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KEY CONCEPTS OF RUSSIAN FOREIGN POLICY: PAST AND PRESENT
Instructor: Anatoly Reshetnikov
Email Address: reshetnikov_anatoly@phd.ceu.edu.
Office Hours: by appointment
Course Seminars
Monday and Wednesday, 17:20-19:00
Course Description and Aims
This course brings together several different academic approaches to making sense of Russian foreign policy. It combines the insights from the disciplines of International Relations, Political Science, Postcolonial Studies, International Political Sociology and Historical IR to provide a context-rich and historically informed understanding of the key concepts that shaped Russian foreign policy in the past and, to a large extent, continue shaping it in the present. Instead of being organized chronologically or geographically, the course is divided into conceptual clusters that tackle the most enduring, contested and ambiguous categories that form the core of Russian foreign policy discourse. The purpose of the course is not to claim any direct equivalence between the old and the new concepts relevant for Russian foreign policy making. Neither is it to uncover the transhistorical nature of those.
Instead, it offers to look at the contemporary points of contestation and convergence between Russia and other international actors through the prism of several evolving ideas that have been populating Russian political space for at least a couple of centuries.
The reading materials include relevant scholarly work, primary sources, policy doctrines and media publications. Such combination is meant to develop students’ ability to navigate their way within Russian and Russia-related political and academic discourse and to competently use it in further analysis. Students are not required to speak and/or read Russian, or possess a special area expertise to enrol into this course (even though such skills could be an advantage). Yet, active interest in Russia’s past and present foreign and internal affairs extending beyond the mandatory reading list is crucial for completing the course successfully.
Learning outcomes
By the end of the course, students are expected:
• to be familiar with the most salient categories shaping Russia’s foreign policy discourse and conditioning its international moves;
• to be able to historicize those categories in a competent and context-rich way;
• to have the ability to interpret current developments in Russian foreign policy making;
• to effortlessly navigate their way through relevant academic literatures and locate primary sources;
• be able to produce an analytical essay on at least one of the discussed topics;
• to master critical assessment skills.
Teaching Method
This course consists of interactive lectures, current affairs and media updates, in-class discussions and student presentations. In addition, students will need to prepare and submit two reflection papers and one final paper. Individual grades for papers, participation, presentations and updates will factor into the final grade for the course. All the readings and other files relevant for in-class sessions will be
2 uploaded to the CEU E-learning site, unless the link to a website or a publication is provided in the syllabus. For making in-class discussions constructive and interesting, it is essential that all the required readings are completed before the class.
Note on Plagiarism
Academic honesty and integrity is taken very seriously. The information on what will be considered as plagiarism and how it will be handled can be found in CEU’s Policy of Plagiarism. All submitted assignments are processed through the Turnitin software, which checks the originality of students’
work.
Assessment Method
Attendance, active participation and media briefs – 10%
• Students are expected to regularly participate in class discussions. Discussion is the corner stone of the learning model adopted for this course. Attendance is also essential. If you are unable to attend a seminar, please inform the instructor in advance via email. In addition, students will be asked to prepare short (1-2 minutes) media briefs on specific topics that will be assigned during the first session. While media brief will take place in the beginning of every class, this does not imply that every student would need to contribute each time. In general, this will depend of the state of current affairs, but more or less regular participation in media briefs should be expected.
Two reflection papers (800-1000 words each) – 20% (10% each)
• Students will be asked to write one reflection paper on two or more readings/materials from weeks 1-6 and another reflection paper on two or more readings/materials from weeks 7-12.
While students can choose freely which of the assigned texts to write on, papers must be submitted before the key readings/materials in question are discussed in class.
Presentation – 25%
• Each student must prepare one 15-minute presentation on the course materials to be discussed during individual sessions. The presentation should not merely summarise the assigned texts, but focus on the connection and the dialog between the readings, both for the session in question and the previously discussed. Going outside the scope of the assigned materials and attempting to analyse original discourse is also welcomed.
Final paper (4000 words) – 45%
• Each student will need to submit a full-length research paper before an agreed upon deadline.
The topic of the paper must be discussed with the instructor at least once. Papers can address theoretical questions, but may also rely on empirics. Readings listed in this syllabus should be viewed as a point of departure, not a constraint.
Seminar breakdown
1. Introduction (18 Sep) Syllabus overview, discussion of assignments, allocation of presentations and media brief themes.
