Political Science (including International Relations)

Coherently organised into seven parts, the book provides a structure through which EU-Russia relations can be studied in a comprehensive yet manageable fashion. It provides readers with the tools to deliver critical analysis of this sometimes volatile and polarising relationship, so new events and facts can be conceptualised in an objective and critical manner. Informed by high-quality academic research and key bilateral data/statistics, it further brings scope, balance and depth, with chapters contributed by a range of experts from the EU, Russia and beyond. Chapters deal with a wide range of policy areas and issues that are highly topical and fundamental to understanding the continuing development of EU-Russia relations, such as political and security relations, economic relations, social relations and regional and global governance.

This textbook on political geography is devoted to a discipline concerned with the spatial dimensions of politics. This course is an introduction to the study of political science, international relations and area studies, providing a systemic approach to the spatial dimension of political processes at all levels. It covers their basic elements, including states, supranational unions, geopolitical systems, regions, borders, capitals, dependent, and internationally administered territories. Political geography develops fundamental theoretical approaches that give insight into the peculiarities of foreign and domestic policies. The ability to use spatial analysis techniques allows determining patterns and regularities of political phenomena both at the global and the regional and local levels.

The publication was carried out within the framework of a joint project of HSE University and the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences for the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the USSR / Russia and the Republic of Indonesia. The project heads are Dr. Evgeny Kanaev (HSE University) and Dr. Dmitry Mosyakov (IOS RAS).

The Mediterranean region has faced a significant number of challenges that have stemmed from turbulent events taking place on its Southern shores: conflicts and instability, the migration crisis, disruptions of regional value chains, souring regional relations, and foreign power interferences that have severely affected the region. The Covid-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on the Southern Mediterranean, but the health crisis had ambiguous effects on the underlying economic, social, and political trends of the region. It has exposed and exacerbated much of the previous sources of tension and, obscured many of them as public attention moved towards facing the public health emergency. Will the Covid-19 pandemic spur governments and civil societies to action? Or will it just serve as another smokescreen behind which to hide the region's longstanding problems?

The Law and Policy of New Eurasian Regionalization: Economic Integration, Trade, and Investment in the Post-Soviet and Greater Eurasian Space makes several unique contributions to the literature. First and foremost, most of the current literature is in either economics or politics, with only a secondary focus on legal and institutional matters. Secondly, and consequently, the book is accessible and relevant to readers both ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ the boundaries of the Eurasian area: not only geographical boundaries, but also legal, geopolitical, geoeconomic, cultural, and, indeed, disciplinary boundaries. Drawing on international, transnational, and comparative legal scholarship, this rich volume offers the insights by a plethora of leading international scholars in economics, institutional theory, area studies, international relations, global political economy, political science, and sociology. The contributors come from four corners of the globe, including Asia, Europe, and North America.

This book, a philosophical consideration of Soviet socialism, is not meant simply to revisit the communist past; its aim, rather, is to witness certain zones where capitalism’s domination is resisted—the zones of countercapitalist critique, civil society agencies, and theoretical provisions of emancipation or progress—and to inquire to what extent those zones are in fact permeated by unconscious capitalism and thus unwittingly affirm the capitalist condition.
By means of the philosophical and politico-economical consideration of Soviet socialism of the 1960 and 1970s, this book manages to reveal the hidden desire for capitalism in contemporaneous anticapitalist discourse and theory. The research is marked by a broad cross-disciplinary approach based on political economy, philosophy, art theory, and cultural theory that redefines old Cold War and Slavic studies’ views of the post-Stalinist years, as well as challenges the interpretations of this period of historical socialism in Western Marxist thought.

This book is an analysis of the developments associated with the Belt and Road Initiative (B&RI) five years after Xi Jinping announced both the Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) and the 21st Maritime Silk Road (21MSR). Together, these two dimensions constitute the B&RI, providing the so-called Chinese ‘project of the century’ with regional, inter-regional and global reach. This book aims at assessing the impact of the B&RI in all these dimensions and levels of influence. This is a current and promising theme, not only in the short and medium terms, but also within a broader timescale, reflecting Chinese strategic thinking itself, since Chinese philosophy and culture are oriented towards long-term and inter-generational perspectives. Likewise, both the title of this publication and the way it has been organized result from the empirical perception that China asserts a conservative attitude towards foreign affairs, redesigned in multiple dimensions, to create a perception of domestic unity and global prestige. In this vein of thought, the B&RI is already influencing and will continue to influence, directly or indirectly, the current economic and political order.

