Staging Democracy: Political Performance in Ukraine, Russia, and Beyond

In this series of talks, the IERES Petrach Program on Ukraine offers the DC-area community in-person opportunities to engage leading scholarly Ukraine experts on their important new books.
In this lecture, Dr. Jessica Pisano will discuss her recent book Staging Democracy: Political Performance in Ukraine, Russia, and Beyond. Across both democratic and authoritarian regimes, from Moscow to Kyiv to Washington, politicians sympathetic to the Kremlin have perfected or proposed ways of governing that transform democratic institutions into command performances. These performances can operate unnoticed because they mainly use economic pressure, not overt violence, to incite people to participate. Based on long-term research in Russia and in Ukraine before decentralization, Staging Democracy shows how national politicians deputized local business and community leaders to use salaries, benefits, and public infrastructure to pressure citizens to participate in political theater: manipulated elections, protests for hire, and smaller mises en scène. With implications for Russia's ability to continue to conduct its war, people in temporarily occupied territories in Ukraine, and the specter of Schedule F in the United States, Staging Democracy shows how economic precarity can make societies vulnerable to politicians who seek not only power, but also changes in the very meaning of democracy.
Dr. Jessica Pisano is a Professor of Politics at the New School for Social Research in New York City. She writes and teaches about contemporary and twentieth-century politics and economy in Eastern Europe. Her books Staging Democracy (Cornell University Press, 2022) and prize-winning The Post-Soviet Potemkin Village (Cambridge University Press, 2008) are based on her long-term research in communities along Ukraine's borders with Russia and the EU. She is working on a book about a single street in Eastern Europe under fascism, state socialism, and neoliberal democracy. Pisano has written for Politico on the timing of Russia's full-scale war, and her series of articles on American impeachment and Ukrainian and Russian politics appeared in The Washington Post. Pisano's work on the anti-polarization artistry of Volodymyr Zelenskyy has appeared in The Journal of Democracy and Politico Magazine, among others. Having served in institutional roles in academia in Russia and Ukraine throughout her career, she is now a trustee of the Ukrainian Kharkiv Karazin University Foundation.
Moderator:
Dr. Henry Hale is a Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, Director of the Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies, and Director of the Petrach Program on Ukraine. He has spent extensive time conducting field research in post-Soviet Eurasia and is currently working on identity politics and political system change, with a special focus now on public opinion dynamics in Russia and Ukraine. His work has won two prizes from the American Political Science Association and he was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship for his research in Russia in 2007-2008. He is also chair of the editorial board of Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization.

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