2020

Honorable Mention: Justine Buck Quijada
Title: Buddhists, Shamans, and Soviets: Rituals of History in Post-Soviet Buryatia (Oxford University Press)

Drawing from rich ethnographic research, Buddhists, Shamans, and Soviets is a novel contribution to studies of ritual, knowledge production, and indigeneity. By centering the typically marginal region of Buryatia, Justine Buck Quijada provides a unique lens onto the production of history as a post-Soviet and decolonizing process.

Honorable Mention: Samuel A. Greene and Graeme L. Robertson
Title: Putin v. The People, The Perilous Politics of a Divided Russia (Yale University Press)

Based upon extensive original research among Russia’s citizenry, Putin v. The People lucidly explores the sources of support and dissatisfaction with Vladimir Putin’s rule. What has kept Putin in power? This groundbreaking study rejects accounts focusing solely on political repression and highlights instead the “co-constructed” nature of Putin’s power. The durability of Putin’s autocratic rule, Greene and Robertson maintain, is based on a continuously changing and fragile consensus among Russian citizens and between the Kremlin and the public.

Winner: Lenka Bustikova