Russia's Foreign Policy

Russia's Foreign Policy
Author: Andrei P. Tsygankov
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Total Pages: 293
Release: 2010-03-16
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0742567540

A third edition of this book is now available. Now fully updated and revised, this clear and comprehensive text explores the past thirty years of Soviet/Russian international relations, comparing foreign policy formation under Gorbachev, Yeltsin, Putin, and Medvedev. Drawing on an impressive mastery of both Russian and Western sources, Andrei P. Tsygankov shows how Moscow's policies have shifted with each leader's vision of Russia's national interests. He evaluates the successes and failures of Russia's foreign policies, explaining its many turns as Russia's identity and interaction with the West have evolved. The book concludes with reflections on the emergence of the post-Western world and the challenges it presents to Russia's enduring quest for great-power status along with its desire for a special relationship with Western nations.

Russian Foreign Policy

Russian Foreign Policy
Author: Nikolas K. Gvosdev
Publisher: CQ Press
Total Pages: 457
Release: 2013-08-22
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1483322084

In a truly contemporary analysis of Moscow′s relations with its neighbors and other strategic international actors, Gvosdev and Marsh use a comprehensive vectors approach, dividing the world into eight geographic zones. Each vector chapter looks at the dynamics of key bilateral relationships while highlighting major topical issues—oil and energy, defense policy, economic policy, the role of international institutions, and the impact of major interest groups or influencers—demonstrating that Russia formulates multiple, sometimes contrasting, foreign policies. Providing rich historical context as well as exposure to the scholarly literature, the authors offer an incisive look at how and why Russia partners with some states while it counter-balances others.

East Central Europe and the former Soviet Union

East Central Europe and the former Soviet Union
Author: Michael Bradshaw
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 287
Release: 2016-04-15
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1317905024

A comprehensive introduction to the important economic, social and political processes and development issues in this increasingly popular area of study. Employing a groundbreaking thematic approach the book centres its discussion on the interrelation between contemporary development theories and continuing transition issues in this huge and complex region.

Multiple Moralities and Religions in Post-Soviet Russia

Multiple Moralities and Religions in Post-Soviet Russia
Author: Jarrett Zigon
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Total Pages: 246
Release: 2011-09-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 085745210X

In the post-Soviet period morality became a debatable concept, open to a multitude of expressions and performances. From Russian Orthodoxy to Islam, from shamanism to Protestantism, religions of various kinds provided some of the first possible alternative moral discourses and practices after the end of the Soviet system. This influence remains strong today. Within the Russian context, religion and morality intersect in such social domains as the relief of social suffering, the interpretation of history, the construction and reconstruction of traditions, individual and social health, and business practices. The influence of religion is also apparent in the way in which the Russian Orthodox Church increasingly acts as the moral voice of the government. The wide-ranging topics in this ethnographically based volume show the broad religious influence on both discursive and everyday moralities. The contributors reveal that although religion is a significant aspect of the various assemblages of morality, much like in other parts of the world, religion in postsocialist Russia cannot be separated from the political or economic or transnational institutional aspects of morality.

The Force of Custom

The Force of Custom
Author: Judith Beyer
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
Total Pages: 222
Release: 2016-12-16
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0822981548

Judith Beyer presents a finely textured ethnographic study that sheds new light on the legal and moral ordering of everyday life in northwestern Kyrgyzstan. Through her extensive fieldwork, Beyer captures the thoughts and voices of local people in two villages, Aral and Engels, and combines these with firsthand observations to create an original ethnography. Beyer shows how local Kyrgyz negotiate proper behavior and regulate disputes by invoking custom, known to the locals as salt. While salt is presented as age-old tradition, its invocation needs to be understood as a highly developed and flexible rhetorical strategy that people adapt to suit the political, legal, economic, and religious environments. Officially, codified state law should take precedence when it comes to dispute resolution, yet the unwritten laws of salt and the increasing importance of Islamic law provide the standards for ordering everyday life. As Beyer further reveals, interpretations of both Islamic and state law are also intrinsically linked to salt. By interweaving case studies on kinship, legal negotiations, festive events, mourning rituals, and political and business dealings, Beyer shows how salt is the binding element in rural Kyrgyz social life, used to explain and negotiate moral behavior and to postulate communal identity. In this way, salt provides a time-tested, sustainable source of authentication that defies changes in government and the tides of religious movements. Beyer's ground-level analysis provides a broad base of knowledge that will be valuable for students and researchers of contemporary Central Asia.