This textbook covers the main theoretical issues of international security analysis (definitions of basic notions/categories, methodological issues, description of concepts and theories), as well as practical and political aspects of the activities of world powers and key international organizations (UN, OSCE, EU, NATO, CSTO, SCO, etc.) in the areas of war and peace, conflict resolution and settlement, limitation and reduction of armaments, combating terrorism, and other contemporary threats and challenges to international security. The publication contains extensive analysis of facts/events, infographics, and a bibliography. It is addressed to researchers, graduate students, master 's students, postgraduate students, and anyone interested in international security issues.

This book presents a novel and innovative approach to the study of social evolution using case studies from the Old and the New World, from prehistory to the present. This approach is based on examining social evolution through the evolution of social institutions. Evolution is defined as the process of structural change. Within this framework the society, or culture, is seen as a system composed of a vast number of social institutions that are constantly interacting and changing. As a result, the structure of society as a whole is also evolving and changing.
The authors posit that the combination of evolving social institutions explains the non-linear character of social evolution and that every society develops along its own pathway and pace. Within this framework, society should be seen as the result of the compound effect of the interactions of social institutions specific to it. Further, the transformation of social institutions and relations between them is taking place not only within individual societies but also globally, as institutions may be trans-societal, and even institutions that operate in one society can arise as a reaction to trans-societal trends and demands.
The book argues that it may be more productive to look at institutions even within a given society as being parts of trans-societal systems of institutions since, despite their interconnectedness, societies still have boundaries, which their members usually know and respect. Accordingly, the book is a must-read for researchers and scholars in various disciplines who are interested in a better understanding of the origins, history, successes and failures of social institutions.

A collection of essays written in 2012-2019 on the evolution of Putin's regime in Russia in the perspective of Russian history, society and political culture.

This book explores Russia’s efforts towards both adapting to and shaping a world in transformation. Russia has been largely marginalized in the post-Cold War era and has struggled to find its place in the world, which means that the chaotic changes in the world present Russia with both threats and opportunities. The rapid shift in the international distribution of power and emergence of a multipolar world disrupts the existing order, although it also enables Russia to diversify it partnerships and restore balance. Adapting to these changes involves restructuring its economy and evolving the foreign policy. The crises in liberalism, environmental degradation, and challenge to state sovereignty undermine political and economic stability while also widening Russia’s room for diplomatic maneuvering. This book analyzes how Russia interprets these developments and its ability to implement the appropriate responses.

This book addresses the challenges and opportunities of contemporary and future development of Eurasia. The main theme of the first part of the book is examining the reaction evoked in different countries by the Chinese “Belt and Road Initiative.” The second part analyses other national and international integration and infrastructure projects in Eurasia. This unique publication brings together in one volume works by leading researchers from different countries, all united by their common interest in the political and economic processes unfolding in the Eurasian continent. By offering various points of view from experts from all over the world, this book provides a multi-dimensional analysis of the Eurasian future and will be of value to a wide range of readers, including scholars, publicists, the international business community and decision-makers.

The book focuses most of all on women's and partly on men's agency, to discuss variant ways in which women and men actively use their scopes of action - through political activism, protest, movements, in the military. The book is aiming to dicuss variant perspectives on these issues in different contexts witin Eastern Europe. How do these in change affect conservative societies and the concepts of masculinity?
The volume is structured in four parts:
I) Floating concepts of Femininities and Masculinities
(essentially this is a discussion on the role of feminism in the transformation period in Eastern Europe)
II) Political Activism
(this part deals with political participation of women - also within conservative parties - and of variant forms of protest)
III) Nationalism and Militarization of societies
(also papers on violence)
IV) Social Roles and Concepts of Women and Men

This book discusses international migration in the newly independent states after the collapse of the Soviet Union, which involved millions of people. Written by authors from 15 countries, it summarizes the population movement over the post-Soviet territories, both within the newly independent states and in other countries over the past 25 years. It focuses on the volume of migration flows, the number and socio-demographic characteristics of migrants, migration factors and the situation of migrants in receiving countries. The authors, who include demographers, economists, geographers, anthropologists, sociologists and political scientists, used various methods and sources of information, such as censuses, administrative statistics, the results of mass sample surveys and in-depth interviews. This heterogeneity highlights the multifaceted nature of the topic of migration movements.

