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Begin New Search Topic International Relations Political Geography Russia Content Type Working Paper Publication Year within 25 Years

71. The G8 Global Partnership: Background and Current Status

Author:
Cristina Chuen
Publication Date:
04-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
The Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction is nearly three years old. While the initiative—launched on June 27, 2002, at the G8 annual summit in Kananaskis, Canadai—brought new donors to the table and added a new sense of urgency to nonproliferation projects in Russia, to date the programs have yielded mixed results. There is much that remains to be done if the next seven years are going to fulfill the promise of Kananaskis.
Topic:
International Relations, Security, Arms Control and Proliferation, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:
Russia

72. Engaging Putin's Russia: Challenges and Opportunities for the West

Author:
Jason R. Wisniewski
Publication Date:
06-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University
Abstract:
The small and medium-sized states in Southeast Asia have undergone significant geostrategic changes with the end of the Cold War and the rise of China. There has been a lively debate over the last decade about whether these countries would balance against or bandwagon with China, and how their relations with the other major powers in the region would change. Recent works that argue against the simple dichotomy of balancing versus bandwangoning are correct in asserting that Southeast Asian countries do not want to choose between the two major powers, the U.S. and China. But this paper goes further to present the results of an empirical study that fleshes out the conceptual thinking that underlies this avoidance strategy. It finds that instead of merely adopting tactical or time-buying policies, key Southeast Asian states have actively tried to influence the shaping of the new regional order. It argues that key Southeast Asian states in fact have (a) distinct coneptualisations of two main pathways to order in the region omni-enmeshment of major powers and complex balance of influence; and (b) a concrete vision of the preferred power distribution outcome, which is a hierarchical regional order.
Topic:
International Relations and Government
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, China, and Southeast Asia

73. The Complexity of Success: The U.S. Role in Russian Rule of Law Reform

Author:
Matthew J. Spence
Publication Date:
07-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
MIXED RESULTS FROM THE PROLIFERATION OF WESTERN RULE OF LAW assistance over the past twenty years has taught us much about what efforts do not work. Criminal justice reform in Russia offers a different type of lesson; it is a rare success story of rule of law promotion. In the 1990s, the U.S. government sought to promote the rule of law in many parts of the former Soviet Union and beyond, but few of these efforts outside Russia produced concrete results. Instead, lawlessness became a primary symptom of the apparent failure of many attempted rule of law reforms in the former Soviet Union.
Topic:
International Relations and Government
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, and Europe

74. Iran, the international community and the nuclear issue: where to next?

Author:
Anthony Bubalo and Dr. Michael Fullilove
Publication Date:
12-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Lowy Institute for International Policy
Abstract:
The international impasse over Iran\'s nuclear program is entering a critical phase. The compromise being offered by the international community, whereby Iran would carry out sensitive uranium enrichment work in Russia, is unlikely to be accepted in full by Tehran. The hardline rhetoric of new President Ahmedinejad is further limiting the prospects of a diplomatic solution being found. As a result, the issue is likely to come before the Security Council. Once in New York there are a number of ways it could play out. But at this stage it is not clear what the Council would be able to do to force a change of behaviour from Tehran. Faced with poor options all round, Washington may feel at some point that it has to risk the uncertain results of limited air strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities to delay what it regards as the unthinkable - a nuclear armed Iran.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, and Nuclear Weapons
Political Geography:
Russia, Iran, Washington, and Middle East

75. Marginality or Provinciality: Pskov and Ivangorod at the Intersection of Russia's Transborder Relations

Author:
Andrey Makarychev
Publication Date:
10-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS)
Abstract:
My intention in this paper is to analyze the state of trans-border relationship between Russia, on the one hand, and Latvia and Estonia, on the other, in terms of interplay between central and non-central actors. Two basic concepts–that ones of marginality and provinciality–will be used as points of departure and compared with each other. Each of these concepts develops its own narrative and a discursive strategy. In some instances, these narratives may smoothly complement each other; and yet in other occurrences, they conflict in a manner that fuels "a battle of the story".
Topic:
International Relations and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
Russia, Eastern Europe, Estonia, and Latvia

