Youth Protest Against the Lukashenko Regime in Belarus. Rebels or Fighters for Deeper Needs?

Essay from the year 2021 in the subject Politics - Region: Eastern Europe, grade: 1,0, University of Marburg (Institut f Politikwissenschaft), course: What is Emancipation? Theoretical and Practical Alternatives in Comparative Perspective, language: English, abstract: This essay addresses why Belarusian youth protest against the regime. Since 2006, several protests have broken out as a response to the presidential elections, and youth have been at the forefront of these protests. This paper examines the roots and causes of the protests from an emancipatory perspective, following Axel Honneth's theory of recognition. Several explanations for why these protests have occurred are weighed. In doing so, the author argues that the youth want to liberate themselves from the authoritarian-paternalistic system of the state. The liberation is driven by a disregard of recognition experienced by youth. The paper diagnoses a chronic problem within the Belarusian society and offers new perspective on the study of post-Soviet states.