Aliaksei Kazharski
Biographic Data
| ID | 321613 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Aliaksei Kazharski |
| GIVEN NAMES | Aliaksei |
| FAMILY NAME | Kazharski |
| SIGNATURE | KAZHARSKI A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Charles University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9782-7746 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 28 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 115 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 28 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Forum: Learning from the Russo-Ukrainian War: Normative lessons in unnormative times
This Forum discusses how different international actors learn different lessons from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and how the logics discernible behind these lessons may define the future shapes of a new international order to substitute the post-1991 system of international relations. In this Forum, a group of scholars discuss the lessons learned from the perspective of Europe’s normative credentials, demonstrating tensions between idea(l)s of …
The Uses and Abuses of the Anti-Colonial in Global Reactionary Politics
Drawing on a range of regional expertise and perspectives from international relations, political economy, political theory, and sociology, this collective discussion makes the following contributions to research on global reactionary politics and discussions of decolonization. First, we argue that the erosion of the legitimacy of liberal orders renders the anti-colonial language available for authoritarian and conservative projects in both the G…
The effects of Ukraine’s communication strategy in the Visegrad Four and the “Global South.” Understanding the target audiences and limits
Instrumentalizing Navalny’s legacy: Fighting corruption or demolishing the empire
Peripheralities and Their Effects: A Cross-Regional Reflection on Central and Eastern Europe and the Middle East and North Africa
The contribution is a cross-regional dialog between researchers from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). It explores ways in which the concept of peripherality—understood broadly both in economic and cultural sense—could help us grasp long-terms pattern of development in both regions. The dialog opens with Michaela Grančayová and Aliaksei Kazharski's note on CEE’s “transitive peripherality,” its—arguably …
Critical heritage studies and post-imperial insecurities in central and Baltic Europe
This short piece introduces three articles that form a special section discussing how critical security studies might be helpful for conceptualizing new insecurities in the region of Central Europe and the Baltic states
History meets the 'mafia state'? Hungary and the (de)securitisation of built cultural heritage in Slovakia
The article examines the securitisation of Hungarian purchases of cultural built heritage in Slovakia in 2021–2023. It demonstrates that, while the material existence of this heritage had not been in any way endangered, it nevertheless became intimately intertwined with the broader anxieties and fears of irredentism and territorial revisionism, stemming from persisting conflicts in memory politics and from the Hungarian government’s controversial…
Explaining the “Westsplainers”: Can a Western Scholar Be an Expert on Central and Eastern Europe
Following the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the terms “Westsplaining” and “Westsplainer” gained momentum. They are used as a reaction to commentaries that are delivered by established Western intellectuals who lack proper knowledge of the region. Many people from Central and Eastern Europe, as well as some of their Western colleagues, tend to find such commentaries not only useless but also harmful. Far from being a purely theoretical acad…
Eastern Europe” and War. Introduction to the Special Issue
The present collection of papers is a joint effort aimed at making sense of the changes that Russia’s war against Ukraine ushered into the region of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). We have invited a team of authors working on the two subregions, the Visegrád Four and the Baltic Three, to share their reflections on how the full-scale invasion has impacted the transformations in the respective countries’ regional outlook. The “kidnapping” as an o…
To Whom the Sirens Wail.” Poland’s Post-2022 Geopolitical Debates on Central and “Eastern Europe”
The article conducts a social constructivist analysis of the post-2022 debate in Poland to trace how the geopolitical notions of “Central” and “Eastern” Europe have been affected by the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia. It shows that the attack stimulated a powerful wave of identification with Ukraine across the political spectrum rooted in Polish collective memories. New opportunities also opened for Poland’s self-positioning as a leader…
An Authoritarian Spectacle: Visual Biopolitics and the Dramaturgy of the Poland-Belarus Border Migration Crisis
This article analyzes the 2021–22 migration crisis at the EU-Belarus border through the conceptual lens of visual biopolitics. Based on data available from the regime-run media in Belarus it demonstrates how the engineered crisis was a case of authoritarian dramaturgy relying on numerous visual representations of migrants. The carefully staged authoritarian spectacle exploits both the vulnerability and grievability of refugee life, and the regime…
Central Europe Thirty Years after the Fall of Communism: A Return to the Margin?
