• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.43
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• pp.51-77
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• 2016

In February, 2012, three members of the Russian Feminist Rock group 'Pussy Riot' were accused of staging a 'Punk Prayer' in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow and were imprisoned for two years. This case, which sparked widespread enthusiastic support from those in the West, was viewed in Russia in quite a different way. The Pussy Riot affair very effectively shows the historic base of contemporary Russian gender discourse and gives an explanation as to why Putin's very conservative and masculine-centered nationalistic agenda works in Russian society with such great success. In this article, we introduce the Pussy Riot case and compare the reactions to the case published in the Russian and Western press; we then examine the historic causes of the masculine-centered nationalistic agenda of Putin's government.

• International Area Studies Review
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.502-523
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• 2010

A federal system speaks for a political system that the principle of the common sovereignty among the local governments is applied. The basic purpose of the system is to make institutional devices capable of striving for the mutual cooperation in a greater political unit, reflecting a minority race's right and demand by decentralizing a state authority into the individual region. The basic purpose for formation of a federal system is realized when a form for the supplement of political elite personnels has a autonomous nature by the subject of a federal structure. During from B.Yeltsin to V.Putin, a form for the supplement of political elite personnels into the local governments has changed by a political purpose of a central government, In company with this change, the character of federalism in Russia has been also changed. Accordingly, this study has treated a subject about how the political elite personnels of local assembly men, governors of a state, assemblymen of both Houses, and the president of Russia are suppled, and also how such a form for the supplement of political elite personnels has changed the character of federalism in Russia.