I. CONSTANTS
2. The West (20 Sep) Neumann, Iver B. Russia and the idea of Europe: a study in identity and international relations. Routledge, 2017, chapters 1,3 and 8.
3 Kohn, Hans (ed.). The Mind of Modern Russia. Harper & Brothers, 1962, chapters 2 and 6.
3. Honour (25 Sep) Tsygankov, Andrei P. Russia and the West from Alexander to Putin:
honor in international relations. Cambridge University Press, 2012, pp. 1-40.
Lukyuanov, Fyodor. “Putin’s Foreign Policy: The Quest to Restore Russia’s Rightful Place.” Foreign Affairs 95 (2016): 30-37.
4. Great power (27 Sep) Neumann, Iver B. “Russia as a great power, 1815–2007.” Journal of International Relations and Development 11.2 (2008): 128-151.
Larson, Deborah Welch, and Alexei Shevchenko. “Shortcut to greatness: The new thinking and the revolution in Soviet foreign policy.” International Organization 57.1 (2003): 77-109.
Lavrov, Sergei. “Russia’s Foreign Policy in a Historical Perspective.”
Russia in global affairs 14.2 (2016): 8-19.
II. PERIFERAL EMPIRE
5. Colonization (2 Oct) Etkind, Alexander. Internal colonization: Russia's imperial experience. Polity Press, 2011, pp. 1-42, 72-90.
Locatelli, Catherine, and Sylvain Rossiaud. “Russia’s Gas and Oil Policy: the Emerging Organizational and Institutional Framework for Regulating Access to Hydrocarbon Resources.” IAEE Energy Forum, 1st Quarter. 2011.
6. Defeat (4 Oct) Zarakol, Ayse. After defeat: how the East learned to live with the West. Vol. 118. Cambridge University Press, 2010, pp. 1-26, 201-239.
Putin, Vladimir. Speech and the Following Discussion at the Munich Conference on Security Policy. 10 February 2007
(http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/24034).
7. Postcolony (9 Oct) Morozov, Viatcheslav. Russia's Postcolonial Identity: A Subaltern Empire in a Eurocentric World. Springer, 2015, Introduction, Chapters 2 & 5.
Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation. 1 December 2016 (https://goo.gl/5hCPFs).
III. PATHOLOGIES
8. Crisis (11 Oct) Prozorov, Sergei. “From Katechon to Intrigant: The Breakdown of
4 the Post-Soviet Nomos.” Alexander Astrov (ed.). Great Power (Mis) Management. The Russian-Georgian War and Its Implications for Global Political Order (2011): 25-42.
Lukyanov, Fyodor. “A Failed New World Order and Beyond: Russian View.” Strategic Analysis 40.6 (2016): 474-485.
Dynkin, A., et al. “Russia and the World: 2015. IMEMO Forecast.”
New Perspectives 22.2 (2014): TBA.
9. Hysteria (16 Oct) Neumann, Iver B., and Vincent Pouliot. “Untimely Russia: Hysteresis in Russian-Western relations over the past millennium.” Security Studies 20.1 (2011): 105-137.
Magun, Artemy. “Hysterical Machiavellianism: Russian Foreign Policy and the International Non-Relation.” Theory & Event 19.3 (2016).
IV. ACTORS
10. The Leader (18 Oct) Wood, Elizabeth A. “Hypermasculinity as a Scenario of Power:
– to be rescheduled! Vladimir Putin's iconic rule, 1999–2008.” International Feminist Journal of Politics 18.3 (2016): 329-350.
Troshchinsky, Dmitry. “Note on Ministries.” Sbornik Russkago Istoricheskago Obshchestva [Journal of Russian Historical Society], Vol. 3 (1868), excerpts.
Cherniavsky, Michael. Tsar and People. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961, pp. TBA.
11. NO CLASS (23 Oct) National Holiday
12. The People (25 Oct) Hopf, Ted. “Common-sense constructivism and hegemony in world politics.” International Organization 67.2 (2013): 317-354.
Levada surveys (http://www.levada.ru/en/).
13. The State (30 Oct) Kharkhordin, Oleg. “What is the state? The Russian concept of Gosudarstvo in the European context.” History and Theory 40.2 (2001): 206-240.