This book examines the politics and international relations of Central Europe (the Visegrád Four) three decades after the fall of communism. Once bound together by a common geopolitical vision of "returning to the West," the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia now find themselves in a more ambiguous position. The 2015 European migration crisis exposed serious normative differences with Western Europe, leading to a collective V4 rebellio…
When the “subaltern empire” speaks. On recognition, Eurasian integration, and the Russo-Georgian war
By combining insights from social constructivist IR theories and postcolonial theory, the article addresses the issue of Russia's appropriation of Western political vocabulary in the cases of Russia's discourse on Eurasian economic integration and humanitarianist discourse of R2P employed during and after the Russo-Georgian war in August 2008. The view that mimicry and subversion are the motives behind Russia's behavior is taken further by emphas…
Authoritarian Hegemonic Masculinities and Gendered Rhetorics of the Protest
This article uses the gender perspective to compare the 2020 Belarus protests and the Arab Spring and its aftermath in Egypt (2011–13). It argues that in both cases authoritarian militarized hegemonic masculinities, articulated through authoritarian body politics, attempted to suppress the protest movements. The latter, in turn, drew on a number of gendered images and symbols to perform its counter-hegemonic practices of resistance. The study emp…
Belarus’ new political nation? 2020 anti-authoritarian protests as identity building
Belarus as a liminal space for Russia’s ontological security before and after the 2020 protests
The article uses the ontological security framework and the concept of liminality to analyze Belarus liminal status vis-a-vis Russia and the role it has played in Russia’s ontological security seeking before and after the 2020 Belarus Awakening. It argues that while the entire near-abroad, and, in particular, Ukraine have been important in terms of Russia’s post-imperial ontological security seeking strategies, Belarus occupies a unique position …
From the Bronze Soldier to the “Bloody Marshal”: Monument Wars and Russia’s Aesthetic Vulnerability in Estonia and the Czech Republic
The article analyzes historical monuments as instruments of Russia’s attempts to impose its aesthetic hegemony in the post-Communist world. Drawing on case studies from the Czech Republic and Estonia, it argues that this hegemony is precarious and vulnerable due to inability to deal with the inherent ambiguity and complexity of historical events and figures. The Russian approach regards historical truth in absolute terms and is underpinned by a z…
Neonationalism and the metropolitan “coffee house” in Central Europe
Belarus, Russia, and the escape from geopolitics
Concluding Analysis
An ad hoc Regionalism? The Visegrád Four in the “Post-Liberal” Age
This symposium contribution analyzes the trajectories of the Visegrád Group (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia) regionalism from the viewpoint of the crisis of international liberal order. I argue that, although illiberal developments and Euroskepticism in the Visegrád Four (V4) states pose a local challenge to the liberal order, this region is still tightly plugged into the Western liberal order because it is dependent on Euro-At…
Populism in Estonia and Slovakia: Performances, Transgressions, and Communicative Styles
The paper relies on empirical evidence from Estonia and Slovakia to develop an understanding of populism as a performative and transgressive political style. We argue that populism cannot be defined in ideological terms nor can it be attached to particular political subjects. Instead, it is a political style that can be adopted and mimicked by various subjects from extreme right to social liberal. The performativity of populism presupposes forms …
Two kinds of small? The ‘EU core’ in Slovak and Czech geopolitical imagination
The article critically examines Czech and Slovak discourses on the so-called 'core' of the European Union. It argues that despite their similarities as small Central European states, Slovakia and the Czech Republic exhibit significant differences in how the geopolitical imagination of their political establishments re-presents the countries' position in the center-periphery relations. The article does a two-step analysis. First, it discusses the …
Civilizations as Ontological Security: Stories of the Russian Trauma
The study addresses the phenomenon of civilizational discourses in Russia from the perspective of ontological security theories. It argues that the discourse on "Russian civilization" or the "Russian world" is a form of establishment identity-building practices that marries a culturalist vision of Russia to narratives of traumas or ruptures in its biographical narrative. Thus, the holistic notion of a civilization is an attempt to construct unity…
Frontiers of hatred? A study of right-wing populist strategies in Slovakia
The article examines political strategies of the Slovak extreme right by drawing on theories of populism developed by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. It performs an analysis of the discourse of the far-right People's Party Our Slovakia (ĽSNS). Its key finding is that ĽSNS discourse constructs an array of radical borders (frontiers) between the so-called 'decent people' and the multiple, but often unrelated, alleged threats, such as foreigners,…
Civilizations as Ontological Security: Stories of the Russian Trauma
The study addresses the phenomenon of civilizational discourses in Russia from the perspective of ontological security theories. It argues that the discourse on "Russian civilization" or the "Russian world" is a form of establishment identity-building practices that marries a culturalist vision of Russia to narratives of traumas or ruptures in its biographical narrative. Thus, the holistic notion of a civilization is an attempt to construct unity…
