Public lecture

Announcement — 25 September 2014

 

Dr. Elena Belokurova from the St. Petersburg State University will give a public lecture entitled

 Municipal Elections 2014 in St. Petersburg: Adventures of an Opposition Candidate

on Monday, 6 October 2014, from 12:15 to 13:45 at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Education, Lossi 36, room 215.

Elena Belokurova was one of the opposition candidates at the municipal elections in St. Petersburg city which took place on September 14, 2014. She challenged the representatives of the ruling United Russia party by offering the voters an alternative in one of St. Petersburg’s central municipalities. Although she and her friends finally lost, they learned a lot about the voters and the district, urban spaces and problems, their connection with the ‘high politics’ of today’s Russia; campaigning methods, administrative resource mobilization and electoral fraud; old ruling elites and new social movements. All these aspects will be discussed during the meeting in an interactive format. Being a political scientist and an expert in social policy issues, Elena Belokurova will reflect on her personal experiences in the broader context of civil society development in Russia.

Dr. Belokurova is Associate Professor at the Department of Sociology of the St. Petersburg State University, as well a member of the board of the German-Russian Exchange in St. Petersburg. She participates in a number of civil society projects, including the EU Study Weeks project supported by the EU Delegation to Russia and the EU-Russia Civil Society Forum. She has studied sociology and defended a dissertation in political science in 2000. Her research interests include issues of civil society development, local politics in Russia and EU-Russia cross-border cooperation.

The lecture is organized by the Institute of Government and Politics and the Centre for EU-Russia Studies (CEURUS), University of Tartu.