Still out in the cold? Russia’s place in a globalizing world

2012 ◽  
Vol 45 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 343-354 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Rutland
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cultural Identity ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Security ◽  
Foreign Policy Analysis ◽  
Russian Foreign Policy ◽  
Policy Debates ◽  
Globalizing World ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Per Se

This article examines some of the implications of current debates in international relations for Russian foreign policy. The focus is on Russian foreign policy analysis and not the international relations debates per se. The article begins by discussing the way Russian policy is fractured along the dimensions of security, economics and cultural identity – each corresponding to a different geopolitical vector. The second half discusses how recent developments in international security impact on Russian foreign policy debates.

Parliament as the Foreign Policy Actor: the Resources of the Parliamentary Diplomacy

2018 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
pp. 316-321
Author(s):  
Boris I. Ananyev ◽  
Daniil A. Parenkov
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Security ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Conservative Approach ◽  
National Interests ◽  
Policy Actor ◽  
Security Challenges ◽  
Essential Idea ◽  
Per Se

The aim of the article is to show the role of parliament in the foreign policy within the framework of the conservative school of thought. The authors examine both Russian and Western traditions of conservatism and come to the conclusion that the essential idea of “the rule of the best” has turned to be one of the basic elements of the modern legislative body per se. What’s more, parliament, according to the conservative approach, tends to be the institution that represents the real spirit of the nation and national interests. Therefore the interaction of parliaments on the international arena appears to be the form of the organic communication between nations. Parliamentary diplomacy today is the tool that has the potential to address to the number of issues that are difficult to deal with within the framework of the traditional forms of IR: international security, challenges posed by new technologies, international sanctions and other.

Basic principles of Russian foreign policy under Vladimir Putin

Upravlenie ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 116-122
Author(s):  
Sadeghi Elham Mir Mohammad ◽  
Ahmad Vakhshitekh
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
World Order ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Russian Foreign Policy ◽  
National Interests ◽  
Basic Principles ◽  
Interstate Relations ◽  
The Moment

The article considers and analyses the basic principles and directions of Russian foreign policy activities during the presidency of V.V. Putin from the moment of his assumption of the post of head of state to the current presidential term. The authors determine the basic principles of Russia's foreign policy in the specified period and make the assessment to them. The study uses materials from publications of both Russian and foreign authors, experts in the field of political science, history and international relations, as well as documents regulating the foreign policy activities of the highest state authorities. The paper considers the process of forming the priorities of Russia's foreign policy both from the point of view of accumulated historical experience and continuity of the internal order, and in parallel with the processes of transformation of the entire system of international relations and the world order. The article notes the multi-vector nature of Russia's foreign policy strategy aimed at developing multilateral interstate relations, achieving peace and security in the interstate arena, actively countering modern challenges and threats to interstate security, as well as the formation of a multipolar world. The authors conclude that at present, Russia's foreign policy activity is aimed at strengthening Russia's prestige, supporting economic growth and competitiveness, ensuring security and implementing national interests. Internal political reforms contribute to strengthening the political power of the President of the Russian Federation and increasing the efficiency of foreign policy decision-making.

Russia and Peaceful Change

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrej Krickovic
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Russian Foreign Policy ◽  
Unmet Expectations ◽  
Soviet Empire ◽  
Communist Movement ◽  
New Thinking ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Over Time

Over the last four decades, Russia has been at the very center of peaceful change in international relations. Gorbachev’s conciliatory New Thinking (NT) fundamentally transformed international relations, ending the Cold War struggle and dismantling the Soviet empire and world communist movement. Contemporary Russia is at the forefront of the transition away from American unipolarity and toward what is believed will be a more equitable and just multipolar order. Over time, Russia has moved away from the idealism that characterized Gorbachev’s NT and toward a more hard-nosed and confrontational approach toward peaceful change. The chapter traces this evolution with a particular emphasis on the role that Russia’s unmet expectations of reciprocity and elevated status have played in the process. If they are to be successful, future efforts at peaceful change will have to find ways to address these issues of reciprocity and status, especially under circumstances where there are power asymmetries between the side making concessions and the side receiving them. Nevertheless, despite its disappointments, Russia’s approach to change remains (largely) peaceful. Elements of NT, including its emphasis on interdependence, collective/mutual security, and faith in the possibility of positive transformation, continue to be present in modern Russian foreign policy thinking.