What Happened to the Soviet University?

What Happened to the Soviet University?
Author: Maia Chankseliani
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 208
Release: 2022
Genre: Colleges and universities
ISBN: 0192849840

What Happened to the Soviet University? explores how one of the largest geopolitical changes of the twentieth century-- the dissolution of the Soviet Union-- triggered and inspired the reconfiguration of the Soviet university. The reader is invited to engage in a historical and sociological analysis of radical and incremental changes affecting sixty-nine former Soviet universities since the early 1990s. The study departs from traditional deficit-oriented, internalist explanations of change and illustrates how global flows of ideas, people, and finances have impacted higher education transformations in this region. It also identifies areas of persistence. The processes of marketisation, internationalisation, and academic liberation are analysed to show that universities have maintained certain traditions while adopting and internalising new ways of fulfilling their education and research functions. Soviet universities have survived chaotic processes of post-Soviet transformation and have self-stabilised with time. Most of them remain flagship institutions with large numbers of students and relatively high research productivity. At the same time, the majority of these universities operate in a top-down, one-man management environment with limited institutional autonomy and academic freedom. As the homes of intellectuals, universities represent a duality of opportunity and threat. Universities can nurture collective possibilities, imagining and bringing about different futures. At the same time, or perhaps because of this, the probability is high that universities will continue to be perceived as threats to governments with authoritarian inclinations. One message to take away from this monograph is that the time is ripe for former Soviet universities to loosen their last remaining chains.

My Revision Notes: Edexcel AS/A-level History: Russia 1917-91: From Lenin to Yeltsin

My Revision Notes: Edexcel AS/A-level History: Russia 1917-91: From Lenin to Yeltsin
Author: Robin Bunce
Publisher: Hodder Education
Total Pages: 129
Release: 2017-05-22
Genre: History
ISBN: 1471876381

Exam Board: Edexcel Level: AS/A-level Subject: History First Teaching: September 2015 First Exam: June 2016 Target success in Edexcel AS/A-level History with this proven formula for effective, structured revision; key content coverage is combined with exam preparation activities and exam-style questions to create a revision guide that students can rely on to review, strengthen and test their knowledge. - Enables students to plan and manage a successful revision programme using the topic-by-topic planner - Consolidates knowledge with clear and focused content coverage, organised into easy-to-revise chunks - Encourages active revision by closely combining historical content with related activities - Helps students build, practise and enhance their exam skills as they progress through activities set at three different levels - Improves exam technique through exam-style questions with sample answers and commentary from expert authors and teachers - Boosts historical knowledge with a useful glossary and timeline

Legacies of Totalitarian Language in the Discourse Culture of the Post-Totalitarian Era

Legacies of Totalitarian Language in the Discourse Culture of the Post-Totalitarian Era
Author: Ernest Andrews
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2011-05-19
Genre: History
ISBN: 0739164678

This book is unique in its kind. It is the first scholarly work to attempt a comprehensive and fairly detailed look into the lingering legacies of the communist totalitarian modes of thought and expression in the new discourse forms of the post-totalitarian era. The book gives also new and interesting insights into the ways the new, presumably democratically-minded political elites in post-totalitarian Eastern Europe, Russia, and China manipulate language to serve their own political and economic agendas. The book consists of ten discrete discussions, nine case-studies or 'chapters' and an 'introduction.' Chapter 1 discusses patterns of continuity and change in the conceptual apparatus and linguistic habits of political science and sociology practiced in the Czech Republic before and after 1989. Chapter 2 analyzes lingering effects of communist propaganda language in the political discourse and behavior in post-communist Poland. Chapter 3 analyzes the legacy of Soviet semantics in post-Soviet Moldovan politics through the prism of such politically contested words as 'democracy,' 'democratization,' and 'people.' Chapters 4 and 5 discuss the way in which communist patterns of thought and expression manifest themselves in the new political discourse in Romania and Bulgaria, respectively. Chapter 6 examines phenomena of change and continuity in the socio-linguistic and socio-political scene of post-Soviet Latvia. Chapter 7 analyzes the extent to which the language of the post-communist Romanian media differs from the official language of the communist era. Chapter 8 examines the evolution of Russian official discourse since the late eighties with a view of showing 'whether or not new phenomena in the evolution of post-Soviet discourse represent new development or just a mutation of the value-orientations of the old Soviet ideological apparatus.' Chapter 9 gives a detailed and lucid account of the evolution of both official and non-official discourse in China since the end of the Mao era.