scholarly journals ‘But in Asia we too are Europeans’: Russia’s multifaceted engagement with the standard of civilisation

2016 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 432-455 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Kaczmarska
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Cold War ◽  
International Politics ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
The West ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Do So

The standard of civilisation served Western states to hierarchically organise international politics and reproduce Western pre-eminence. Russia, depending on the historical period, has been interpreted as either an ardent follower or a major challenger to Western projects, but it has been markedly absent from debates regarding the standard. This article proposes to engage Russia in the standard of civilisation discussion with reference to the standard’s two most considered expositions: the colonial-era ‘original’ and what the literature interprets as the standard’s contemporary revival. In order to do so, I trace Russia’s nineteenth-century colonial practices and analyse Russia’s selected policies towards post-Soviet states in the post–Cold War period. On the basis of these explorations, I argue that Russia’s application of the standard of civilisation goes beyond the mere reproduction of hierarchical arrangements between an imagined centre and peripheries. The practices of the standard of civilisation have been employed to improve Russia’s desired, and imagined, status in international politics – that of a great power equal to the West. From that it follows that the concept of the standard of civilisation should be recognised as ordering relations not only of the strong and the weak but also of those in position of power in international politics.

Sarajevo, February 1994: the first Russia-NATO crisis of the post-Cold War era

2003 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jim Headley
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Conflict Resolution ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Market Place ◽  
The West ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
East West

This article analyses the Russian reaction to the Sarajevo crisis of February 1994 when NATO threatened air strikes in response to the market-place mortar explosion. I argue that Russia's shift to a realist great-power policy led to a crisis with the West as Russia sought to demonstrate its great power credentials, protect what it saw as specific Russian interests in the Balkans, and limit the role of NATO in conflict resolution, while Western leaders aimed to demonstrate NATO credibility and its new post-Cold War role as peace-keeper/peace-maker. This was the first major East-West crisis since the end of the Cold War, and Russian responses and actions foreshadowed its reactions to the Kosovo crisis.

scholarly journals The Sino-Russian Relationship: Fellow Travellers in the West-dominated World

2018 ◽  
Vol 236 ◽  
pp. 1197-1205 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcin Kaczmarski
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
East Asia ◽  
Developing World ◽  
Grand Strategy ◽  
The West ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Dividing Line

A decade ago, Beijing's relations with Moscow were of marginal interest to China scholars. Topics such as growing Sino-American interdependence-cum-rivalry, engagement with East Asia or relations with the developing world overshadowed China's relationship with its northern neighbour. Scholars preoccupied with Russia's foreign policy did not pay much attention either, regarding the Kremlin's policy towards China as part and parcel of Russia's grand strategy directed towards the West. The main dividing line among those few who took a closer look ran between sceptics and alarmists. The former interpreted the post-Cold War rapprochement as superficial and envisioned an imminent clash of interests between the two states. The latter, a minority, saw the prospect of an anti-Western alliance.

scholarly journals Russia living from its past

2019 ◽  
pp. 171-183
Author(s):  
Isabela de Andrade Gama
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Ontological Security ◽  
The West ◽  
Western Countries ◽  
Inferior Status ◽  
The Cold War

Since the end of the Cold War Russia has been treated as a defeated state. Western countries usually perceive Russia not only as a defeated state but also relating it to Soviet Union. Beyond that the West has Orientalized Russia, segregating it from the “western club” of developed states. But Russia’s recovery from the collapse of the 90’s made it more assertive towards the West. It’s proposed here that this assertiveness is due to it’s orientalization, it’s inferior status perceived by the West. The inferior perception by the West has triggered a process of identity’s reconstruction which will be analyzed through a perspective of ontological security. The more Russia has it’s great power status denied, the more aggressive it becomes regarding it’s foreign policy. As the international hierarchy continues to treat Russia as that of “behind” the modern states, and the more it feels marginalized, it will double down on efforts to regain its great power status it will have to dispose power. Russia’s ontological insecurity might lead it to a path of aggressiveness.

scholarly journals The Russian Federation and Reshaping a Post-Cold War Order

Politeja ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (5(62)) ◽  
pp. 161-174
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Bryc
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Russian Federation ◽  
World Order ◽  
The United States ◽  
Western World ◽  
The West ◽  
Crimean Peninsula ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
International Standing ◽  
Munich Security Conference

Russia attempts to revise a Western-led liberal world order. However, challenging the West seems to be a strategy aimed at improving Russia’s international standing. This strategy is undoubtedly ambiguous as Russia challenges the West, particularity the United States, and looks for a rapprochement at the same time.The Russian Federation abandoned the West in 2014 as a result of the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula what constituted breaking international law, andengagement into the war in the East Ukraine. Nevertheless, the milestone was not 2014, but 2008 when Russia had decided for the first time to use its militar yforce against Georgia and indirectly against the growing Western military and political presence in this post-Soviet republic. This game changer was hardly a surprise, because several signals of a desire to challenge the Western-led world order had appeared in the past at least twice in president Putin’s speeches in 2007 at Munich Security Conference and in 2014 during Valdai Club session in Sochi. This article seeks to provide a take in the discussion about the way Russia has been trying to reshape the post-Cold War order. This paper probes the notion that Russia has become a revisionist state trying to shape a post-Western world order. Besides, there are a few questions to be answered, first of all whether anti-Westernism is in fact its goal or rather an instrument in regaining more effective impact on international politics and how it may influence the post-ColdWar order despite its reduced political and economic potential.

