The article analyses whether social work in Russia can have an empowering effect on the poor, given the survival of hierarchical structure of organizations and women's responsibility for social welfare. Although state policies promote charity rather than empowerment, this study also discusses to what extent women's paid and unpaid work could stimulate processes of empowerment through supportive measures that open up possibilities for the poor to engage in changing their own situation. The empirical data are based on interviews with social work specialists, NGO representatives and local politicians in two Russian regions.
In historical continuation from the Soviet Union, social policy is predominantly a female responsibility. e present article focuses on women in local politics, who have an important role in local change, and who; among others, cope with poverty and try to solve reasons and consequences of poverty. Based on interviews and observations, the article shows how women's entrepreneurial skills of handling various shortcomings in the Soviet system are re ected in their present strategies for social development in local contexts in Russia. While the state leadership decides about reforms, setting new formal rules, local politicians develop their own routines and strategies. Being responsible for organising social welfare, interviewed female politicians told about how they use di erent strategies. is means that adopted practices are likely to be more heterogeneous than before. It seems important to both rely on useful norms inherited from the Soviet time, while also developing strategies based on new possibilities, arising as a result of reforms. e empirical data is based on interviews from three minor communities in one Russian region, conducted in 2002 to 2012.
This article analyses how social policies in Russia can give poor people opportunities to improve their life situations given the persisting norms of a moral and practical female responsibility for social welfare. Women working in the social sphere have created their own support networks for helping people to take part in state programmes and to become entitled to support in one way or the other. Their agenda is clearly larger than the directives they might be subject to from above. They use relations to create resources. Analysing the agency of women who are professionally working in the social sphere supports distinguishing their potential roles of empowering the poor from their controlling roles. Empirical data are based on qualitative interviews with social work experts, social workers, social pedagogues at schools, teachers, doctor's assistants, local politicians and deputies of commissions or local village councils in two Russian regions.
This article analyses how poor families cope with poverty in provincial Russia. It draws on both survey data and interviews. On the basis of the survey, a factor analysis was carried out. This gives evidence to four common types of reactions to poverty. The article shows that being able to use rights, resources and relations is not enough to overcome poverty. Working more, while trying to reduce expenses just to cope, means that poor families are particularly vulnerable to changes that could start a downward process. The small percentage of those who succeed highlights the need for supporting structures. The paper argues that the supporting role of public authorities is especially important when considering the possibilities for poor people themselves to take actions.
Purpose – This paper aims to analyze how surviving norms from the Soviet time continue to shape women’s entrepreneurship in contemporary Russia. Design/methodology/approach – The empirical data are based on observations and qualitative interviews in two Russian regions in 2002-2014 and also to a part on a survey from one of the regions. The analytical framework is based on Douglass North’s (1990) categorization of four main kinds of institutions which influence the way a society develops: legal rules, organization forms, enforcement and behavioural norms. Findings – The analysis shows that it is important to incorporate norms connected to women’s societal roles to the institutional theory. The survival of norms might in fact imply that women’s entrepreneurship tends to conserve the ways the system works, rather than to contributing to changing it. Although the survival of such norms tends to prevent changes, the possibility to start private businesses, on the other hand, opened up new ways for women to fulfill their different societal responsibilities. Originality/value – The paper is based on unique empirical data including some 200 interviews and observations from regular field trips to villages and small towns in Russia since the early 2000s.
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