Youth Organizations, Voluntary Service and the Restructuring of Social Welfare in Russia

朱莉·赫门特博士将对俄罗斯新的国家资助的青年组织进行研究。 迄今为止，媒体和学术界对这些组织的分析主要集中在其政治意义上。与此相反，Hemment将分析它们在宏观经济结构调整和政治自由化背景下对社会福利和公民身份重新配置的意义。该项目的中心问题是：青年组织在多大程度上是苏联式经济自由化和民主化的一个方面？在许多方面，青年组织与苏联时代的组织如共青团相似。但他们也借鉴了国际民主促进的概念机制的元素，这些机制在90年代改变了俄罗斯社会。这项研究将在一个省级城市进行，那里有一系列蓬勃发展的组织，以促进青年非营利组织。调查员将采用一系列社会科学方法，包括基于图书馆的研究，参与者观察，访谈（与社会服务提供者，城市官员，青年组织和青年志愿者的负责人）和定量调查。调查员自己收集的数据将辅之以一种新的协作方法，让青年人自己参与调查过程。她将与特维尔州立大学的俄罗斯同事密切合作，带领俄罗斯本科生参加一个同龄人民族志项目，在该项目中，他们将与积极的同龄人进行访谈。对这一方法的初步测试表明，它产生了一个实际的，在当地的看法，青年人如何体验和谈判这些政府赞助的项目。 这项研究将进一步了解青年志愿主义，社会福利结构调整和新自由主义治理问题之间的关系。 在这样做的过程中，研究结果将提供有关新兴福利制度和公民身份和国家权力在俄罗斯和其他后社会主义社会的娱乐有价值的知识。由于它提出了有关国际发展援助后果的问题，并在一些社会科学家所谓的全球反对民主促进的背景下审查了俄罗斯民间社会项目，因此这项研究将对广泛的社会科学家和政策制定者有用。

Dr. Julie Hemment will undertake research on new, state-sponsored youth organizations n Russia. To date, media and scholarly analyses of these organizations have focused on their political import. In contrast, Hemment will analyze their significance for the reconfiguration of social welfare and citizenship in the context of macroeconomic restructuring and political liberalization. The project centers on the following question: to what extent are youth organizations an aspect of Soviet-style economic liberalization and democratization? In many respects, the youth organizations bear resemblance to Soviet-era organizations such as the Komsomol (Communist Youth League). But they also draw on elements of the conceptual apparatus of international democracy promotion that transformed Russian society in the nineties. The research will take place in a provincial city that is home to a flourishing set of organizations to promote youth voluntarism. The investigator will employ a range of social science methodologies, including library-based research, participant observation, interviews (with social service providers, city officials, the directors of youth organizations and youth volunteers), and quantitative surveying. The investigator's own data collection will be supplemented by a novel collaborative methodology that engages the youth themselves in the process of inquiry. She will work closely with Russian colleagues at Tver State University to lead Russian undergraduate students in a peer ethnography project wherein they conduct interviews with activist peers. Preliminary testing of this methodology shows that it yields a practical, on-the-ground view of how young people experience and negotiate these government-sponsored projects. This research will further understanding of the relationship between youth voluntarism, social welfare restructuring, and issues of neoliberal governance. In so doing, findings will provide valuable knowledge about emerging welfare regimes and the recreation of citizenship and state power in Russia and other post-socialist societies. Because it asks questions about the aftermath of international development assistance, and examines Russian civil society projects in the context of what some social scientists have called a global backlash against democracy promotion, this research will be useful to a wide range of social scientists and policy makers.