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War has been an ever-present feature of human existence. The analysis of wars has tended to focus on either their causes or the military and strategic consequences of a conflict. This book argues that war can have a much wider impact across layers of society that go beyond international boundaries. It presents a heuristic multi-disciplinary framework for analysing the ripple and backwash effects across five connected analytical layers around the world: material; human capabilities; economic; values belief and attitudes; policy and governance; and power. Through this framework, the book introduces a set of empirically rich and theoretically informed studies which examine the first consequences of the war in Ukraine following the invasion of Russia in February 2022. This multi-disciplinary approach shows that the effects of the war were much deeper and sustained. This volume will be of interest to students and scholars of international humanitarian law, security studies, peace and conflict studies, and European history. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Policy Studies.
After a period of relative weakness and isolation during most of the 1990s, Russia is again appearing as a major security player in world politics. This book provides a comprehensive assessment of Russia's current security situation, addressing such questions as: What kind of player is Russia in the field of security? What is the essence of its security policy? What are the sources, capabilities and priorities of its security policy? What are the prospects for the future? One important conclusion to emerge is that, while Russian foreign policy under Putin has become more pragmatic and responsive to both problems and opportunities, the growing lack of checks and balances in domestic politics makes political integration with the West difficult and gives the president great freedom in applying Russia's growing power abroad.
In old Russia, patron/client relations, "clan" politics, and a variety of other informal practices spanned the centuries. Government was understood to be patrimonial and personal rather than legal, and office holding was far less important than proximity to patrons. Working from heretofore unused documents from the Communist archives, J. Arch Getty shows how these political practices and traditions from old Russia have persisted throughout the twentieth-century Soviet Union and down to the present day. Getty examines a number of case studies of political practices in the Stalin era and after. These include cults of personality, the transformation of Old Bolsheviks into noble grandees, the Communist Party's personnel selection system, and the rise of political clans ("family circles") after the 1917 Revolutions. Stalin's conflicts with these clans, and his eventual destruction of them, were key elements of the Great Purges of the 1930s. But although Stalin could destroy the competing clans, he could not destroy the historically embedded patron-client relationship, as a final chapter on political practice under Putin shows.
Over the last two decades, it has become clear that Russia insists on its great power status, even at considerable cost. Chasing Greatness provides an interpretive explanation of the tacit rules that shape Russia's great power identity today. Anatoly Reshetnikov argues that this never-ending chase for greatness is a result of how Russia and its predecessors—including the USSR, Russian Empire, Muscovy, and Kievan Rus’—historically interacted with its neighbors to the east, the south, and particularly the west. By analyzing an extensive amount of original source material, including primary sources that have not been previously translated into English, he is able to reconstruct a millenni...
This book sheds new light on the complex EU-Russia relationship, by providing the first comprehensive account of the EU-Russia Energy Dialogue. The author examines why Moscow and Brussels have failed to cooperate in this crucial area of interdependence. By invoking constructivism and Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of dialogue, and drawing on dozens of interviews with Russian and European officials, Talseth argues that the Energy Dialogue was unsuccessful because its interlocutors failed to come up with a common narrative for cooperation. Evidence suggests that the collapse of the Energy Dialogue was not pre-determined and initially there was a great deal of optimism and goodwill. Ultimately, the outcome of the Energy Dialogue was shaped by the unfolding time-space of Russo-European relations.
In Lonely Power, adapted from the Russian version, Lilia Shevtsova questions the veracity of clichTs about Russiauby both insiders and outsidersuand analyzes Russia's trajectory and how the West influences the country's modernization.
This study analyzes theoretically and empirically the background of the rise to power of Vladimir Putin in Russia and Recip Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey. It situates this analysis in the contexts of the historical assessment of the fragility of liberal democracy and the persistence and growth of authoritarianism, populism, and dictatorship in many parts of the world. The authors argue that the question whether Putin and Erdogan can make Russia and Turkey great again is hard to confirm; personal ambition for power and wealth is certainly key to an understanding of both rulers. They each squandered opportunities to build from free and fair democratic electoral legitimacy and economic progress. The...
This publication comprises the contributions presented at the 14th Network Europe Conference held in Stockholm/Sweden, in September 2023. The conference addressed various challenges for the European integration process in light of current global crises, as well as aspects of the EU enlargement perspectives.
The ring of countries bordering the Black Sea make up one of the unstable subregions of former Soviet republics, satellites and neighbours. This volume analyses the security issues in the Black Sea region and the development of mechanisms that would promote cooperation and conflict management.
This book aims to explain the reasons behind Russia's international conduct in the post-Soviet era, examining Russian foreign policy discourse with a particular focus on the major foreign policy schools of Atlanticism, Eurasianism, derzhavniki, realpolitik, geopolitics, neo-Marxism, radical nationalism, and post-positivism. The Russian post-Soviet threat perceptions and national security doctrines are studied. The author critically assesses the evolution of Russian foreign policy decision-making over the last 25 years and analyzes the roles of various governmental agencies, interest groups and subnational actors. Concluding that a foreign policy consensus is gradually emerging in contemporary Russia, Sergunin argues that the Russian foreign policy discourse aims not only at the formulation of an international strategy but also at the search for a new national identity. Alexander Sergunin argues that Russia's current domestic situation, defined by numerous socio-economic, inter-ethnic, demographic, environmental, and other problems, dictates the need to abandon superpower ambitions and to rather set modest foreign policy goals.