PONARS Eurasia
  • About
    • Contact
    • Membership
      • Membership | Core
      • Membership | Collegium
      • Membership | Associates
      • About Membership
    • Ukraine Experts
    • Executive Committee
  • Policy Memos
    • List of Policy Memos
    • Submissions
  • Podcasts
  • Online Academy
  • Events
    • Past Events
  • Recommended
  • Ukraine Experts
Contacts

Address
1957 E St NW,
Washington, DC 20052

adminponars@gwu.edu
202.994.5915

NEWSLETTER
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Podcast
PONARS Eurasia
PONARS Eurasia
  • About
    • Contact
    • Membership
      • Membership | Core
      • Membership | Collegium
      • Membership | Associates
      • About Membership
    • Ukraine Experts
    • Executive Committee
  • Policy Memos
    • List of Policy Memos
    • Submissions
  • Podcasts
  • Online Academy
  • Events
    • Past Events
  • Recommended
  • Ukraine Experts
DIGITAL RESOURCES
digital resources

Bookstore 📚

Knowledge Hub

Course Syllabi

Point & Counterpoint

Policy Perspectives

RECOMMENDED
  • Will Ukraine Wind Up Making Territorial Concessions to Russia? Foreign Affairs Asks the Experts

    View
  • Pro-Kremlin Propaganda’s Failure in Ukraine | New Voices on Eurasia with Aaron Erlich (Jan. 19)

    View
  • Kyiv-Washington Relations in Times of Colossal War: The Ultimate Test of a Strategic Partnership

    View
  • Russia’s war in Ukraine threatens students daily and forces teachers to improvise

    View
  • Prevailing Soviet Legacies

    View
RSS PONARS Eurasia Podcast
  • The Putin-Xi Summit: What's New In Their Joint Communique ? February 23, 2022
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman speaks with Russian China experts Vita Spivak and Alexander Gabuev about the February meeting between Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, and what it may tell us about where the Russian-Chinese relationship is headed.
  • Exploring the Russian Courts' Ruling to Liquidate the Memorial Society January 28, 2022
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with scholars Kelly Smith and Benjamin Nathans about the history, achievements, and impending shutdown of the Memorial Society, Russia's oldest and most venerable civic organization, and what its imminent liquidation portends for the Russian civil society.
  • Russia's 2021 census and the Kremlin's nationalities policy [Lipman Series 2021] December 9, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with social scientist Andrey Shcherbak about the quality of the data collected in the recent population census and the goals of Vladimir Putin's government's nationalities policy
  • Active citizens of any kind are under threat [Lipman Series 2021] November 5, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Alexander Verkhovsky about the Kremlin's ever expanding toolkit against political and civic activists, journalists, and other dissidents.
  • Russia's Legislative Elections followup [Lipman Series 2021] October 4, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Tanya Lokot and Nikolay Petrov about the results of Russia’s legislative elections and about what comes next.
  • Why Is the Kremlin Nervous? [Lipman Series 2021] September 14, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Ben Noble and Nikolay Petrov about Russia’s September 17-19 legislative elections, repressive measures against electoral challengers, and whether to expect anything other than preordained results.
  • Vaccine Hesitancy in Russia, France, and the United States [Lipman Series 2021] August 31, 2021
    In this week's PONARS Eurasia Podcast episode, Maria Lipman chats with Denis Volkov, Naira Davlashyan, and Peter Slevin about why COVID-19 vaccination rates are still so low across the globe, comparing vaccine hesitant constituencies across Russia, France, and the United States.  
  • Is Russia Becoming More Soviet? [Lipman Series 2021] July 26, 2021
      In a new PONARS Eurasia Podcast episode, Maria Lipman chats with Maxim Trudolyubov about the current tightening of the Russian political sphere, asking whether or not it’s helpful to draw comparisons to the late Soviet period.
  • The Evolution of Russia's Political Regime [Lipman Series 2021] June 21, 2021
    In this week's episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Grigory Golosov and Henry Hale about the evolution of Russia's political regime, and what to expect in the lead-up to September's Duma elections.
  • Volodymyr Zelensky: Year Two [Lipman Series 2021] May 24, 2021
    In this week's episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Sergiy Kudelia and Georgiy Kasianov about Ukrainian President Zelensky's second year in office, and how he has handled the political turbulence of the past year.
  • Policy Perspectives

Domestic Foundations of Russian Security

  • July 23, 2012
  • PONARS Eurasia

Foreword

By Cory Welt

The George Washington University

This collection of essays is based on the proceedings of a March 2011 workshop of the Program on New Approaches to Research and Security in Eurasia (PONARS Eurasia), held in collaboration with the Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO), Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow. PONARS Eurasia is a program that promotes scholarly work and policy engagement on transnational and comparative topics within the Eurasian space, based on the expertise of a global network of social scientists.

The workshop—on Security Challenges in Russia and Eurasia—brought together scholars and experts from the Russian Federation, the United States, and Europe (including Ukraine and Azerbaijan) to propose initiatives for deepening international security cooperation in Eurasia; to consider the implications of changing relationships between Russia, the EU, and countries of post-Soviet Eastern Europe and the Caucasus; and to assess the domestic foundations of Russian security and democratic stability. We are publishing twenty-three essays from the workshop in three collected volumes, of which this is the third.

