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ID:
187296
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Summary/Abstract |
What tools do authoritarian regimes possess for responding to new political and socio-economic threats? This essay presents a case study of the 2014–2019 reorganisation of the Belarusian Republican Youth Union (Bielaruski respublikanski sayuz moladzi—BRYU), a government-controlled administrative mass organisation. It shows that, in the spirit of the regime's paradigm shift in domestic policy towards ‘soft Belarusianisation’ and participatory authoritarianism, the BRYU became a mobilisation tool, instrumentalised for popularising a Belarusian cultural revival and endorsing local civic activism. Paradoxically, these new functions unharnessed young people's agency within the BRYU in a way that would backfire, for instance, during the Belarusian crisis of 2020.
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2 |
ID:
174392
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Summary/Abstract |
Based on extensive and diverse primary material, this article provides a detailed analysis of the development of Belarusian government-affiliated youth organisations from the late 1980s until 2002. Using a historical institutionalist approach, it examines the transformation of the Belarusian Komsomol into an independent association and the emergence of new, proactive pro-government youth organisations. The article demonstrates that, contrary to common assumptions, building a mass membership pro-presidential youth organisation in Belarus was a complex project that took years to complete. When the Belarusian Republican Youth Union finally emerged in 2002, it was a result of an interplay of many structural and agency-related factors.
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