Conclusion

After Lavinia ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Watkins
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
First Century ◽  
European Countries ◽  
The West ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Northern European ◽  
Global Peace ◽  
Legal Rationality

This concluding chapter reflects on marriage in the contemporary West, noting that it has become an affective arrangement. In Britain and the northern European countries that still retain a constitutional form of monarchy, twenty-first-century royalty now prefer their own subjects as marriage partners, even if it means marrying a commoner like Kate Middleton. To the extent that these marriages to indigenous commoners have any bearing on foreign policy, they reaffirm the nationalist sentiments of the post-Westphalian state. The chapter argues that, despite all the legal rationality, global peace remains as elusive now as it was when Europeans tried to settle their quarrels through interdynastic marriage. It suggests that the opposition between the West and its post-Cold War enemies has brought the matter of gender and the place of women once more to the center of international relations.

Why Nations Rise . . . or Remain Reticent

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Manjari Chatterjee Miller
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Rising Powers ◽  
Late 19Th Century ◽  
Additional Element ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Rising Power

What is known of rising powers is both sparse and contentious. This chapter discusses the assumptions of rising powers and puts forward an alternate way of understanding them. It shows that all rising powers are not the same, even if their military and economic power is increasing relative to the status quo, and argues that narratives about becoming a great power are an additional element that needs to be considered. It also discusses what great power meant in the late 19th century, during the Cold War, and in post–Cold War eras, and lays out the map of the book. Topics covered in this chapter include the power transition and rising power literature, the role of ideas in foreign policy, and an overview of the perceptions of great power.

Ebb Tide of the West

2020 ◽  
pp. 216-250
Author(s):  
David Kilcullen
Keyword(s):  
High Tide ◽  
Current Approach ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Weak States ◽  
Strategic Responses ◽  
The West ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
High Point ◽  
Security Environment ◽  
Failing States

This chapter explores the declining efficacy of the Western military model since 2003, canvasses various strategic responses to it—including doubling down on the current approach, embracing decline, and “going Byzantine”—and recommends a strategy of strategic delay. It argues that the high point of Western military dominance in the post–Cold War era—the “high tide of the West”—coincided with the failed decapitation strike against Saddam Hussein in March 2003, and that since then Western powers have acted as if they were still in a Woolseyan security environment (where the principal threats originated from weak states, failing states and nonstate actors) when actually the environment was post-Woolseyan; that is, characterized by a return of state-based threats and great-power military competition. The chapter considers three possible responses to this problem, evaluates their strengths and weaknesses, and concludes that our best bet (though by no means a certain solution) is to play for time, adopt a light footprint offshore balancing strategy, and attempt to create space for a potentially acceptable successor order to emerge.

Holocaust Cinema

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olga Gershenson
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Visual Culture ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The United States ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
Soviet Bloc ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
The Holocaust

The study of Holocaust representation in cinema is located at the intersection of film studies and Holocaust studies. The scope of issues dealt with in the field is defined by two sets of tensions: first, tensions between history and narrative, and second between Eastern and Western understanding of the Holocaust. The tension between history and narrative emerges in response to the famous dictum by Adorno that there is no poetry after Auschwitz. The filmmakers—and the scholars studying their films—must engage with the thorny questions about the representability of atrocities on screens. Consequently, a body of scholarship, grounded in the theories of visual culture and psychanalytical theory focuses on the challenges of portraying tragic history authentically and in ways that honors the victims. The question is to what extent can historical facts be fictionalized, and which genres of fiction and documentary are appropriate. Specifically debated is the representation of the Holocaust in comedy, fantasy, and other popular genres. Scholarship also deals with questions of memory—how do the cinematic representations reflect and shape our understanding of history and transmission of memory. The second set of tensions emerges as a result of complex history both during World War II and the Cold War, which divided the world into the “West”—including the United States, Western Europe, and Israel, vis-a-vis the “East,” that is, the Soviet bloc. Under Soviet rule, the story of the Holocaust was largely subsumed into that of the “Great Patriotic War,” silencing the fact that its victims were Jews. Consequently, representation of the Holocaust in Soviet and other East European national cinemas was censored. Alternatively, the Western narrative of the Holocaust was mainly concerned with stories of Nazi concentration and death camps, obfuscating the history of the Holocaust in the Soviet territories. Only recently has the Western historical narrative of the Holocaust started turning to the East and film scholarship expanded its focus to include Soviet and Soviet-bloc national cinemas. This scholarship also asks questions of representation, but mainly in the context of censorship and suppression, as well as of comparative analysis of the visual culture of the Holocaust in national cinemas. Such scholarship uncovers hitherto unknown films and also analyzes the Eastern and Western narratives of the Holocaust in the post–Cold War era. Finally, some scholarship on Holocaust films is also concerned with periodization, that is, discussing films in the context of the historical period in which they were produced and circulated, whether in a particular national context or comparatively. This bibliography makes note of periods, from early Holocaust cinema to current films.

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