Authors focus on the fact that in the practice of modern Russian and Chinese scientific thought, mainly investigated the issues of national security, leaving behind scientific discussions of sociocultural security, which are covered very poorly. Cross-border cooperation in this context is considered not only as an incentive for co-development, but also as a special area of interregional cooperation, including the context of Russia-China cross-years of interregional cooperation (2018-2019) implementation. Article deals with the issues of ensuring Russian-Chinese borderland sociocultural security, which authors define as the subject of philosophical reflection. The peculiarities of "sociocultural security" concept in Russian and Chinese scientific discourse correlate with the specifics of Chinese scientific schools in using "cultural security" concept as having similar characteristics with "sociocultural security" concept. Based on works of Russian and Chinese authors, differences and common features in understanding the borderland sociocultural security phenomenon are distinguished. Historical genesis of Russia-China sociocultural frontier spaces formation is described as a two-way process. Emphasis is placed on the formation of "border defensive ideological line" in the territory of Chinese border region as an integral element of ensuring its sociocultural security, allowing a high degree of Chinese culture confidence and marking the ability of foreign culture to attack and discredit resources of traditional Chinese culture. Authors show main directions of cultural elements historical transmission in Russian-Chinese border region space (regional cultures formation), and also offer recommendations on the modern institutionalization of this process. Cultural policy of Russia and China in the sociocultural space of cross-borderinteraction is analyzed and the conclusion is made about implementation of a special sociocultural policy in the development of Chinese Dongbei borderregions. As a result, authors substantiate the importance of including the educational component as a resource of "soft power" in the process of ensuring border areas sociocultural security, and also establish the basis for complementing the strategy of Russia-China border regions socioeconomic development with sociocultural co-development tasks.

Understanding the connections between climate change policies and sustainable development is critically important for the implementation of the Paris Agreement and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Well-designed climate mitigation policy can lead to significant co-benefits for a range of development priorities, including enhanced energy security and safety and reduced indoor air pollution; however, if not properly managed, mitigation can also lead to trade-offs. Maximizing synergies and avoiding trade-offs thus requires an integrated strategy based on a new generation of technological and socio-economic pathways that includes climate-resilient adaptation strategies. Over the last four years, CD-LINKS brought together an international team of interdisciplinary researchers with both global and national expertise. Funded by the Horizon 2020 programme of the European Union, the project applied cutting-edge scientific tools and models to explore the linkages between climate policies and sustainable development. Major achievements of the project include the development of globally consistent national low-carbon development pathways, and the formation of a research network and capacity building platform to leverage knowledge exchange among institutions. The project also improved understanding of the linkages between climate change policies and multiple sustainable development objectives and greatly enhanced the existing evidence base on policy effectiveness. A particular asset of the project are the insights related to policy designs that adequately account for mitigation trade-offs across sectors, actors, and objectives. We invite you to learn more about this ground-breaking work in the pages that follow.