The End of ‘Central Europe’? The Rise of the Radical Right and the Contestation of Identities in Slovakia and the Visegrad Four
The article analyses the effects of the migration crisis and the parallel rise of right wing parties on national and regional identities in Slovakia and the broader subregion of the Visegrad Four. It argues that the recent right wing political discourse around migration has been reshaping the meaning of ‘Central Europe’ as a normative project and an identity shared by the V4 countries. The post-Cold War narrative of Central Europe was a story of …
Belarus’ new political nation? 2020 anti-authoritarian protests as identity building
Frontiers of hatred? A study of right-wing populist strategies in Slovakia
The article examines political strategies of the Slovak extreme right by drawing on theories of populism developed by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. It performs an analysis of the discourse of the far-right People's Party Our Slovakia (ĽSNS). Its key finding is that ĽSNS discourse constructs an array of radical borders (frontiers) between the so-called 'decent people' and the multiple, but often unrelated, alleged threats, such as foreigners,…
An ad hoc Regionalism? The Visegrád Four in the “Post-Liberal” Age
This symposium contribution analyzes the trajectories of the Visegrád Group (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia) regionalism from the viewpoint of the crisis of international liberal order. I argue that, although illiberal developments and Euroskepticism in the Visegrád Four (V4) states pose a local challenge to the liberal order, this region is still tightly plugged into the Western liberal order because it is dependent on Euro-At…
From the Bronze Soldier to the “Bloody Marshal”: Monument Wars and Russia’s Aesthetic Vulnerability in Estonia and the Czech Republic
The article analyzes historical monuments as instruments of Russia’s attempts to impose its aesthetic hegemony in the post-Communist world. Drawing on case studies from the Czech Republic and Estonia, it argues that this hegemony is precarious and vulnerable due to inability to deal with the inherent ambiguity and complexity of historical events and figures. The Russian approach regards historical truth in absolute terms and is underpinned by a z…
Two kinds of small? The ‘EU core’ in Slovak and Czech geopolitical imagination
The article critically examines Czech and Slovak discourses on the so-called 'core' of the European Union. It argues that despite their similarities as small Central European states, Slovakia and the Czech Republic exhibit significant differences in how the geopolitical imagination of their political establishments re-presents the countries' position in the center-periphery relations. The article does a two-step analysis. First, it discusses the …
Authoritarian Hegemonic Masculinities and Gendered Rhetorics of the Protest
This article uses the gender perspective to compare the 2020 Belarus protests and the Arab Spring and its aftermath in Egypt (2011–13). It argues that in both cases authoritarian militarized hegemonic masculinities, articulated through authoritarian body politics, attempted to suppress the protest movements. The latter, in turn, drew on a number of gendered images and symbols to perform its counter-hegemonic practices of resistance. The study emp…
Suturing the Neighborhood? Russia and the EU in Conflictual Intersubjectivity
In this article three arguments are key. First, we deem that the conflict conventionally described as “a battle over Ukraine,” under a close constructivist scrutiny, reveals its much deeper roots, which ultimately boil down to the unfinished process of mutual readjustment of two identities-in-the making, that of the post-Soviet Russia and thatof the post-Lisbon EU, respectively. Second, we claim that, in spite of the depth of contradictions betwe…
Belarus, Russia, and the escape from geopolitics
Concluding Analysis
Populism in Estonia and Slovakia: Performances, Transgressions, and Communicative Styles
The paper relies on empirical evidence from Estonia and Slovakia to develop an understanding of populism as a performative and transgressive political style. We argue that populism cannot be defined in ideological terms nor can it be attached to particular political subjects. Instead, it is a political style that can be adopted and mimicked by various subjects from extreme right to social liberal. The performativity of populism presupposes forms …
An Authoritarian Spectacle: Visual Biopolitics and the Dramaturgy of the Poland-Belarus Border Migration Crisis
This article analyzes the 2021–22 migration crisis at the EU-Belarus border through the conceptual lens of visual biopolitics. Based on data available from the regime-run media in Belarus it demonstrates how the engineered crisis was a case of authoritarian dramaturgy relying on numerous visual representations of migrants. The carefully staged authoritarian spectacle exploits both the vulnerability and grievability of refugee life, and the regime…
When the “subaltern empire” speaks. On recognition, Eurasian integration, and the Russo-Georgian war
By combining insights from social constructivist IR theories and postcolonial theory, the article addresses the issue of Russia's appropriation of Western political vocabulary in the cases of Russia's discourse on Eurasian economic integration and humanitarianist discourse of R2P employed during and after the Russo-Georgian war in August 2008. The view that mimicry and subversion are the motives behind Russia's behavior is taken further by emphas…
Belarus as a liminal space for Russia’s ontological security before and after the 2020 protests
