Search

Begin New Search Content Type Journal Article

5671. Russia's foreign policy towards Poland: Seeking reconciliation? A social constructivist analysis

Author:
Valentina Feklyunina
Publication Date:
07-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
Russia's relations with Poland in the post-Soviet period have been greatly affected by their divergent historical narratives that have shaped their dominant identities and have been further promoted by the political elites to maintain these identities. However, Moscow's attempts to project a more positive image in Poland in recent years have involved re-articulating some elements of the official narrative. Drawing on social constructivism, this article presents a theoretical framework that can be applied to an analysis of Russia's foreign policy, and illustrates its benefits by examining Russia's policy towards Poland.
Topic:
Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
Russia, Poland, Soviet Union, and Moscow

5672. The problem of 'the international' in Russian identity formation

Author:
Richard Sakwa
Publication Date:
07-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
A new era in international politics is gradually taking shape in which the legacy of the Cold War is gradually fading, but in which new lines of division are emerging. The major institutions of the Cold War period are undergoing a long decay although the political processes associated with them are becoming increasingly dysfunctional. New forms of multi-polarity are taking shape accompanied by the struggle between defenders of the status quo and those ready to adapt to the structural revisionism inherent in the new pattern of international politics. In all of this, Russia acts as the bellwether, developing as a distinct and separate pole in the international system rather than joining the Western constellation, as was anticipated after the end of the Cold War. Russia's great power identity in the international system is accompanied by domestic systemic specificities, which reinforce differentiation at the structural level. Russia's neo-revisionism does not repudiate the present balance in international order, but seeks to create what it considers to be a more comprehensive and equal system. This can be seen in its various forms of interaction and modes of engagement with 'the international'. In methodological terms, the attempt to analyse these changes through a Cold War lens is a categorical error that perpetuates anachronistic paradigms. By disaggregating Russia's engagement with the international into a number of distinct processes, we can delineate more clearly the interaction of structural and systemic factors that sustain Russia's neo-revisionism.
Topic:
Cold War
Political Geography:
Russia

5673. Russian foreign policy in the making: The linkage between internal dynamics and the external context

Author:
Maria Raquel Freire
Publication Date:
07-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
Russian foreign policy is both an expression of Moscow's internal political dealings around the presidential administration and the bureaucracies that support it, with their focus on the shaping and making of foreign policy, as well as its implementation, which is grounded in Russia's stated goal of its reassertion in the international system as a major power. This is a process that is embedded in continuous interaction between different levels of agency and the construction of understandings and perceptions, both at the domestic and the international level. Looking at foreign policy as a process, the article argues that the study of foreign policy should go beyond strictly positivist assumptions, as relations between the different actors and the foreign policy approaches that these suggest are embedded in structural, material and ideational dimensions. Departing from this conceptual frame, the article looks at Russian foreign policy, seeking to understand how the internal/external linkages take place in the process of policy construction, looking in particular at socialisation processes and normative adaptation.
Topic:
Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
Russia and Moscow

5674. Do leaders still decide? The role of leadership in Russian foreign policymaking

Author:
Licínia Simão
Publication Date:
07-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
This article looks at Russian foreign policy from the perspective of the individuals responsible for decision making. The focus on the individual level of analysis aims to shed light on the evolving dynamics of Russian foreign policymaking and complement existing analysis on the role of ideas, world views and influential groups in foreign policy analysis, with insights from neo-classical realism and constructivism. Whereas the former sees the state as the transmission belt between international power distributions and political action, the latter underlines the roles of ideas and norms to explain agency. In this context, the article is well placed to deal with the evolving relationship between leaders' views and situational constraints, including other actors involved in setting foreign policy priorities and the external environment. How are decisions taken in the context of Russia's foreign policy under President Putin and Medvedev? What is the role of the presidents from both a legal (constitutional) and a practical perspective? The article maps Russian political leaders' decisions, under Putin and Medvedev, using two case studies: Putin's decision to support the US-led post-9/11 war on terror and Medvedev's decision to go to war with Georgia in 2008.
Topic:
Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
Russia and United States

5675. Interest groups in Russian foreign policy: The invisible hand of the Russian Orthodox Church

Author:
Nikita Lomagin
Publication Date:
07-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
Among the domestic interest groups that play a role in influencing Russian foreign policy the Russian Orthodox Church has become an important actor. Its most important role has been that of supporting the emergence of a new nationalist Russian identity to undergird Russian policy. On specific policy issues, it has advocated the political reunification of Eastern Slavic Orthodox peoples, the emergence of a multipolar international system and the restatement of traditional values as the foundation for the pursuit of global human rights.
Topic:
Foreign Policy and Human Rights
Political Geography:
Russia

