Andrey Makarychev

Rebranding Russia: Norms, Politics and Power

This working paper argues that Russia is in the process of re-branding itself internationally, with a variety of normative arguments increasingly creeping into its wider international discourse. By appealing to norms, Russia tries to reformulate the key messages it sends to the world and implant the concept of its power worldwide. Yet given that Russias normative messages are often met with scarce enthusiasm in Europe, it is of utmost importance to uncover how the normative segment in Russian foreign policy is perceived, evaluated and debated both inside Russia and elsewhere. Within this framework, this paper focuses on a set of case studies highlighting the normative and non-normative dimensions of Russian foreign policy. These include Russia-EU trans-border cooperation, Moscows policies towards Estonia, Poland, Ukraine/Georgia and the UK, Russian strategies in the war on terror and energy issues.

Russia and its 'New Security Architecture' in Europe: A Critical Examination of the Concept

One of the most important effects of Russia’s war against Georgia in August 2008 was a new set of approaches to the future of European security being actively promoted by Dmitry Medvedev and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. According to their interpretation, the Georgian war was not a particular incident (an exception) but a structural event, a landmark comparable to Russia’s own September 11 to be symbolised as a moment of truth. This Working Document looks at Russia’s critique of the existing security architecture and its search for a new one.

Identity and representation in Russia's regions: Adopting a critical theory perspective

In this paper, the author seeks to find pathways of extrapolating the critical potential of post-structuralist reasoning to the study of Russias domestic regions policies. He argues that ideas, norms and rhetorical frames are important ideational arguments to explain policy outcomes in specific Russias region and in the whole system of Russian federalism. Analysis of Russian regionalism, therefore, can be enriched by engaging with and adopting the new concepts and tools bringing attention to the power of regional identities as exemplified by different types of discourses.

Introduction: The Baltic Sea Region—Scars, Seams and Stitches

This book is a result of a networked project designed and implemented by the Centre for East European Studies at the Free University in Berlin and the Johan Skytte Institute of Political Science at the University of Tartu. The research agenda that gave a start to this book in 2014 focused on a variety of bordering and de-bordering practices unfolding in the Baltic Sea Region (BSR), an area that is usually considered to be the most successful example of region-building in a wider Europe. In the literature, the BSR is often referred to as a model for other regions-in-the-making, located at the intersection of the EU and Russia, and a possible source of spill-over effects and sharing of best practices with other regions constituting the EU–Russia common neighbourhood.

Alternative Logics of Russian Regionalism: Critical Theory Perspectives

This paper argues that a combination of different concepts in critical theories provides an interesting perspective—grounded in a peculiar interplay of different forms of power—on important mechanisms of change at the regional level in Russia. By resorting to critical theories one can better understand at least two important aspects of Russian regionalism. One is the dichotomy of politicization-depoliticization, which singles out two different versions of power relations. Another interesting conceptual departure is grounded in the dichotomy of sovereignty-governmentality. Reference to these theoretic constructs can help explain not only certain episodes in Russian regional politics, but also its deeper logic, including the strategies of specific regional policies towards the federal center and, vice versa, of Moscows policies towards subjects of the federation.

PONARS as a Transnational Epistemic Community

The history of PONARS, an international community of scholars, reveals the intersections between policy and academic expertise.