Geopolitical Rivalries in the “Common Neighborhood”

Geopolitical Rivalries in the “Common Neighborhood”
Author: Vasif Huseynov
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2019-11-20
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 3838212770

This timely book analyses ‘soft power’ in the light of neoclassical realist premises as part of the foreign policy toolkit of great powers to expand their sphere of influence. Vasif Huseynov argues that if nuclear armed great powers compete against the same type of powers to expand or sustain their sphere of influence over a populated region, they use soft power as a major expansive instrument while military power remains a tool to defend themselves and back up their foreign policies. Presenting his model of soft power, the author explores the role of soft power projection by great powers in the formation of the external alignment of regional states. He focuses on the rivalries between Russia and the West (i.e. the EU and the USA) over the states located between the EU and Russia (the region known as the “common [or shared] neighborhood”) and on two of these regional states (Ukraine and Belarus) to test his hypotheses.

Geopolitical Imagination

Geopolitical Imagination
Author: Mikhail Suslov
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
Total Pages: 302
Release: 2020-11-02
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 3838213610

In his timely book, Mikhail Suslov discusses contemporary Russian geopolitical culture and argues that a better knowledge of geopolitical concepts and fantasies is instrumental for understanding Russia’s policies. Specifically, he analyzes such concepts as “Eurasianism,” “Holy Russia,” “Russian civilization,” “Russia as a continent,” “Novorossia,” and others. He demonstrates that these concepts reached unprecedented ascendance in the Russian public debates, tending to overshadow other political and domestic discussions. Suslov argues that the geopolitical imagination, structured by these concepts, defines the identity of post-Soviet Russia, while this complex of geopolitical representations engages, at the same time, with the broader, international criticism of the Western liberal world order and aligns itself with the conservative defense of cultural authenticity across the globe. Geopolitical ideologies and utopias discussed in the book give the post-Soviet political mainstream the intellectual instruments to think about Russia’s exclusion—imaginary or otherwise—from the processes of a global world which is re-shaping itself after the end of the Cold War; they provide tools to construct the self-perception of Russia as a sovereign great-power, a self-sufficient civilization, and as one of the poles in a multipolar world; and they help to establish the Messianic vision of Russia as the beacon of order, tradition, and morality in a sea of chaos and corruption.

Russia–EU Relations and the Common Neighborhood

Russia–EU Relations and the Common Neighborhood
Author: Irina Busygina
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 227
Release: 2017-07-20
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1315443945

Examining Russia–EU relations in terms of the forms and types of power tools they use, this book argues that the deteriorating relations between Russia and the EU lie in the deep differences in their preferences for the international status quo. These different approaches, combined with economic interdependence and geographic proximity, means both parties experience significant difficulties in shaping strategy and formulating agendas with regards to each other. The Russian leadership is well aware of the EU’s "authority orientation" but fails to reliably predict foreign policy at the EU level, whilst the EU realizes Russia’s "coercive orientation" in general, but cannot predict when and where coercive tools will be used next. Russia is gradually realizing the importance of authority, while the EU sees the necessity of coercion tools for coping with certain challenges. The learning process is ongoing but the basic distinction remains unchanged and so their approaches cannot be reconciled as long as both actors exist in their current form. Using a theoretical framework and case studies including Belarus, Georgia and Ukraine, Busygina examines the possibilities and constraints that arise when the "power of authority" and the "power of coercion" interact with each other, and how this interaction affects third parties.

Religious Appeals in Power Politics

Religious Appeals in Power Politics
Author: Peter S. Henne
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 221
Release: 2023-10-15
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1501770527

Religious Appeals in Power Politics examines how states use, or attempt to use, confessional appeals to religious belief and conscience to advance political strategies and objectives. Through case studies of the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Russia, Peter S. Henne demonstrates that religion, although not as high profile or well-funded a tool as economic sanctions or threats of military force, remains a potent weapon in international relations. Public policy analysis often minimizes the role of religion, favoring military or economic matters as the "important" arenas of policy debate. As Henne shows, however, at transformative moments in political history, states turn to faith-based appeals to integrate or fragment international coalitions. Henne highlights Saudi Arabia's 1960s rivalry with Egypt, the United States's post-9/11 leadership in the global war on terrorism, and the Russian Federation's contemporary expansionism both to reveal the presence and power of calls for religious unity and to emphasize the uncertainty and anxiety such appeals can create. Religious Appeals in Power Politics offers a bold corrective to those who consider religion as tangential to military or economic might.

