Russian Factor in the Military and Political Conflicts of Europe in 1917–1920

Статья посвящена т. н. «русскому фактору» в период после окончания Первой мировой войны и до 1920г. Революционные события в России радикально изменили внешнеполитическую ситуацию на европейском театре и одновременно стали оказывать серьезное влияние на внутреннюю повестку стран участниц конфликта, благодаря активной политике Советской России по продвижению революционных идей и поддержке революционных движений в Европе. Подобная практика была вызвана не столько искренним желанием раздуть революционный пожар и безусловной верой в его возможность, сколько необходимостью физического выживания молодого «пролетарского государства» во враждебном капиталистическом окружении. В статье подробно рассматривается идеологическая подоплека внешней политики Советской России в это период и деятельность на этом поприще ее вождя В.И. Ленина, его попытки повлиять на общественно-политические процессы в Германии, Венгрии и Польше, а также анализируются изменения в идеологической повестке большевиков после провала советской политики по созданию плацдармов для продвижения революции в центральную Европу. Также в статье обращается внимание на то, что за внешней ширмой буржуазной революции в России явно проступают признаки целенаправленной политики по удалению с карты Европы и Азии империй — Османской, Германской, Австро-Венгерской и Российской, чему предшествовала активная компания по девальвации самих монархических институтов. Большевистская же политика по полному демонтажу прежней системы, несмотря на внешнюю враждебность идеологических установок, оказалась вполне приемлемой для тех, кто стремился не допустить пересборки Центральных держав. The article deals with the influence of the so-called Russian factor in the events following the end of the First World War up until 1920. The revolution in Russia radically changed the situation in Europe, having a major impact on the domestic and foreign policies of the belligerent nations, caused by active Soviet support for revolutionary movements in Europe. This practice stemmed not from a sincere desire to fan the revolutionary flames but rather from the survival instinct of the newly-established proletarian state, surrounded by hostile capitalistic countries. The article examines the ideological motivations behind Soviet Russia's foreign policy during this period and the activities of its leader, Vladimir Lenin, as well as his attempts to influence social and political processes in Germany, Hungary, and Poland. The study also analyzes the changes in the ideological agenda of the Bolsheviks after the failure of Soviet policy to create springboards for the advancement of the revolution into Central Europe. Moreover, the paper points out that the smokescreen of the revolution in Russia reveals clear signs of a concerted effort to wipe the Ottoman Empire, the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Russian Empire from the map of Europe and Asia, preceded by an active campaign aimed at undermining the monarchic institutions themselves. Meanwhile, the Bolshevik policy that sought to completely dismantle the old regime, despite the hostility of its ideology, eventually proved perfectly acceptable for those who aimed to prevent the Central Powers from rising up again.

The Politics and Diplomacy of Neutrality

This article discusses the diplomacy and foreign policy of neutral actors in international relations. It introduces popular research themes of neutrality studies and presents some of the relevant literature. Neutrality has been most profoundly developed, studied, and defined under international law. However, there are other dimensions to it like politics, ethics, norms, identity, and security under which it remains a relatively fuzzy concept. The Finnish president, Urho Kekkonen, once explained it best: “There are as many kinds of neutrality as there are neutral states.” That is because the concept has diplomatic implications that do not stem directly from a country’s abstention from conflicts, but rather from strategic or ideational factors like the normative self-conceptualizations of peoples living in neutral countries and the political choices they make. In this respect, much research on the motivations and development of individual neutralities has been conducted over the years, including case studies, comparative works, theoretical treaties, and general histories. The focus of this article lies on the development of the concept since the maritime and Great Power neutralities of the 18th century. In particular, it covers the major literature of the past one hundred years, during which neutrality in the classic sense of international law underwent several changes and new forms of the neutral idea emerged in the form of nonalignment and neutralism. Furthermore, neutrality also has a place in the history of international organizations like the United Nations or the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and humanitarian institutions like the International Committee of the Red Cross. Therefore, this article understands “diplomacy” in a loose sense, including the foreign policies of states and the international political approaches of non-state actors alike. It defines “neutrality” as an actor’s military noninvolvement in third-party conflicts, especially in interstate wars. Hence, neutral diplomacy refers to the coordinated activities of international actors who remain—or try to remain—at a distance from third-party conflicts. The article does not cover technical understandings of neutrality that do not refer to a subject’s exclusion from conflicts but to different principles. For instance, “net-neutrality,” refers to the non-discrimination of Internet access speeds, not to the Internet’s exclusion from conflicts, and will not be covered in this analysis.