This volume, Domestic Foundations of Russian Security, assesses the prospects for reform in core security, political, and educational institutions in Russia and examines the changing dynamics of insurgency and state response in the North Caucasus. The three essays in Part I identify institutional legacies hindering reform of security and political institutions in Russia today. Focusing on the defense industry, Alla Kassianova lauds the Russian government for properly identifying key gaps in innovation, quality control, and cost control and its turn toward industry modernization and international cooperation as solutions. Nonetheless, she takes a dim view of the ability of Russia’s state-controlled industry to reform itself from the top-down. Brian Taylor closely examines the frequent assumption of continuity between Soviet and Russian security organs. While rejecting several alleged legacies as explanations for structures that have roots in Russia’s current transition or are common to many developing countries, he concludes that the “status and cultural reputation” of former KGB personnel and an expansive and powerful procuracy (the powers of which are only now beginning to diminish) are legacies of the Soviet era. Finally, Vladimir Gelman is discouraged by the prospects for fundamental political reform in Russia, observing that even current elites who recognize the need to change the system have too much to lose to risk doing so. In the absence of an external shock, he forecasts two scenarios for political development in Russia: perpetuation of the institutional status quo and gradual decay, or a return to greater authoritarianism.

Part II of the collection considers the roles of nationalism, ideology, and education. Viatcheslav Morozov argues that the recent rise of xenophobia in Russia— directed in part to domestic populations—is not unique. However, a lack of political liberalization in Russia has led to the de-legitimization of “top-down” multiculturalism and the prospect that extreme nationalism could emerge as the regime’s only viable democratic challenger. Ivan Kurilla notes the concerning development of a bulging but underqualified student population in Russia with high aspirations and low employment prospects. While the government recognizes the need for reform, the path it has charted risks leaving large regions of the country without quality higher education, deterioriation in the social sciences, a dwindling of entrants into academic careers, and a rise in insufficiently trained graduate students. Finally, Georgi Derluguian views as unlikely any of the most commonly predicted pathways of Russian development, whether technocratic authoritarianism, market liberalism, or nationalism. Instead, he predicts the rise of a hybrid state-building ideology in Russia that combines centralization and popular mobilization; indigeneity and multiculturalism; and local pride and global power—in other words, a kind of non-revolutionary “neo-Leninism.”

Finally, Part III focuses on the changing insurgency in the North Caucasus and the state’s response. Mark Kramer debunks recent claims that nationalist rather than Islamist motivations are driving suicide attacks by insurgents, observing that it was the turn to such tactics that undermined external support for the nationalist movement in Chechnya. Sufian Zhemukhov and Jean-François Ratelle distinguish between different types of motivating ideologies in the North Caucasus, Kabardino-Balkaria in particular, where radical Islam competes with moderate and traditional forms of Islam, as well as with a new nationalism. The struggle between these movements has recently become more violent and will shape trends in the republic as much as the relationship between these movements and the state. Finally, Mikhail Alexseev assesses the effectiveness of state-led economic development in combating insurgency. He finds that increased assistance is effective in some republics but counterproductive in others. In Dagestan, where the insurgency is related to inter-clan rivalries, greater federal subsidies increase the size of the “pie,” reducing conflict; in Kabardino-Balkaria, where the insurgency is separated from social dynamics, greater federal subsidies mean more—and more lucrative—targets for insurgents in their struggle against the state.

We are sure you’ll find these policy perspectives informative and thought- provoking. Many individuals were instrumental in the production of this volume, as well as the organization of the workshop that generated it. I would like to especially thank our colleague and co-organizer, IMEMO Leading Research Fellow Irina Kobrinskaya; Managing Editor Alexander Schmemann; Program Assistant Olga Novikova; Graduate Research Assistants Wilder Bullard and Julija Filinovica; IERES Executive Associate Caitlin Katsiaficas; and IERES Director Henry Hale. PONARS Eurasia, together with The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs, expresses its deep appreciation to the International Program of the Carnegie Corporation of New York for its ongoing support.

PDF File:
DomesticFoundations_Booklet_2011.pdf
Policy Perspectives Image:

Related Topics
  • Policy Perspectives
Previous Article
  • Policy Perspectives

New Balances: Russia, the EU, and the “Post-Soviet West”

  • July 23, 2012
  • PONARS Eurasia
View
Next Article
  • Policy Perspectives

Policy Conference Briefing Book

  • July 23, 2012
  • PONARS Eurasia
View
You May Also Like
View
  • Policy Perspectives
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Perspectives on Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine: A Collection of PONARS Eurasia Policy Memos

  • PONARS Eurasia
  • July 20, 2022
View
  • Policy Perspectives
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

COVID-19 in Eurasia: PONARS Eurasia Policy Perspectives

  • PONARS Eurasia
  • April 19, 2021
View
  • Policy Perspectives

Annual Policy Conference 2019: Biographies & Topics

  • PONARS Eurasia
  • December 30, 2019
View
  • Policy Perspectives

Annual Policy Conference 2018: Biographies & Topics

  • PONARS Eurasia
  • August 23, 2018
View
  • Policy Perspectives

Revolution and Reform in Ukraine: Evaluating Four Years of Reform

  • PONARS Eurasia
  • July 18, 2018
View
  • Policy Perspectives
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

New PONARS Eurasia Policy Perspectives Volume: Russian-American Relations Since the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election

  • PONARS Eurasia
  • May 24, 2018
View
  • Policy Perspectives

Annual Conference 2016: Abstracts & Biographies

  • PONARS Eurasia
  • May 24, 2018
View
  • Policy Perspectives

Russian-American Relations Since the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election

  • PONARS Eurasia
  • May 24, 2018

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

PONARS Eurasia
  • About
  • Membership
  • Policy Memos
  • Recommended
  • Events
Powered by narva.io

Permissions & Citation Guidelines

Input your search keywords and press Enter.