Managing Dissent in Post-Soviet Authoritarianism. ‘New Censorship’ of Protest Music in Belarus and Russia, 2000-2018

Drawing on the example of constraints that weigh over protest music in Belarus and Russia, the paper discusses the political economy of censorship in the everyday functioning of contemporary authoritarianisms. Combining the “new censorship” paradigm of critical sociology and the studies of contemporary capitalist authoritarian regimes, this study allows objectifying structural, invisible or constitutive censorship. While the visible, formal and openly repressive mechanisms of political censorship are prohibited and play a minor role, the constraints over the expression of protest are taking different shapes. The paper shows that three main phenomena are constitutive of this system. First, it manifests itself through a range of various censorship situations, formally not ideologically motivated. While seemingly heterogeneous, these situations occur in cases of publicized protest expression and target the economic side of the cultural production or hamper its professionalization. Second, these situations of censorship may be created by heterogeneous and relatively autonomous actors – both public and private. Finally, these formally disconnected elements are articulated into a coherent system under the effects of two aspects of the configuration of power relations in post-Soviet authoritarianisms: over-politicization and a culture of over-cautiousness. The actual situations of censorship contribute to consolidating and reproducing this contextual framework.