The article uses the ontological security framework and the concept of liminality to analyze Belarus liminal status vis-a-vis Russia and the role it has played in Russia’s ontological security seeking before and after the 2020 Belarus Awakening. It argues that while the entire near-abroad, and, in particular, Ukraine have been important in terms of Russia’s post-imperial ontological security seeking strategies, Belarus occupies a unique position …
Introduction to the Special Issue
The outbreak of COVID-19 has significantly reshaped debates on the global order, democratic politics and the liberal mode of governing societies. Some have compared the virus to the “ultimate empty signifier”, which allowed difficult ideological groups to fill it with their own securitizations, creating in an instant a plethora of political otherings. For IR realists, the sudden collapse of cross-border movement and other privileges of the global…
Suturing the Neighborhood? Russia and the EU in Conflictual Intersubjectivity
In this article three arguments are key. First, we deem that the conflict conventionally described as “a battle over Ukraine,” under a close constructivist scrutiny, reveals its much deeper roots, which ultimately boil down to the unfinished process of mutual readjustment of two identities-in-the making, that of the post-Soviet Russia and thatof the post-Lisbon EU, respectively. Second, we claim that, in spite of the depth of contradictions betwe…
The End of ‘Central Europe’? The Rise of the Radical Right and the Contestation of Identities in Slovakia and the Visegrad Four
The article analyses the effects of the migration crisis and the parallel rise of right wing parties on national and regional identities in Slovakia and the broader subregion of the Visegrad Four. It argues that the recent right wing political discourse around migration has been reshaping the meaning of ‘Central Europe’ as a normative project and an identity shared by the V4 countries. The post-Cold War narrative of Central Europe was a story of …
Two kinds of small? The ‘EU core’ in Slovak and Czech geopolitical imagination
The article critically examines Czech and Slovak discourses on the so-called 'core' of the European Union. It argues that despite their similarities as small Central European states, Slovakia and the Czech Republic exhibit significant differences in how the geopolitical imagination of their political establishments re-presents the countries' position in the center-periphery relations. The article does a two-step analysis. First, it discusses the …
Civilizations as Ontological Security: Stories of the Russian Trauma
The study addresses the phenomenon of civilizational discourses in Russia from the perspective of ontological security theories. It argues that the discourse on "Russian civilization" or the "Russian world" is a form of establishment identity-building practices that marries a culturalist vision of Russia to narratives of traumas or ruptures in its biographical narrative. Thus, the holistic notion of a civilization is an attempt to construct unity…
Frontiers of hatred? A study of right-wing populist strategies in Slovakia
The article examines political strategies of the Slovak extreme right by drawing on theories of populism developed by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. It performs an analysis of the discourse of the far-right People's Party Our Slovakia (ĽSNS). Its key finding is that ĽSNS discourse constructs an array of radical borders (frontiers) between the so-called 'decent people' and the multiple, but often unrelated, alleged threats, such as foreigners,…
Concluding Analysis
An ad hoc Regionalism? The Visegrád Four in the “Post-Liberal” Age
This symposium contribution analyzes the trajectories of the Visegrád Group (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia) regionalism from the viewpoint of the crisis of international liberal order. I argue that, although illiberal developments and Euroskepticism in the Visegrád Four (V4) states pose a local challenge to the liberal order, this region is still tightly plugged into the Western liberal order because it is dependent on Euro-At…
Populism in Estonia and Slovakia: Performances, Transgressions, and Communicative Styles
The paper relies on empirical evidence from Estonia and Slovakia to develop an understanding of populism as a performative and transgressive political style. We argue that populism cannot be defined in ideological terms nor can it be attached to particular political subjects. Instead, it is a political style that can be adopted and mimicked by various subjects from extreme right to social liberal. The performativity of populism presupposes forms …
Belarus’ new political nation? 2020 anti-authoritarian protests as identity building
Belarus as a liminal space for Russia’s ontological security before and after the 2020 protests
The article uses the ontological security framework and the concept of liminality to analyze Belarus liminal status vis-a-vis Russia and the role it has played in Russia’s ontological security seeking before and after the 2020 Belarus Awakening. It argues that while the entire near-abroad, and, in particular, Ukraine have been important in terms of Russia’s post-imperial ontological security seeking strategies, Belarus occupies a unique position …
From the Bronze Soldier to the “Bloody Marshal”: Monument Wars and Russia’s Aesthetic Vulnerability in Estonia and the Czech Republic
The article analyzes historical monuments as instruments of Russia’s attempts to impose its aesthetic hegemony in the post-Communist world. Drawing on case studies from the Czech Republic and Estonia, it argues that this hegemony is precarious and vulnerable due to inability to deal with the inherent ambiguity and complexity of historical events and figures. The Russian approach regards historical truth in absolute terms and is underpinned by a z…
Neonationalism and the metropolitan “coffee house” in Central Europe
Belarus, Russia, and the escape from geopolitics
Central Europe Thirty Years after the Fall of Communism: A Return to the Margin?