76. Ensuring Equal Rights in the Elections Process

Author:
Marcin Walecki
Publication Date:
01-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Academy of Political Science
Abstract:
The collapse of the Soviet Union marked a fourth wave of regime change – to democracy and autocracy. The only certain outcome of this transition is the abandonment of Communism, and not, as expected, the ultimate establishment of the liberal democracy. Most of the post-Communist states are still hybrids, mixed polities or consolidated autocracies - only some can be classified as consolidated democracies.
Topic:
International Relations, Communism, and Democratization
Political Geography:
Russia

77. Collision Avoidance: U.S.-Russian Bilateral Relations and Former Soviet States

Author:
Eugene B. Rumer
Publication Date:
04-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
The year 2003 was a difficult one in U.S.- Russian relations, and 2004 promises to be even more challenging. Disagreements between Washington and Moscow over Iraq were the most visible in a series of events that also included American concerns about Chechnya, the authoritarian tilt in Russian domestic politics, Russia's fading media freedom, selective prosecution of independent-minded businessmen, and meddling in the internal affairs of its neighbors. Together, these events add up to a trend that spells trouble for the ambitious U.S.-Russian strategic framework inaugurated by President George W. Bush and President Vladimir Putin in 2002. Yet rarely if ever has the need for greater cooperation between the two countries been more urgent than it will be in 2004 and the years to come.
Topic:
International Relations and Security
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Washington, Soviet Union, and Moscow

78. If Not Balancing, What? Forms of Resistance to American Hegemony

Author:
Jeremy Pressman
Publication Date:
03-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
While traditional understandings of international affairs would predict the formation of a balancing coalition against the dominant U.S. position in world affairs, some analysts now contend that the U.S. advantage is so comprehensive and so unprecedented that we have not seen and will not see balancing behavior on the part of second tier powers like China, Russia, Japan, and Germany. It would be a mistake, however, to assume that the absence of balancing means the United States will not face any meaningful opposition in the international arena. Though in the short term a bloc of states is unlikely to form a counter-coalition. the historical form of resistance to dominant powers other states still find important ways to resist U.S. dominance.
Topic:
International Relations and Defense Policy
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Japan, China, and Germany

79. EU-Russian security dimensions

Author:
Dov Lynch
Publication Date:
07-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
European Union Institute for Security Studies
Abstract:
EU-Russian security cooperation remains nascent, but some important ground has been cleared since 2000. Yet, the dialogue is neither without ambiguity or problems. It is replete with both. This Occasional Paper examines three facets of EU-Russia security relations. The first chapter, by Hiski Haukkala, compares EU and Russian perceptions of the other in security terms. Haukkala traces the evolution of EU thinking on Russia throughout the 1990s, highlighting the obstacles that held up the development of a strategic vision of the 'partnership'. Following an analysis of how Russia views the EU, he concludes that both have different visions of the other which lie at the source of problems of perception and expectation. In the second chapter, Thomas Gomart concentrates on a single aspect of the EU's Common Strategy on Russia (1999), that of preventive diplomacy, examined through the cases of Belarus and Macedonia. Gomart notes the absence of coordination between the EU and Russia in the former Soviet Union and the Balkans, and stresses the need for greater effort. Gomart notes also the danger of blurring the lines between the 'preventive' and the 'pre-emptive', particularly with regard to counter-terrorism. Anaïs Marin concludes this Occasional Paper with an examination of the Northern Dimension. Marin notes the unique utility of the 'dimensionalist' approach to EU- Russian relations, which takes in a wide range of subjects and different types of actors within a flexible framework. In conclusion, she rejects calls for a greater institutionalisation of the Northern Dimension, arguing that flexibility and 'lightness' are its strength.
Topic:
International Relations, Security, and Politics
Political Geography:
Russia and Europe

80. Aleksandr Dugin's Foundations of Geopolitics

Author:
John B. Dunlop
Publication Date:
08-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination, Princeton University
Abstract:
One perceptive observer of the Russian political scene, Francoise Thom, noted as far back as 1994 that fascism, and especially its “Eurasianist” variant, was already at that time displacing Russian nationalism among statist Russian elites as a post-communist “Russian Idea,” especially in the foreign policy sphere. “The weakness of Russian nationalists,” she emphasized, “stems from their inability to clearly situate Russian frontiers. Euras[ianism] brings an ideological foundation for post-Soviet imperialism.”
Topic:
International Relations, Nationalism, and Politics
Political Geography:
Russia and Eurasia