Pavlovsky, Gleb. “The Russian System: a View from the Inside.”
Wilson Center. 9 September 2016 (https://goo.gl/kkYWmm).
14. NO CLASS (1 Nov) National Holiday
15. IOs (6 Nov) Kropatcheva, Elena. “The evolution of Russia's OSCE policy: from the
5 promises of the Helsinki final act to the Ukrainian crisis.” Journal of contemporary European studies 23.1 (2015): 6-24.
Willerton, John P., Gary Goertz, and Michael O. Slobodchikoff.
“Mistrust and hegemony: Regional institutional design, the FSU-CIS, and Russia.” International Area Studies Review 18.1 (2015): 26-52.
V. IDEOLOGIES
16. Messianism (8 Nov) Engström, Maria. “Contemporary Russian Messianism and New Russian Foreign Policy.” Contemporary Security Policy 35.3 (2014):
356-379.
Poe, Marshall. “Moscow, the Third Rome: The Origins and
Transformations of a ‘Pivotal Moment’.” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas H. 3 (2001): 412-429.
17. Geopolitics (13 Nov) Astrov, Alexander, and Natalia Morozova. “Russia: geopolitics from the heartland.” Stefano Guzzini (ed.). The Return of Geopolitics in Europe. Cambridge University Press (2012): 192-216.
Trubetskoi, Nikolai. Europe and Mankind (1920), pp. TBA.
Putin, Vladimir. Address to Federal Assembly 2005 (https://goo.gl/pJAh4c).
18. Nationalism (15 Nov) Laruelle, Marlene. “Russia as a ‘Divided Nation,’ from Compatriots to Crimea: A Contribution to the Discussion on Nationalism and Foreign Policy." Problems of Post-Communism 62.2 (2015): 88-97.
Putin, Vladimir. “Russia: the National Question.” Nezavisimaya gazeta, 23 January 2012 (https://goo.gl/G4Y2yK).
The International Russian Conservative Forum Participants’
Resolution (https://goo.gl/oZQeTC).
MacFarquhar, Neil. “Right-Wing Groups Find a Haven, for a Day, in Russia.” The New York Times. 22 March 2015
(https://goo.gl/SSrp41).
19. Conservatism (20 Nov) Makarychev, Andrey and Alexandra Yatsyk. “Refracting Europe:
Biopolitical Conservatism and Art Protest in Putin’s Russia.” David Cadier and Margot Light (eds.). Russia’s Foreign Policy: Ideas, Domestic Politics and External Relations. Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, pp. 139-155.
Putin, Vladimir. Valdai Speech. 24 October 2014 (http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/46860).
6 Sneider, Noah. Body Politics. The Economist. June/July 2016
(https://www.1843magazine.com/features/body-politics)
VI. TOOLS
20. Intervention (22 Nov) Allison, Roy. “Russian ‘deniable’ intervention in Ukraine: how and why Russia broke the rules.” International Affairs 90.6 (2014): 1255- 1297.
UNSC meeting records. Meetings 5951, 5952, 7124 and 7134.
21. Soft power (27 Nov) Zevelev, Igor. “The Russian world boundaries: Russia’s national identity transformation and new foreign policy doctrine.” Russia in Global Affairs 7 (2014): 2007-2013.
Feklyunina, Valentina. “Soft power and identity: Russia, Ukraine and the ‘Russian world(s)’.” European Journal of International
Relations 22.4 (2016): 773-796.
Russian World website (http://russkiymir.ru/en/)
22. Cyber warfare (29 Nov) Deibert, Ronald J., Rafal Rohozinski, Masashi Crete-Nishihata.
“Cyclones in cyberspace: Information shaping and denial in the 2008 Russia–Georgia war.” Security Dialogue, 43(1): 3-24.
Aro, Jessikka. “The cyberspace war: propaganda and trolling as warfare tools.” European View (2016) 15: 121-132.
Chen, Adrian. “The Agency.” The New York Times, 2 June 2015 (https://goo.gl/1kQP41) .
23. Mega-events (4 Dec) Makarychev, Andrey and Alexandra Yatsyk. Mega Events in Post- Soviet Eurasia: Shifting Borderlines of Inclusion and Exclusion.
Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, chapters 1 and 10.
Sochi Olympics Opening Ceremony.
24. Conclusions (6 Dec) Concluding discussion and talk about final papers.
