Book chapter
The Crisis of Spheres of Influence in the EU-Russia Relationship
The conflict in Ukraine and Russia's annexation of Crimea has undoubtedly been a pivotal moment for policy makers and military planners in Europe and beyond. Many analysts see an unexpected character in the conflict and expect negative reverberations and a long-lasting period of turbulence and uncertainty, the de-legitimation of international institutions and a declining role for global norms and rules. Did these events bring substantial correctives and modifications to the extant conceptualization of International Relations? Does the conflict significantly alter previous assumptions and foster a new academic vocabulary, or, does it confirm the validity of well-established schools of thought in international relations? Has the crisis in Ukraine confirmed the vitality and academic vigour of conventional concepts?
These questions are the starting points for this book covering conceptualisations from rationalist to reflectivist, and from quantitative to qualitative. Most contributors agree that many of the old concepts, such as multi-polarity, spheres of influence, sovereignty, or even containment, are still cognitively valid, yet believe the eruption of the crisis means that they are now used in different contexts and thus infused with different meanings. It is these multiple, conceptual languages that the volume puts at the centre of its analysis.
This text will be of great interest to students and scholars studying international relations, politics, and Russian and Ukrainian studies.
Do the EU and NATO threaten Russian security? The book explores the rise of these exclusive ’inter-democratic’ security institutions after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the ensuing effects on relations with Russia. Two competing theories are tested to explore whether these institutions aggravate or mitigate the security dilemma with Russia. These institutions can be theorised to promote security as a positive-sum game through European integration and democracy promotion, or pursue collective hegemony with ideologically uncompromising bloc-politics. Glenn Diesen argues that a European security architecture that demotes the largest state on the continent to an object of security inevitably results in ’European integration’ becoming a zero-sum geopolitical project that has set the West on a collision course with Russia.
The article presents the results of the research «Development methodology of international institutions effectiveness assessment, analysis and assessment of the G8 effectiveness and possibility of different reform models for realization of Russia's foreign policy priorities during global governance system crisis» conducted within the State University - Higher School of Economics plan of fundamental studies. Functional analysis methodology is used to assess G8 effectiveness in realization of global governance functions, priorities, cooperation with multilateral institutions and mechanisms. Special attention is given to dynamics of Russia's role in the G8 and the G8 effectiveness in Russia's priorities realization. The paper examines the G8 and the G20 comparative effectiveness. The research is based on the specialized data base of the G7/G8 and the G20 documents issued from 1998 to 2009 and special programme for their analysis.
Publication presents the authors' view of the key events of the past year and a forecast of development in Russia's foreign policy.
The paper analyses the process of establishment and development of the national system of international development assistance in Russia. The analysis covers the period starting from 2005 when key national priorities for international development assistance were defined and amounts of foreign aid were substantially increased on the threshold of Russia’s G8 Presidency preparations. The emerging structure of governance, the aid flows and amounts of allocated ODA, as well as the funding priorities in the sphere of development assistance are described on the basis of the analysis of official documents, statements and speeches of officials, reports of international institutions, and statistics available for public access. Russia’s participation in multilateral international organizations and institutions in the sphere of development cooperation is also considered. Drawing on the results of the analysis the author proposes recommendations for further development of the national system of international development assistance in Russia.
The reader describes various aspects of the international position of Russia and its policy in the beginning of the 21st century. The general problems of international relations in the present-day polycentric world are discussed.
This article accounts for the revival of geopolitics in Russian post-Soviet foreign policy thinking and also for the fact that geopolitics-inspired foreign policy prescriptions had relatively little impact on the actual conduct of Russian foreign policy. It is argued that classical geopolitics was revived in Russia in order to objectively present the dissolution of the Soviet Union as a crisis. The crisis, in turn, was constructed using a number of themes first articulated by classical Eurasians, namely ideology, modernisation and Russia's distinctiveness. However, geopolitical thinking had little practical relevance because the solution to the crisis was eventually conceptualized in non-geopolitical terms.
The article analyses worsening of the US-Russia Relations in 2012. It discusses domestic and foreign policy reasons of the relations deterioration, explores the nature of the relations, and provides forecast for the near- and middle-term future. The paper also provides analyses of the model of "selective pragmatic cooperation" between the US and Russia, which emerged by the biginning of 2013.
The article analyzes main trends of the international cooperation between Russia and Germany in the field of innovative development and modernization.