Attitudes, Poverty and Agency in Russia and Ukraine

The book will be of interest to those readers who are interested in the lives of ordinary people below or on the edge of the poverty line in Russia and Ukraine, prospects of changes in their local circumstances, and actions taken to combat poverty. Interviews with men and women close to the edge of poverty, with social workers, local administrations, politicians, entrepreneurs, teachers, and others who relate to the poor, are presented alongside survey data to support the arguments put forward. This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe.

One of the main ideas behind this book was to trace continuities from the Soviet time to post-Soviet Russia. There are many similarities between Russia and Ukraine, indicating such a continuation. Russia and Ukraine had a lot in common in terms of culture, language and history, partly also because of their common origin. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, however, the two independent countries chose different routes of development. This makes it possible to distinguish between the effects of politics/reforms on the one hand, and the impacts from the Soviet system on the other. After some more or less chaotic development paths in the 1990s, showing clear differences between the two countries, and before the contemporary conflict broke out in Eastern Ukraine (2013), they had once again more similarities in terms of political leadership and policies in general.

The chapters in this book focus on Ukraine and on two regions in Russia: Nizhny Novgorod and Archangelsk. Contributors look at attitudes towards poverty and poor people; strategies of the poor; and policies against poverty. This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe.