conflict Studies and is currently writing a PhD in history at the University of Tromsø – Arctic University of Norway, on indigenous governance in the Murmansk Region and border-transcending Sámi politics. Berg-Nordlie’s research is focused on ethnic minority politics, particularly indigenous issues and migrant issues, state-civil society relations, and media discourse.
Notes
1. The authors are grateful to A. Røiseland for suggestions regarding network governance theory literature.
2. For more on these aspects of Russian network governance, see for example Aasland, Berg-Nordlie, and Bogdanova Citation2016; Davies et al. Citation2016; Kropp and Schumann Citation2016.
3. See also Freedomhouse.org: Russia. Freedom of the Press 2014 (https://www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-press/2014/russia).
4. Russian federal subjects are here referred to as “provinces”, while the most common province type oblast’ is translated to “region”.
5. Medialogia is an information analysis system which puts together a rating of the most quoted newspapers in Russia using their database of about 16,100 sources (TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, web-pages, and blogs) http://www.mlg.ru/ratings/federal_media/2812/2013/0/.
8. Economis.com: Dreams about Russia. (http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21596580-beyond-spectacle-sochi-olympics-crackdown-russias-media-dreams-about-russia).
10. Businessinsider.com: Putin has taken control over Russian facebook (http://www.businessinsider.com/putin-has-taken-control-of-russian-facebook-2014-4).
11. Freedomhouse.org: Russia. Freedom of the Press 2011–2014 (https://www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-press/2011/russia).
12. Regnum.ru: Sovet direktorov IA Regnum vozglavil Aleksnadr Bespalov. (http://www.regnum.ru/news/polit/1824868.html).
13. Narkomaniya, narkotorgovlya i bor’ba s nimi (“Drug addiction, drug trafficking and the struggle against them”).
14. The keywords used were narkomaniya, narkotiki and narkomany (“Drug addiction, drugs, drug addicts”).
15. Kommersant 15 December 2005 (http://web.archive.org/web/20071113161639/http://www.kommersant.ru/region/ekaterinburg/page.htm?Id_doc=635826).
16. In Izvestiya and Kommersant we used the keywords sirotstvo, detskiî dom, priemnye semi and usynovlenie (“orphanhood, orphanage, receiving families, adoption”). In Regnum we looked at articles in the dossier called Problema sirotstva (“problems of orphanhood”).
17. Bbc.com: Magnitsky case: Putin signs Russian ban on US adoptions (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-20857068).
18. When using the keyword “adoption” in Kommersant there were 10 texts in the period June 2009–June 2011, while the period June 2012–2014 had 113 such texts. Izvestiya had 58 vs. 115 texts in the same periods. The Regnum dossier also had significantly fewer texts between 2009 and 2011 (less than 150). When using the keywords listed above many texts were retrieved several times. This has been taken into account, and the given numbers below reflect the actual numbers of texts on child welfare that were retrieved and analysed (summer 2012–spring 2014): 121 texts from Izvestiya, 122 from Kommersant, and 376 from Regnum.
19. Kontseptsiya gosudarstvennoî migratsionnoî politiki Possiîskoî Federatsiya period do 2025 goda, http://www.fms.gov.ru/upload/iblock/07c/kgmp.pdf.
20. In Izvestiya and Kommersant we searched for texts including the words migrant and migratsiya (“migration”). In Regnum we looked at the texts in the dossier called “migration, citizenship and the awarding of passports” (migratsiya, grazhdanstvo, pasportizatsiya). Out from the retrieved texts we selected and downloaded only the ones which headlines’ were relevant for the topic integration of immigrants. In this way reports of crimes committed by migrants and other irrelevant texts were excluded.