From Demobilisation to Civic Engagement: The Post-2014 Remodelling of the Belarusian Republican Youth Union

Ryhor Nizhnikau and Kristiina Silvan

Europe-Asia Studies, 2022, vol. 74, issue 7, 1210-1230

Abstract: What tools do authoritarian regimes possess for responding to new political and socio-economic threats? This essay presents a case study of the 2014–2019 reorganisation of the Belarusian Republican Youth Union (Bielaruski respublikanski sayuz moladzi—BRYU), a government-controlled administrative mass organisation. It shows that, in the spirit of the regime's paradigm shift in domestic policy towards ‘soft Belarusianisation’ and participatory authoritarianism, the BRYU became a mobilisation tool, instrumentalised for popularising a Belarusian cultural revival and endorsing local civic activism. Paradoxically, these new functions unharnessed young people's agency within the BRYU in a way that would backfire, for instance, during the Belarusian crisis of 2020.

Date: 2022
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DOI: 10.1080/09668136.2022.2089636

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