The regional dimensions of state failure

2010 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 951-972 ◽  
Author(s):  
STEFAN WOLFF
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Analytical Model ◽  
International Security ◽  
State Failure ◽  
The Political ◽  
Policy Debate ◽  
Empirical Observation ◽  
Policy Debates ◽  
Definition Of

AbstractThe academic and policy debate on state failure reaches back to the early 1990s. Since then, its empirical and analytical sophistication has grown, yet the fact that state failure is a regional phenomenon, that is, that it occurs in clusters of geographically contiguous states, has largely been overlooked. This article first considers the academic and policy debates on state failure in the Political Science/International Relations and Development Studies literatures, and offers a definition of state failure that is derived from the means of the state, rather than its ends. Subsequently engaging with existing scholarship on the concept of ‘region’ in international security, the article develops a definition of ‘state failure regions’. Further empirical observation of such regions and additional conceptual reflections lead to establishing an analytical model for the study of state failure regions and allow indentifying a number of concrete gains in knowledge and understanding that can result from its application.

Autonomy in Foreign Policy: A Latin American Contribution to International Relations Theory

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
María Cecilia Míguez
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Latin American ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Effective Control ◽  
Foreign Policy Analysis ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
New Meanings ◽  
American Contribution

Autonomy is a concept constantly referred to in Latin American foreign policy analysis, especially with respect to Argentina and Brazil. As great powers continue to exert effective control over peripheral economies and their political decision making, autonomy emerges as a possibility for self-determination in the areas where hegemonic powers’ economic, political, and cultural interferences are expressed. Although this is not a new concept, the quest for autonomy within the “global periphery”—and elsewhere too—still remains relevant. Helio Jaguaribe and Juan Carlos Puig’s theoretical approaches are fundamental epistemological contributions to international relations (IR), not only in South America (where the theoretical approach was first developed) but also to the wider IR field outside the mainstream scholarship. In line with global historical changes, autonomy took on some subsequent new meanings, which led to new and heterogeneous formulations that transformed, and in certain cases also contradicted, the very genesis of the idea of autonomy. As a result, the so-called autonomy “with adjectives” emerged within IR peripheral debates. The 21st century witnessed the rebirth of the concept amid the rise of multilateralism and the new Latin American regionalism, which brought its relational character to the fore. Some of the new approaches to autonomy, especially from Brazil, used the concept as a methodological tool to understand the historical evolution of the country’s foreign policy. As such, autonomy and its theoretical reflection remain central to the analyses and interpretations of the international relations of peripheral countries, and it is in this sense that the autonomy can be highlighted broadly as a Latin American contribution to IR discipline. The concept of autonomy has a unique and foundational content referred to the discussion of the asymmetries in the global order. Studying autonomy is critical to understanding peripheral countries’ problems and dynamics.

5. Discourse analysis, post-structuralism, and foreign policy

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lene Hansen
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Policy Analysis ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Theoretical Approach ◽  
Foreign Policy Analysis ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Research Designs

This chapter examines the use of discourse analysis in the study of foreign policy. In the study of international relations, discourse analysis is associated with post-structuralism, a theoretical approach that shares realism’s concern with states and power, but differs from realism’s assumption that states are driven by self-interest. It also takes a wider view of power than realists normally do. Post-structuralism draws upon, but also challenges, realism’s three core assumptions: groupism, egoism, and power-centrism. The chapter first considers the theoretical principles that inform post-structuralist discourse analysis before discussing the research designs and methodological techniques employed by discourse analysts. It also offers examples and four learning boxes featuring mini-case studies and locates poststructuralist discourse analysis within the field of foreign policy analysis. Finally, it assesses the strengths and weaknesses of post-structuralist discourse analysis.

1. The history and evolution of foreign policy analysis

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valerie M. Hudson
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Policy Analysis ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
International Politics ◽  
Classical Period ◽  
Foreign Policy Analysis ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Large Groups

This chapter traces the history and evolution of foreign policy analysis (FPA) as a subfield of international relations (IR) from its beginnings in the 1950s through its classical period until 1993. It begins with a discussion of three paradigmatic works that laid the foundation of FPA: Decision Making as an Approach to the Study of International Politics (1954), by Richard C. Snyder, H. W. Bruck, and Burton Sapin; ‘Pre-theories and Theories of Foreign Policy’ (1966), by James N. Rosenau; and Man–Milieu Relationship Hypotheses in the Context of International Politics (1956), by Harold and Margaret Sprout. These three works created three main threads of research in FPA: focusing on the decision making of small/large groups, comparative foreign policy, and psychological/sociological explanations of foreign policy. The chapter also reviews classic FPA scholarship during the period 1954–1993 and concludes with an assessment of contemporary FPA’s research agenda.

