Year: 2022
Type: article
Abstract: The many recent crises in Belarus are often seen through the prism of democratization, post-communist transition, and nation- and identity-building. As a rule, it is put into the context of the 1989 democratization in Central and Eastern Europe and compared with similar societal mobilization in Georgia (2003), Ukraine (2004; 2014), and Kyrgyzstan (2005). This article, however, argues that while these theoretical approaches provide an important explanatory potential, they nevertheless fail to account for informal, hidden, and unstable processes presently unfolding in the Belarusian society, leading to profound change. We argue that, in the vulnerable, unpredictable, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world of today, our knowledge and ability to plan and achieve desirable outcomes are limited in contrast to a largely positivist or interpretivist epistemology of the mainstream theories, which conceive of the world as a closed system. In this article, we offer an alternative explanation of the many crises in Belarus by drawing on the insights ofcomplexity-thinkingto suggest that (hidden) transformative change in the country is now irreversible.
Source: Nationalities Papers
DOI: 10.1017/nps.2022.77
Authors: Elena Korosteleva, Irina Petrova
Institutions: University of Warwick, University College London
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,255
Funder: University of Warwick
OpenAlex ID: W4295182800