5676. Using the neo-classical realism paradigm to predict Russian foreign policy behaviour as a complement to using resources

Author:
Bertil Nygren
Publication Date:
07-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
This essay presents the argument that analysts, crystal ball readers and general future-tellers generally should to a much higher extent rely on claimed interests of great powers than on resources alone in predictions of future behaviour of great powers. Analysts should analyse what states want to do given what they could do, as much as analyse what states could do based on their resources, or analysts should analyse state policy intentions as much as state policy resources.
Topic:
Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
Russia

5677. Geopolitics and Russian foreign policy

Author:
John Berryman
Publication Date:
07-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
The article provides a broad overview of the fluctuating connections between the controversial and ambiguous field of modern geopolitics and Russia. Given the pivotal significance of the Russian challenge within the early hypotheses of Mahan and Mackinder, the article first explores those distinctive geographical and spatial considerations that helped shape the development of the Russian Empire. The place of geopolitics in the Cold War is then reviewed, including both its policy orientation and the exchanges between the proponents of geopolitical realism and liberal internationalism. In conclusion, the article examines the post-Cold War renaissance of geopolitics, reviewing both theoretical developments and policy implications for Russian foreign policy.
Topic:
Foreign Policy and Politics
Political Geography:
Russia

5678. Is the European Convention Going to Be 'Supreme'? A Comparative-Constitutional Overview of ECHR and EU Law before National Courts

Author:
Giuseppe Martinico
Publication Date:
05-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
The aim of this article is to answer the question, 'are national judges extending the structural EU law principles (primacy and direct effect) to the European Convention on Human Rights'? This article does not intend to examine the broader issue of the rapprochement between the legal systems of the EU and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) but it concentrates on how national judges treat the norms of the ECHR compared with their treatment of EU law. I have structured this article in three parts. The first part offers a first look at the 'constitutional variety' existing in terms of constitutional provisions devoted to the impact of the ECHR and EU laws on the national systems. In the second part I will move to analyse the relevant case law of the domestic judges on three factors of potential convergence: consistent interpretation, disapplication of national law conflicting with European provisions, and emergence of a counter-limits doctrine. Finally, in the third part I will offer some concluding remarks on the convergence issue.
Political Geography:
Europe

5679. Sustainable Development in International Law: Nature and Operation of an Evolutive Legal Norm

Author:
Virginie Barral
Publication Date:
05-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
The wide dissemination of sustainable development in international law has generated considerable academic interest. However, because of the evasive and flexible content of what has been termed by the ICJ a concept in the Gabcˇíkovo-Nagymaros case, and more recently an objective in the Pulp Mills case, academic commentary has often struggled to ascertain sustainable development's legal nature, which has proved a notion defying legal classification. One attractive thesis has been Lowe's analysis of sustainable development as an interstitial or modifying norm which exerts its normative influence as an interpretative tool in the hands of judges. Its interpretative function is certainly very significant. Judicial bodies have used it to legitimize recourse to evolutive treaty interpretation, as a rule of conflict resolution, and even to redefine conventional obligations. However, beyond this convenient hermeneutical function, by laying down an objective to strive for in hundreds of treaties, sustainable development primarily purports to regulate state conduct. As an objective, it lays down not an absolute but a relative obligation to achieve sustainable development. Such obligations are known as obligations of means or of best efforts. Legal subjects are thus ultimately under an obligation to promote sustainable development.

5680. Transnational Holocaust Litigation

Author:
Leora Bilsky
Publication Date:
05-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
International adjudication of the Holocaust has played a defining role in the development of international criminal law. Its legacy has recently been challenged by the Holocaust restitution actions brought before American courts in the 1990s. Settled for unprecedented amounts, the litigation has been sharply criticized by legal scholars and historians, who raise doubts as to the justice achieved for victims, and criticize the representation of the Holocaust in the actions. This article assesses the contribution of civil proceedings to conceptions of justice in international law. First, contrary to the critics, it argues that the civil class action provides an appropriate legal tool to deal with the liability of bureaucratic institutions for participation in gross human rights violations. Secondly, this article argues that the restitution actions altered the relationship between law and the history of the Holocaust as shaped under the paradigm of criminal law. Precisely because it was structured as a civil action and was settled, the litigation made a substantial contribution to historical research on the relationship between the state, corporations, and civil society in the carrying out of mass crimes. Thus, in opposition to the prevailing view that criminal law is the privileged form of law for dealing with atrocity, this article uncovers the valuable contribution of this new model of litigation to international law.
Political Geography:
America