Towards Enhancing Migrant Social Entrepreneurship Through Social Capital in Durban, South Africa

This chapter interrogates the notion of social capital and its potential impact on enhancing or undermining the socio-economic efforts by migrants in Durban, South Africa. Tshishonga argues that it is through entrepreneurship that entrepreneurs transform their innovative and creative ideas into business enterprises and job creation. This chapter is concerned about migrant social entrepreneurial endevours as a source of livelihoods within the informal economic sector. Informal businesses initiated by migrants have proven to be successful and sustainable compared to that of the locals. Despite the challenges faced by migrant entrepreneurs such as financial deficit, xenophobia, anti-foreign policies, victimization, violence, and harassment absence of police protection, etc., these enterprises thrive. This chapter employs a case study method where 15 African immigrant entrepreneurs were targeted to determine how social capital is used to expand and sustain their businesses.

El impacto político de las creencias primitivas de la clase gobernante sasánida

This article uses various theories that exist about thought, especially the theories of James George Frazer in the Golden Branch as a turning point. In this way, it tries to give prominence to the certain aspects of the history of sassanid Persia, which after analyzing through these theories, they show the impact of primitive beliefs in Sassanid age. Creeds that affected in many aspects of their lives, but in this research we only show their role in the commands or decisions, victories, defeats and dreams of the Sassanids that substantially had influenced their domestic and foreign policies. Este artículo toma como punto de partida diferentes teorías sobre el pensamiento, en especial las que James George Frazer esbozó en La Rama Dorada. Por esta vía, se busca dar protagonismo a ciertos aspectos de la historia de la Persia sasánida que, al ser analizados a través de estas teorías, muestran el impacto que tuvieron las creencias primitivas. Eran unos credos que influyeron en muchos aspectos de su vida, pero en este estudio solo mostramos su papel en las órdenes o decisiones, victorias, fracasos y sueños de los sasánidas que influyeron, de manera sustancial, en su política interior y exterior.

FOREIGN POLICY OF THE SOUTH CAUCASIAN COUNTRIES: RESULTS AND NEW CHALLENGES

The newly independent states (South Caucasian countries being no exception), the products of the Soviet Union’s traumatic disintegration, needed independent foreign policies. Throughout the three decades of their independence they formulated their priorities and defined approaches and principles under strong pressure of certain factors. This process has been unfolding amid the complicated social and political processes and geopolitical transformations in the region shaken by the post-Soviet ethnic conflicts. As could be expected, the newly independent South Caucasian states opted for different routes in their economic and statehood development, while their ruling elites took into account the external and internal contexts when shaping their foreign policies. Different approaches and different foreign policy priorities opened the doors to non-regional geopolitical actors: the United States, the European Union, Iran and Turkey have joined Russia, whose presence is rooted in its past. Recently, China, Israel and Japan have become interested in the region. Thus, today the regional countries are orientated to the interests of non-regional states. This has not benefited the situation in the region or cooperation among the regional states. Foreign policy of the South Caucasian countries is inseparable from the regional security problems, which means that it should become an object of meticulous studies. In the latter half of 2020, the war in Nagorno-Karabakh changed the region’s geopolitical setting and shattered its stability. The article sums up the results of the policies pursued by the South Caucasian countries and identifies the challenges and possible developments in the region after the Karabakh war of 2020.

