Caring Like a State: The Politics of Russia's Demographic Crisis

by Inna Leykin

Overview

The post-Soviet Russian state is haunted by the fear of not having enough people. Despite its well-publicized pronatalist campaigns, declining birth rates and rising mortality rates since the 1990s, cast doubt on the state's ability to care for its population effectively. In this ethnography, anthropologist Inna Leykin examines the post-Soviet Russian state's efforts and failures in population care. Revealing the existential burden of pronatalism, she demonstrates how the language of demography has become influential in defining what kind of behavior and social aspirations are deemed worthy of state support and protection.

Caring Like a State: The Politics of Russia's Demographic Crisis analyzes the professional world of demographers, non-state actors, and the subjective experiences of ordinary Russian citizens to explore how their reciprocal relations have shaped the dominant understanding of population issues and their remedies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780253073532
Publisher:	Indiana University Press
Publication date:	09/02/2025
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	250
File size:	1 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Inna Leykin is Senior Lecturer at the Department of Sociology, Political Science, and Communication at The Open University of Israel. She is published in Slavic Review, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Sociology, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, and Medical Anthropology.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Note on Transliteration, Translation, Images, and Names
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
1. The Afterlife of Soviet Demography in the Discourse on the Demographic Crisis
2. How to Do Things with Demography
3. Demography—A New Vernacular for the State
4. Traditional Family Values: From Population as a Quantitative Problem to Population as a Moral Concern
5. Marketized Pronatalism and Domestic Spaces of Care
Conclusion: Caring Like a State in a Time of War
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

"If you think of demographic expertise as a niche topic, think again. Leykin's book pulls at the thread of popular anxieties about population decline in Russia to unravel a story about state power and the national body, of care and political subjectivity, and of the experts' role in society. At the bottom of it all is the question of care: what does the state owe its citizens, and what do the citizens owe their state? This is an essential—and unsettling—book for our troubled political moment."—Olga Shevchenko, author of Crisis and the Everyday in Postsocialist Moscow

"In her fascinating book, Caring Like a State, anthropologist Inna Leykin offers a pioneering political ethnography, shedding important new light on the centrality of issues of low fertility, high mortality, and migration in Russian politics past and present. A book to be enjoyed and to learn from."—David Kertzer, author of The Pope at War

"Caring Like a State is a significant and unique study that examines the logics and practices surrounding Russia's long-perceived demographic crisis, an issue at the core of Putin's politics and efforts to regain legitimacy in the aftermath of the Soviet era and first post-Soviet decade. . . . Inna Leykin goes beyond the analysis of professional demographers' knowledge construction and the state policies they help design to examine how everyday familial practices are shaped by state population discourses, policies, and their own historical and cultural commitments. This book will make a major contribution to both the study of Russia and our understandings of the political and social work of demographic knowledge and politics in the contemporary world."—Michele Rivkin-Fish, author of Unmaking Russia's Abortion Culture: Family Planning and the Struggle for a Liberal Biopolitics

From the Publisher