Introduction: Writing about Belarus during “Interesting” Times
Aliaksei Kazharski
Section 1: International and Regional Relations
1. Belarus-EU Relations: Analyzing Development Phases and Evaluating the EU's Policy Effectiveness
Victoria Leukavets
2. Belarus’s Relations with Russia: is the Balancing Act Ending?
Ryhor Nizhnikau and Arkady Moshes
3. Belarus’ Relations Beyond the West and Russia: Strategic Partnership with China
Maryia Danilovich
4. Belarusian Politics in Exile after 2020: The Emergence and Evolution of a Transnational ‘Political Society in Exile’
Ekaterina Pierson-Lyzhina
5. The Impact of Russia's War against Ukraine on Belarus: Geopolitics, Regime Survival, Societal Responses
Aliaksei Kazharski and Katsiaryna Lozka
Section 2: Political Regime Dynamics and the Democratic Protest
6. Political Regime Transformations: Digital Authoritarianism, Repression, and the Internet
Henadz Korshunau
7. The Rule of Law in Belarus: Thirty Years of Driving Backwards
Ekaterina Deikalo
8. Political Opposition in Authoritarian Contexts: The Case of Belarus
Sofie Bedford
9. Political Protests in Contemporary Belarus: Mobilization, Technology, and (Un)Used Political Opportunities
10. Belarusian Civil Society: Navigating Hostile Environments
Tatsiana Chulitskaya
11. From Authoritarianism to Freedom and Back Again: Belarusian News Media Landscape
Volha Kananovich
Section 3: Governance, (Absent) Reform, and the State-Society Relations
12. Belarus' Migration Policies and Instrumentalisation of Migrants
Andrei Yeliseyeu
13. Geopolitics of Nuclear Transition: The Impact of the Astravets Nuclear Power Plant on Belarus' Energy Policy and Politics
Andrei Stsiapanau
14. Sociolinguistic Situation and Language Policies in Belarus
Mirosław Jankowiak
15. ‘Hybrid Adaptation’: Education Policy in Belarus 1991-2024
Andrei Laurukhin
16. National Minorities in Belarus and the Government’s Attitudes Towards Them
Tatsiana Kulakevich and Anton Saifullayeu
17. Gender and Politics in Belarus: a Feminist Analysis
Olga Sasunkevich
18. How the Republic of Belarus Became Obsessed with Historical Memory
Aliaksei Lastouski
19. The Early Aftermath of the Chernobyl Accident in Belarus
David R. Marples
Section 4: History, Identity, and Language
20. National Self-Images and Regional Identities in Belarus
Katsiaryna Lozka
21. An Introduction to the Belarusian Language: History and Structural Features
Lidia Federica Mazitelli and Maria Prenner
22. Religion in Belarus: Cultural and Sociopolitical Dimensions
Piotr Rudkouski
23. Uncovering Belarusian History
Pavel Kotau
Biography
Aliaksei Kazharski received his PhD from Comenius University in Bratislava in 2015. He has worked at Charles University in Prague and has been a guest researcher at the universities of Oslo, Tartu, Vienna, Malmö, and Uppsala, the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna (IWM), and the Polish Academy of Sciences. He published two monographs: Eurasian Integration and the Russian World: Regionalism as an Identitary Enterprise (2019) and Central Europe Thirty Years after the Fall of Communism: A Return to the Margin? (2022, winner of the International Studies Association, Global International Relations Section 2022-2023 Book Award).