Discerning Poland’s Contemporary Strategic Culture: An analysis of the 2020 National Security Strategy of the Republic of Poland

The article analyses the Polish government’s recently published National Security Strategy in an attempt to discern the broad outlines of the strategic culture within Poland’s strategic community. The article adopts a ‘fourth generation’ approach to the conception of strategic culture, which posits that there are often rival subcultures within strategic communities, which can often result in dramatic shifts in a state’s security policies over time. There is a brief discussion of how conflicting subcultures can be identified in Poland’s foreign policies in the past before the article discusses what Poland’s current Strategy reveals about the strategic culture of today’s decision-makers. It broadly argues that there are obvious continuities in Poland’s security policies, notably in terms of how the Russian Federation is regarded as a hostile state and the degree to which NATO and the EU serve to strengthen Poland’s security. It is also possible to see more minor shifts in Poland’s security policies in recent years, such as a renewed emphasis on territorial defence and a willingness to align itself with several states which are relatively antagonistic towards the EU.

Book review: Abdolmohammadi, P., & Cama, G. (2020). Contemporary Domestic and Foreign Policies of Iran. London, Denver: Palgrave Macmillan, 251 p.

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Beyond the Duality of Normativity and Pragmatism

One of the EU’s key foreign policy objectives is to promote the values enshrined in its treaties, such as democracy, the rule of law and human rights. The EU’s self-conception of being a “rule maker” rather than a “rule taker” in international relations, however, is increasingly contested both by internal (e.g., democratic backsliding or a general tendency towards nationalist politics) as well as external challenges (e.g., the return of bilateralism or the rise of new actors). China’s Belt and Road Initiative (bri) is often understood as the most serious opposition on the external side to the EU’s model of international cooperation and global governance, in that it promotes a pragmatic instead of a norm-based approach, at least at first glance. The Chinese foreign policy model that the bri reflects, explicitly favours open membership, flexibility and economic gains over multilateral institutions and norm-based action. By drawing on original interviews and analysing central policy documents, this article shows how the juxtaposition of normativity and pragmatism has shaped the political and academic discourse on the EU’s foreign policy and idea of global governance. It argues that this duality of normativity versus pragmatism is misleading because it overlooks the fact that the EU and China both (a) constitute the framework for a certain practice and (b) are rooted in practice. Drawing on Kagan’s cultural thesis of foreign policy, it questions the real meaning of this juxtaposition and applies a practice-based reading to the EU’s and China’s modes of foreign policy making. The article further shows that scrutinising foreign policy through the prism of practice can provide a more context-sensitive and encompassing understanding of how the EU and China construct their foreign policies as well as of possible conflicts that arise from them.

Contesting the “Corrupt Elites,” Creating the “Pure People,” and Renegotiating the Hierarchies of the International Order? Populism and Foreign Policy-Making in Turkey and Hungary

This article explores the link between populism and hierarchies in international relations by examining the recent foreign policy-making in Turkey and Hungary—two countries run by populist leaders. We argue that when populists bring populism into foreign policy, they do so by contesting the “corrupt elites” of the international order and, simultaneously, attempt to create the “pure people” transnationally. The populists contest the “eliteness” and leadership status of these “elites” and the international order and its institutions, that is, the “establishment,” that these “elites” have come to represent by challenging them both in discourse and in action. The creation of the “pure people” happens by discursively demarcating the “underprivileged” of the international order as a subcategory based on religion and supplementing them with aid, thus mimicking the distributive strategies of populism, this time at the international level. We illustrate that when populist leaders, insert populism into foreign policies of their respective states, through contesting the “corrupt elites” and creating the “pure people,” the built-in vertical stratification mechanisms of populism that stems from the antagonistic binaries inherent to populism provide them with the necessary superiority and inferiority labels allowing them to renegotiate hierarchies in the international system in an attempt to modify the existing ones or to create new ones.