The Russian Path

The Russian Path
Author: Dmitry Gel'man, Vladimir Marganiya, Otar Travin
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2020-10-20
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 3838214218

The politico-economic reforms launched during the late twentieth century in post-Soviet Russia have led to contradictory and ambiguous results. The new economic environment and mode of governance that emerged have been subjected to serious criticism. What were the causes of these developments? Were they unavoidable for Russia due to specific factors grounded in the country’s previous experiences? Or were they an intended result of actions taken by the leaders of the country during the last few decades? The authors of this book share neither a deterministic approach, which implies that Russia is bound to fail because of the nature of its economic and political evolution, nor a voluntarist approach, which implies that these failures were caused only by the incompetence and/or malicious intentions of its leaders. Instead, this study offers a different framework for the analysis of political and economic developments in present-day Russia. It is based on four ‘i’s—ideas, interests, institutions, and illusions.

How Corruption and Anti-Corruption Policies Sustain Hybrid Regimes

How Corruption and Anti-Corruption Policies Sustain Hybrid Regimes
Author: Oksana Huss
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
Total Pages: 408
Release: 2020-10-27
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 3838214307

Leaders of hybrid regimes in pursuit of political domination and material gain instrumentalize both hidden forms of corruption and public anti-corruption policies. Corruption is pursued for different purposes including cooperation with strategic partners and exclusion of opponents. Presidents use anti-corruption policies to legitimize and institutionalize political domination. Corrupt practices and anti-corruption policies become two sides of the same coin and are exercised to maintain an uneven political playing field. This study combines empirical analysis and social constructivism for an investigation into the presidencies of Leonid Kuchma (1994–2005), Viktor Yushchenko (2005–2010), and Viktor Yanukovych (2010–2014). Explorative expert interviews, press surveys, content analysis of presidential speeches, as well as critical assessment of anti-corruption legislation are used for comparison and process tracing of the utilization of corruption under three Ukrainian presidents.

Geopolitical Rivalries in the "Common Neighborhood"

Geopolitical Rivalries in the
Author: Vasif Huseynov
Publisher:
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2019
Genre: Globalization
ISBN: 9783838272771

Vasif Huseynov argues that if nuclear-armed powers compete to expand their sphere of influence, they use soft power as a major instrument while military power remains a tool to back up their foreign policies. He focuses on the rivalries between Russia and the West over the states located between the EU and Russia, primarily Ukraine and Belarus.

Post-Soviet Secessionism

Post-Soviet Secessionism
Author: Daria Minakov, Mikhail Sasse, Gwendolyn Minakov, Mikhail Isachenko
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
Total Pages: 262
Release: 2021-04-20
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 3838215389

The USSR’s dissolution resulted in the creation of not only fifteen recognized states but also of four non-recognized statelets: Nagorno-Karabakh, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, and Transnistria. Their polities comprise networks with state-like elements. Since the early 1990s, the four pseudo-states have been continously dependent on their sponsor countries (Russia, Armenia), and contesting the territorial integrity of their parental nation-states Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Moldova. In 2014, the outburst of Russia-backed separatism in Eastern Ukraine led to the creation of two more para-states, the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) and the Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR), whose leaders used the experience of older de facto states. In 2020, this growing network of de facto states counted an overall population of more than 4 million people. The essays collected in this volume address such questions as: How do post-Soviet de facto states survive and continue to grow? Is there anything specific about the political ecology of Eastern Europe that provides secessionism with the possibility to launch state-making processes in spite of international sanctions and counteractions of their parental states? How do secessionist movements become embedded in wider networks of separatism in Eastern and Western Europe? What is the impact of secessionism and war on the parental states? The contributors are Jan Claas Behrends, Petra Colmorgen, Bruno Coppieters, Nataliia Kasianenko, Alice Lackner, Mikhail Minakov, and Gwendolyn Sasse.

The Russian Orthodox Church and Modernity

The Russian Orthodox Church and Modernity
Author: Regina Elsner
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
Total Pages: 390
Release: 2021-10-20
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 3838215680

The Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) faced various iterations of modernization throughout its history. This conflicted encounter continues in the ROC’s current resistance against—what it perceives as—Western modernity including liberal and secular values. This study examines the historical development of the ROC’s arguments against—and sometimes preferences for—modernization and analyzes which positions ended up influencing the official doctrine. The book’s systematic analysis of dogmatic treatises shows the ROC’s considerable ability of constructive engagement with various aspects of the modern world. Balancing between theological traditions of unity and plurality, the ROC’s today context of operating within an authoritarian state appears to tip the scale in favor of unity.