Civil Society in the New Authoritarianism
Russian prime minister and former president Vladimir Putin’s efforts to strengthen the Russian state are well-known. His consistent advocacy of a strong society is less so. In this respect, Putin’s…
Russian-Ukrainian Relations After the Georgian War
There is little doubt that the August 2008 crisis in Georgia affected relations between Russia and Ukraine. At the time, a number of analysts voiced serious concerns that Ukraine would…
Is There a Chance for Constructive Cooperation in the CIS?
Developments after the August 2008 Russia-Georgia war have signaled increasing dynamism and complexity in the post-Soviet space. On August 7-8, the short period of relative calm that existed after the…
A New President for Ukraine: A Democratic Choice in the CIS?
During the second term of President Leonid Kuchma (1999–2004) Ukraine faced a serious decline in civil rights, rule of law, and fair government. Political scandals around journalist Heorhiy Gongadze’s murder…
Will the Kremlin Revive the Russian Idea?
During the first week of September 2005, Russian President Vladimir Putin made two foreign trips, each aimed at advancing Russia’s energy policy interests. The North European gas pipeline project, unveiled…
The Exchange Rate in a Resource-Based Economy: The Case of Russia
In 2005, Russia exported about 150 million tons of oil and 150 billion cubic meters of gas worth about $100 billion (all numbers are rounded for simplicity). The price of…
Avoiding the Great Game and Domestic Unrest in Eurasia
Central Asia’s growing instability has opened the region to a host of would-be political entrepreneurs. The March and May 2005 uprisings in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan underscored the weakness of Eurasian…
Official Patriotism in Russia: Its Essence and Implications
After a brief burst of optimism following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia fell into a funk. The economy failed to take off, and by the end of the…
Post-Soviet Realpolitik: Russian Policy After the Color Revolutions
Russian policy toward Georgia and Ukraine after the color revolutions presents an example of a realpolitik answer to a normative policy challenge. Here we see one of the widest discursive…
On a Collision Course: The EU and Russia Revisit Europe’s Recent Past
Recent studies have pointed to a fundamental transformation of the way in which the European Union imagines itself and establishes legitimacy in the eyes of its citizens and external audience.…
Is Russia’s New Belarus Policy Emerging?
The results of the constitutional referendum in Belarus that cleared the way for prolonging the rule of the country’s current leader, Alexander Lukashenko, after 2006 when his present term in…
Geopolitics and Neo-containment, as well as Common Security: Russian Views of Proliferation
A premise of U.S.-Russian security cooperation is that the two countries define security threats and the means to combat them in complementary, if perhaps not identical, ways. Cooperation requires some…