The MENA Region: A Great Power Competition volume deals with competition among regional and external players for the redistribution of power and international status in the Middle East and North Africa, with a focus on Russia’s renewed role and the implications for US interests. Over the last few years, a crisis of legitimacy has beset the liberal international order. In this context, the configuration of regional orders has come into question, as in the extreme case of the current collapse in the Middle East. The idea of a ‘Russian resurgence' in the Middle East set against a perceived American withdrawal has captured the attention of policymakers and scholars alike, warranting further examination. This volume, a joint publication by ISPI and the Atlantic Council, gathers analysis on Washington's and Moscow's policy choices in the MENA region and develops case studies of the two powers’ engagament in the countries beset by major crises.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the world's largest regional security organisation, possesses most of the attributes traditionally ascribed to an international organisation, but lacks a constitutive treaty and an established international legal personality. Moreover, OSCE decisions are considered mere political commitments and thus not legally binding. As such, it seems to correspond to the general zeitgeist, in which new, less formal actors and forms of international cooperation gain prominence, while traditional actors and instruments of international law are in stagnation. However, an increasing number of voices - including the OSCE participating states - have been advocating for more formal and autonomous OSCE institutional structures, for international legal personality, or even for the adoption of a constitutive treaty. The book analyses why and how these demands have emerged, critically analyses the reform proposals and provides new arguments for revisiting the OSCE legal framework.
The territorial dispute in the South China Sea (SCS) affecting China and several ASEAN countries has already resulted in drawn-out political tensions in the region. However, one aspect of the dispute is rarely discussed: its influence on Sino-Russian relations and its possible role as a case study in analysing the character of these relations. While Russia moves closer to China in the dispute it still refrains from support of its territorial claims and develops close relations with some of China’s regional opponents such as Vietnam and India. This article describes most recent Russian economic and political activity in the region involving these countries with the aim of clarifying whether the Russian approach to problems in the SCS can be understood as an attempt to balance, bandwagon or hedge against growing Chinese influence, or whether Moscow’s approach is guided by different considerations. This article concludes that Russia’s approach towards the South China Sea dispute is determined mostly by Moscow’s economic interests and cannot be seen as a case of either balancing or bandwagoning China or hedging against it.
This Article seeks to examine the idea of ‘protection’ which was developed in 19th century positivist legal thought in the attempt to expand the imperial interests of European nations during the colonial period. In particular, this Article unfolds how the notion of protectorate was subtly implemented by British rule with the aim to subjugate the Kingdom of Kandy in Sri Lanka in 1815. The British Empire took advantage of the internal disputes existing between the Sinhalese Kandyan aristocrats and the King (originally from South India) for imperial reasons.
The rtaicle is an editorial intriduction to the journal's special issue on nationalism
This article is dedicated to examining the changes in the political attitudes related to national populism in the European public opinion. The research hypothesis is that the “revival of nationalism” over the last years is due to the rise not in nationalist attitudes as such but in the strength of their intercorrelations with the political attitudes national populism is frequently attributed to – the growing disappointment with democratic ideal, its country-specific implementations, a country’s political system, and the government. The hypothesis is tested by means of a quantitative comparative analysis of the data of the two most recent waves of the European Values Study collected in 2008 and in 2017. The results show the relevance of these correlations by revealing the countries with national populist governments, contrary to other post-Socialist countries, to showcase increased positive correlations between national pride and satisfaction with a country’s political system and confidence in government. These findings support the notion that in Europe, national populism is largely due to the East-West divide not in ideals and aspirations, but in the relative success in their fulfillment.
How does the presence of multiple combatants affect rebel groups’ ideological and demand positioning? Although violent forms of inter-group conflict have been widely studied in the civil war literature, rebel groups’ strategic use of ideology and demands has received scarce scholarly attention. We argue that the pressure of competition forces rebel groups to differentiate themselves ideologically and demand-wise from their rivals to maximize their chances of survival and success. Rebel groups strive to set themselves apart by offering unique products to their supporters and recruits. Thus, we contend that rebel groups are more likely to modify their ideologies and demands from the government in the face of competition from rival groups. We test this theory using novel data collected from rebel group manifestos and public statements. Our findings suggest that groups are more likely to shift their ideology and modify their demands as the number of rival groups increases.
This article examines the causes of dysfunction in the political machines of Russian regions. According to existing studies, one of the main factors limiting the effectiveness of political machines is the rotation of governors and the Kremlin’s practice of appointing officials who have no previous ties to the region (so-called “Varangians”). Using a unique database of biographies of the municipal heads of Bashkortostan, this study provides a detailed explanation of the causal link between the rotation of the governor and the subsequent failure of the political machine, arguing that it is not so much the status of the new governor as a change in the management model of local elites that leads to a decline in incumbents’ electoral support. Local elites are a key link in the mechanism of the political machine, but they respond to the demands of the regional authorities only when their interests and political patronage are guaranteed by the governor. The lack of such guarantees leads to the loss of loyalty from local elites, negatively impacting the work of the political machine.
The article deals with analysis of role of childhood metaphor in Russia’s media discourse on international relations. The authors consider symbolic infantilization as a means of symbolic politics, which consists of likening an individual or group to a child in order to gain advantages in the political struggle. The potential use of the childhood metaphor in politics is due to the fact that the adult / child opposition is attracted as a matrix to denote relations of power and submission. In the hegemonic discourse of modern Russian media, the symbolic infantilization of the Other is part of the remasculinization of Russia, one of the functions of which is the legitimization of power through the infantilization of its opponents endowed with traits of irresponsibility, incompetence, and capriciousness. Using the metaphor of childhood, Western countries and post-Soviet states are also described, which contributes to the representation of Russia as a strong, sovereign, rational, that is, “adult” country. An analysis of the case of representations of today’s Ukraine showed that Ukrainian society is directly labeled as infantile, as well as indirect - by attributing faith in miracles, emotionality, egocentrism, irresponsibility, and the inability to self-control.
The paper summarises the findings of this special issue and suggests avenues for future research. It concludes that the Eurasian regionalisms’ development in the 2010s was influenced, among other factors, by Russia’s concerns about external threats and by its control over the Eurasian space. However, the design of the regional institutions does not make them incompatible with global governance. The cooperation between global and regional institutions varies depending on the agenda of the specific regional organisation. In addition to direct competition between global and regional institutions, there may be an indirect one through offering access to different forms of economic benefits. Through this indirect strategy, regional institutions may reduce the incentives for individual countries to comply with their obligations to global institutions. This paper also places Eurasia within a global context of analysis and considers similar trends world-wide as well as outlines the agenda for future studies of global versus regional governance.
Problems of post-Communism
The paper investigates the effect of Communist legacies on attitudes toward migrants in present-day Russia. Midway through the first decade of the 2000s, Russia established itself as an attractive center of labor migration. This rise of migration triggered an upsurge of xenophobic sentiment and nationalism. This paper examines the variation of anti-migrant sentiments across the regions of the Russian Federation and concludes that it is strongly affected by the legacies of the Communist regime. Regions with a higher share of CPSU members in their population in the 1970s are characterized by stronger negative attitudes towards migrants.