This book examines the politics and international relations of Central Europe (the Visegrád Four) three decades after the fall of communism. Once bound together by a common geopolitical vision of "returning to the West," the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia now find themselves in a more ambiguous position. The 2015 European migration crisis exposed serious normative differences with Western Europe, leading to a collective V4 rebellio…
When the “subaltern empire” speaks. On recognition, Eurasian integration, and the Russo-Georgian war
By combining insights from social constructivist IR theories and postcolonial theory, the article addresses the issue of Russia's appropriation of Western political vocabulary in the cases of Russia's discourse on Eurasian economic integration and humanitarianist discourse of R2P employed during and after the Russo-Georgian war in August 2008. The view that mimicry and subversion are the motives behind Russia's behavior is taken further by emphas…
Authoritarian Hegemonic Masculinities and Gendered Rhetorics of the Protest
This article uses the gender perspective to compare the 2020 Belarus protests and the Arab Spring and its aftermath in Egypt (2011–13). It argues that in both cases authoritarian militarized hegemonic masculinities, articulated through authoritarian body politics, attempted to suppress the protest movements. The latter, in turn, drew on a number of gendered images and symbols to perform its counter-hegemonic practices of resistance. The study emp…
To Whom the Sirens Wail.” Poland’s Post-2022 Geopolitical Debates on Central and “Eastern Europe”
The article conducts a social constructivist analysis of the post-2022 debate in Poland to trace how the geopolitical notions of “Central” and “Eastern” Europe have been affected by the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia. It shows that the attack stimulated a powerful wave of identification with Ukraine across the political spectrum rooted in Polish collective memories. New opportunities also opened for Poland’s self-positioning as a leader…
An Authoritarian Spectacle: Visual Biopolitics and the Dramaturgy of the Poland-Belarus Border Migration Crisis
This article analyzes the 2021–22 migration crisis at the EU-Belarus border through the conceptual lens of visual biopolitics. Based on data available from the regime-run media in Belarus it demonstrates how the engineered crisis was a case of authoritarian dramaturgy relying on numerous visual representations of migrants. The carefully staged authoritarian spectacle exploits both the vulnerability and grievability of refugee life, and the regime…
Explaining the “Westsplainers”: Can a Western Scholar Be an Expert on Central and Eastern Europe
Following the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the terms “Westsplaining” and “Westsplainer” gained momentum. They are used as a reaction to commentaries that are delivered by established Western intellectuals who lack proper knowledge of the region. Many people from Central and Eastern Europe, as well as some of their Western colleagues, tend to find such commentaries not only useless but also harmful. Far from being a purely theoretical acad…
Eastern Europe” and War. Introduction to the Special Issue
The present collection of papers is a joint effort aimed at making sense of the changes that Russia’s war against Ukraine ushered into the region of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). We have invited a team of authors working on the two subregions, the Visegrád Four and the Baltic Three, to share their reflections on how the full-scale invasion has impacted the transformations in the respective countries’ regional outlook. The “kidnapping” as an o…
The effects of Ukraine’s communication strategy in the Visegrad Four and the “Global South.” Understanding the target audiences and limits
Instrumentalizing Navalny’s legacy: Fighting corruption or demolishing the empire
Peripheralities and Their Effects: A Cross-Regional Reflection on Central and Eastern Europe and the Middle East and North Africa
The contribution is a cross-regional dialog between researchers from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). It explores ways in which the concept of peripherality—understood broadly both in economic and cultural sense—could help us grasp long-terms pattern of development in both regions. The dialog opens with Michaela Grančayová and Aliaksei Kazharski's note on CEE’s “transitive peripherality,” its—arguably …
Critical heritage studies and post-imperial insecurities in central and Baltic Europe
This short piece introduces three articles that form a special section discussing how critical security studies might be helpful for conceptualizing new insecurities in the region of Central Europe and the Baltic states
Political science (22 works) · Politics (20 works) · Law (19 works) · Sociology (17 works) · Eastern European Communism and Reforms (14 works) · Law (13 works) · Political economy (11 works) · European Politics and Security (7 works) · History (7 works) · Aesthetics (6 works)