PONARS Eurasia
  • About
    • Contact
    • List of Members
    • Ukraine Experts
    • About Membership
    • Executive Committee
  • Policy Memos
    • List of Policy Memos
    • Submissions
  • Podcast
  • 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
    • List of Members
    • Ukraine Experts
    • About Membership
    • Executive Committee
  • Policy Memos
    • List of Policy Memos
    • Submissions
  • Podcast
  • Online Academy
  • Events
    • Past Events
  • Recommended
  • Ukraine Experts
DIGITAL RESOURCES
digital resources

Bookstore 📚

Knowledge Hub

Course Syllabi

Point & Counterpoint

Policy Perspectives

RECOMMENDED
  • Illiberalism and Public Opinion Junctures in Russia’s War on Ukraine

    View
  • Policy Exchange Discussion & Memos: Guaranteeing Ukraine’s Long-Run Security (June 9)

    View
  • Ukraine’s Best Chance for Peace

    View
  • We want the war to end. But should calls for negotiating with Putin be taken seriously?

    View
  • Policy Briefs | BEAR Network-PONARS Eurasia Conference

    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.
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Lessons for Russia’s Neighborhood Policy

  • March 14, 2012
  • Andrey Makarychev

 

In Berlin on March 8, 2012, the European Council for Foreign Relations hosted a discussion under a catchy title: "More Europe for Germany?". Participants—Wolfgang Schauble (finance minister), Jurgen Trittin (Green Party parliamentary faction), Armin von Bogdandy (director of the Max Plank Institute for Public International Law), and other panelists—made a strong case for deepening the European integration project as the remedy against the current eurozone crisis. Overall, the discussion seemed to contravene the Russian comprehension of the EU as a declining political community. Most Russian politicians, and some experts, see a growing institutional weakness of the EU, which Moscow discards as a powerful international actor. Yet in spite of such skepticism, Russia often—explicitly or implicitly—refers to the EU experience in explaining its long-term plans in what it calls its “near abroad,” including the mechanisms of the Customs Union with Belarus and Kazakhstan. However, the question of whether Russia is capable of imitating the EU integration model remains open. The German debate on Europe is shaped by three key issues. First, the Germans raise a seemingly simple question: What is power in today’s world? Their answer is that power has less to do with military force and more with a combination of economic innovations and “soft power.”

Second, Germany looks for more aspects of supranational integration, weakening nation states’ monopolies on solving financial and budgetary issues at their liking. The ideas of a supranational federation and “post-classical” nation state [again] resonate in German public debates. Third, the Germans remind us that the EU is a democracy project, a sort of “republic Europe.” They insist that the EU is not only an elite institution, but also a space for business, trade, education, and trans-national civil society. In Europe it is not unusual for a head of the government (e.g., Angela Merkel in Germany) to openly support a presidential candidate in another country (e.g., Nicolas Sarkozy in France), as well as for a presidential candidate (e.g., Francois Hollande in France) to campaign in a foreign country (e.g., United Kingdom) where his numerous compatriots reside. In Russia, Belarus, or Kazakhstan this would certainly be treated as “interfering in domestic affairs.” On all three accounts, the Russian vision of post-Soviet integration radically differs. Russia still believes that its strength derives from huge extractive resources and military potential. It keeps a nation-state-centric imagery of international relations. Moreover, it pays little attention to the variety of normative signifiers, intentionally marginalizing the issues of democracy in dealing with neighboring countries. All of this means that Russia and its key partner in Europe, Germany, have different policy philosophies, and dissimilar attitudes toward integrative projects. It seems that not only Germany needs “more Europe,” but Russia as well. Andrey Makarychev is a Guest Professor at the Free University of Berlin, blogging for PONARS Eurasia on the Russia-EU neighborhood.

Andrey Makarychev
Andrey Makarychev
Website | + posts
Visiting Professor

Affiliation

Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies, University of Tartu, Estonia

Links

University of Tartu (Bio)

Expertise

Russian Foreign and Security Policies, EU-Russian Relations, Foreign Policy Discourses, Regionalism and Federalism
  • Andrey Makarychev
    https://www.ponarseurasia.org/author/andrey-makarychev/
    Georgian-Russian Relations: the Role of Discourses and Narratives
  • Andrey Makarychev
    https://www.ponarseurasia.org/author/andrey-makarychev/
    Pandemic Politics in Eurasia: Roadmap for a New Research Subfield
  • Andrey Makarychev
    https://www.ponarseurasia.org/author/andrey-makarychev/
    Estonia’s Russophones Tumble Between Two Populisms
  • Andrey Makarychev
    https://www.ponarseurasia.org/author/andrey-makarychev/
    Russia’s “Opposition at a Distance”: The Liberal, Anti-Putin, and Pro-Western Consortia Outside Russian Borders
Related Topics
  • EU
  • Germany
  • Makarychev
  • Russia
Previous Article
  • Commentary | Комментарии

The State of Russia’s Airborne Troops

  • March 13, 2012
  • Dmitry Gorenburg
View
Next Article
  • Commentary | Комментарии

How to save money on the military

  • March 19, 2012
  • Dmitry Gorenburg
View
You May Also Like
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем
  • Territorial Conflict

Dominating Ukraine’s Sky

  • Volodymyr Dubovyk
  • March 5, 2022
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Russian Anti-War Protests and the State’s Response

  • Lauren McCarthy
  • March 4, 2022
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Путин и Лукашенко

  • Konstantin Sonin
  • August 29, 2020
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Отравление оппозиционеров в России превратилось в регулярную практику

  • Vladimir Gelman
  • August 22, 2020
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Авторитарные режимы не вечны: О ситуации в Белоруссии

  • Vladimir Gelman
  • August 14, 2020
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

В Беларуси пока что все идет по российскому сценарию

  • Olexiy Haran
  • August 12, 2020
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Опасная игра Лукашенко

  • Pavel Baev
  • August 11, 2020
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Власть справилась

  • Sergei Medvedev
  • August 10, 2020

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.