Coalition Politics and Foreign Policy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sibel Oktay
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Policy Analysis ◽  
Comparative Politics ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Policy Formulation ◽  
Democratic Peace ◽  
Foreign Policy Analysis ◽  
Institutional Factor ◽  
Coalition Governments

Coalition governments are observed frequently in parliamentary systems. Approximately 70% of all governments in postwar Europe have been one type of coalition or another. Israel has never been ruled by a single-party government in its history. Recently, majoritarian systems like Britain produced coalitions, taking many by surprise. The prominence of coalitions in parliamentary democracies compels researchers to study them more closely. The Comparative Politics literature investigates, in particular, the dynamics of coalition formation and termination, as well as the domestic policy outputs of coalitions, especially compared to governments ruled by a single party. Coalitions have generated interest on the International Relations front as well. One avenue of research transcends the “political party” as a building block and conceptualizes coalitions as a “decision unit” by focusing on the group of veto players in a regime’s foreign policy apparatus. Another line of scholarship, situated in the “Democratic Peace” framework, looks at coalitions as a domestic-institutional factor to observe their effects on the likelihood of international conflict. Departing from the “Democratic Peace” tradition, more recent research in Foreign Policy Analysis rejuvenates the study of coalitions in international politics. This literature not only encourages theory development by scrutinizing why coalitions behave differently than single-parties in the international arena but also bridges the gap between International Relations and Comparative Politics. Emphasizing the organic relationship between domestic politics and foreign policy, foreign policy researchers dissect coalition governments to highlight the role political parties play on foreign policy formulation and implementation. This literature also illustrates the merits of methodological plurality in studying foreign policy. Using a combination of comparative case studies, process tracing, Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) and regression modeling, it sheds light not only on the broader trends that characterize coalition foreign policy but also on the causal mechanisms and contextual factors which often go unaccounted for in purely statistical analyses. The recent advances in role and image theories in Foreign Policy Analysis are expected to influence the study of coalitions and their foreign policies, offering an interpretivist take alongside this positivist trajectory.

Special Relationships in Foreign Policy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sebastian Harnisch
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Policy Analysis ◽  
Social Constructivism ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Foreign Policy Analysis ◽  
Relational Term ◽  
Special Relations ◽  
Special Relationships

Special relationships are durable and exclusive bilateral relations between autonomous polities that are based on mutual expectations of preferential treatment by its members and outsiders as well as regular entanglement of some (external) governance functions. The concept has become more prominent over the past three decades in part because of recent changes in international relations and foreign policy analysis theory (the constructivist and relational turn) and long-term shifts in the social structure of international relations, that is, decolonization, international criminal and humanitarian law, which have posed questions of solidarity, reconciliation, and responsibility of current and past special relationships. The term special relationship has a long and diverse history. After World War II, it was used mainly to depict the Anglo-American security relationship as special. Today, well over 50 international relationships are deemed special. Despite this trend, no common theoretical framework has been developed to explain their emergence, variation, persistence and demise. Realism interprets special relationships as asymmetrical power relations, in which presupposed counterbalancing behavior does not occur because shared ideas or institutions mitigate autonomy concerns. Liberalism postulates that the special relatedness occurs when policy interdependence due to shared commercial interests or ideas allows deep cooperation and trust building. Social constructivism, in turn, assumes self-assertion but does not presuppose with or against whom the self, usually a polity, identifies itself. It follows that special relations may occur between dyads with positive identification (Germany-Israel after reconciliation) or negative identification, such as in the enduring rivalry between India and Pakistan. As a relational term, special relationships do not sit easily with the first generation of foreign policy analysis focusing on decision making processes rather than the policies themselves. As a consequence, special relationships have been primarily conceptualized either as a tool of foreign policy or as one context factor influencing foreign policy choices. In relational theories, such as social constructivism, special relations, such as solidarity relations, are not causally independent from actors, as these relations also define the actors themselves.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document