Russian Foreign Policy

Russian foreign policy has undergone substantial shifts in the post–Cold War period. Scholarly attention toward the topic has also experienced ebbs and flows as the breakup of the Soviet Union drastically decreased general interest toward a newly emerged Russia. The initial period of Russian foreign policy in the early 1990s was to a large degree a continuation of Soviet foreign policy, with its focus on cooperative relations with the West. This, in turn, combined with the general weakness of the Russian state, resulted in the relative disregard of other foreign policy directions. The deepening domestic power struggle led to a growing opposition toward the pro-Western course and paved the way for a number of domestic players to influence Russia’s foreign policy course. Vladimir Putin’s arrival to power in 2000 and the domestic changes he introduced freed foreign policy from most of its domestic constraints, at least temporarily. During his first presidential term (2000–2004), Russian foreign policy oscillated between competition with the West (the United States in particular) and attempts to integrate Russia as the West’s equal partner. The consolidation of the regime, which accelerated in Putin’s second presidential term (2004–2008), left its mark on foreign policy. Russia’s engagement with the external world underwent substantial changes, which turned out to be durable for the next decade and a half. Material resurgence, the strengthening of the state, and the domestic political consolidation fueled Russia’s assertiveness in international politics. These processes culminated in Putin’s 2007 Munich speech and the 2008 war with Georgia. The following period of the so-called tandemocracy (2008–2012), with Putin becoming prime minister and Dmitri Medvedev serving as president, led to a partial warming in relations with the West, though Russia continued its assertive policy. Russia also deepened its cooperation with a rising China. Putin’s return to power in 2012 initiated the conservative-nationalist turn in domestic politics, which was reflected in foreign policy. Russia increasingly positioned itself not only as a geopolitical challenger to the West, but also a normative one. The annexation of Crimea (2014), followed by the military intervention in Syria (2015), opened a new phase in Russian foreign policy. Moscow became bolder in using military force abroad and enlarged its presence in such regions as sub-Saharan Africa. The explanations of change and continuity in Russian foreign policy can be grouped in several camps, with scholars emphasizing power politics and external constraints, domestic politics, and the role of ideas and identity. The emerging trend is the growing popularity of pluralist explanations of Russian foreign policy.

Turkish Paramilitaries during the Conflict with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party PKK

This paper focuses on how the paramilitary organisations of the Turkish state have transformed and been used over time as a ‘useful’ tool against dissidents, especially the Kurds. Paramilitary groups have been one of the main actors in the war between the Turkish state and the PKK, which has been ongoing for nearly forty years. These groups have sometimes been used as auxiliary forces and at other times made into death squads operating alongside the official armed forces, and they have mainly been used against Kurdish civilians who allegedly support the PKK, especially at the height of the war in unsolved murders, enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings since the 1980. In this article, I argue that the Turkish state elites use this apparatus not only in domestic politics but also in conflicts in the Middle East and the Caucasus and that this paramilitary tradition of the state even extends to western Europe.

Initiatives of Strategic Development of The Russian Federation: Evolution and Limitations

The paper provides an analytical review of the most significant socio-economic initiatives of the Russian Federation over the past 20 years. The considered period of time is divided into intervals due to the introduction of sanctions by foreign states against the Russian Federation after reunion with Crimea. The complex of strategies of the pre-sanction period, including the doubling of GDP and the "May" decrees of the Russian President in 2012, were mainly related to domestic politics and, in general, were not fully implemented. In particular, the goal of doubling the GDP was only half completed. The trajectory of the Russian Federation as an energy power faced geopolitical confrontation in the European market, which led to the cancellation and complications in the implementation of the South Stream and Nord Stream 2 transnational gas pipeline projects. The anti-crisis strategy of import substitution proclaimed after the announcement of sanctions against the Russian Federation ended with very modest results, although initially it assumed a rise in the development of high-tech industries. The goal-setting of 2018 in the form of national projects and its further revision in 2020 led to an unfinished reboot of the guidelines for domestic socio-economic development. In the face of acute foreign policy confrontation, the Russian Federation demonstrates a high solidarity with global development initiatives, including the Paris Agreement on Climate, as well as antiquated policies and mass vaccination of the population. Despite the already incurred and expected socio-economic damage from joining global development initiatives, this line of behavior of the Russian Federation is sustainable. The analysis of the rhetoric in the national security strategy of the Russian Federation, which has been dynamically changing after 2014, shows the strengthening of the orientation of the Russian Federation towards the East (India, China), as well as an emphasis on the movement towards unity with the Belarusian and Ukrainian peoples.

Institutionalising city networking: Discursive and rational choice institutional perspectives on membership of transnational municipal networks

This article analyses participants’ reasoning for their city’s membership in transnational municipal networks and the extent to which this changes over time. Theoretically, we build on new-institutional theory and conclude that although parts of the members’ reasoning have rational components, a discursive institutional perspective improves the understanding of cities’ membership of transnational municipal networks. This perspective uncovers how important aspects of transnational municipal network participation are motivated by a different logic than that of measurable output. Cities use transnational municipal networks as sources of internal and external legitimacy, to legitimatise their position in domestic politics and their international position among other ‘global’ cities.

Azerbejdżan pod rządami Alijewów

In previous years Azerbaijan experienced only a few of leadership changes following independence in 1991. In 1992 Abulfaz Elchibey, the leader of the Popular Front, won first fairly contested presidential election. However the beginning of the current phase political life took place in 1993. As a result of the ensuing war, Armenian armed forces occupied then 14–16 percent of Azerbaijan (20 percent according to Azerbaijani sources), including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The collapse of the Popular Front government led to Heidar Aliev’s former communist party boss return to Baku as national leader. During his presidency (1993–2003), Aliev ensured political order, economic stabilization and peace, but suppressed political pluralism. At the time Azerbaijan has positioned itself on the international scene as an increasingly important actor, but in domestic politics system crafted by Aliev political power was concentrated in the hands post-Soviet cadres and regional clans. Ilham Aliev became president of the country in 2003. The period immediately preceding and following his reelection for a second term in October 2008 was marked by further steps towards the consolidation of the semiauthoritarian and authoritarian regime established by his father – Heidar.

My Perilous Girlhood

In early 1941 , Yuan-tsung’s family moved to Chongqing, the wartime capital of the Nationalist government, where she attended the prestigious Nankai Middle School and went through the trials and discoveries of adolescence, though shadowed by war and byzantine domestic politics. This was also the time of her romantic and sexual awakening, though it took place in a vicarious manner. She accompanied her wealthy best friend, Edith Shen, to the latter’s tryst at the Peach-Blossom Grove. She acted as an intermediary for Edith, the school beauty queen, and her lover, a role that earned her a place in one of Chongqing’s most elegant mansions.