Routledge Handbook of Russian Foreign Policy 9781138690448, 9781315536934

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ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF RUSSIAN FOREIGN POLICY

Providing a comprehensive overview of Russia’s foreign policy directions, this handbook brings together an international team of scholars to develop a complex treatment of Russia’s foreign policy. The chapters draw from numerous theoretical traditions by incorporating ideas of domestic institutions, considerations of national security and international recognition as sources of the nation’s foreign policy. Covering critically important subjects such as Russia’s military interventions in Ukraine and Syria, the handbook is divided into four key parts: Part I explores the social and material conditions in which Russia’s foreign policy is formed and implemented. Part II investigates tools and actors that participate in policy making including diplomacy, military, media, and others. Part III provides an overview of Russia’s directions towards the United States, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Eurasia, and the Arctic. Part IV addresses the issue of Russia’s participation in global governance and multiple international organizations, as well as the Kremlin’s efforts to build new organizations and formats that suit Russia’s objectives. The Routledge Handbook of Russian Foreign Policy is an invaluable resource to students and scholars of Russian Politics and International Relations, as well as World Politics more generally. Andrei P. Tsygankov is Professor of Political Science and International Relations at San Francisco State University. He has published widely in the United States, Russia, Europe, and China, and his books include Russia’s Foreign Policy and Russia and the West from Alexander to Putin.

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ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF RUSSIAN FOREIGN POLICY

Edited by Andrei P. Tsygankov

First published 2018 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business  2018 selection and editorial matter, Andrei P. Tsygankov; individual chapters, the contributors. The right of Andrei P. Tsygankov to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Tsygankov, Andrei P., 1964- editor. Title: Routledge handbook of Russian foreign policy / edited by Andrei Tsygankov. Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017049656| ISBN 9781138690448 (hardback) | ISBN 9781315536934 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Russia (Federation)—Foreign relations. | Soviet Union—Foreign relations. Classification: LCC DK510.764 .R683 2018 | DDC 327.47—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017049656 ISBN: 978-1-138-69044-8 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-53693-4 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by Swales & Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon, UK

DEDICATION

For the younger generation of scholars of Russian foreign policy.

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CONTENTS

List of illustrations x List of contributors xi Preface xv PART I

Theories and conditions

1

Introduction Andrei P. Tsygankov   1 International norms and identity Valentina Feklyunina

5

  2 Global (post)structural conditions Viatcheslav Morozov

22

  3 Power and national security Elena Kropatcheva

43

 4 Geopolitics John Berryman

60

 5 Nationalism Luke March

79

 6 Petropolitics Yuval Weber

99

vii

Contents PART II

Tools and actors

119

Introduction Andrei P. Tsygankov  7 Diplomacy Charles E. Ziegler

123

  8 Natural gas Boris Barkanov

138

 9 Intelligence Mikhail A. Strokan and Brian D. Taylor

153

10 Military Valery Konyshev and Alexander Sergunin

168

11 Cyber power Julien Nocetti

182

12 Media and public diplomacy Greg Simons

199

13 The Russian Orthodox Church Nicolai N. Petro

217

PART III

Directions 233 Introduction Andrei P. Tsygankov 14 The United States Kari Roberts

237

15 Asia-Pacific and China Natasha Kuhrt

254

16 The European Union Tuomas Forsberg and Hiski Haukkala

269

17 Central and Eastern Europe Dmitry Ofitserov-Belskiy and Andrey Sushenstov

282

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Contents

18 The Middle East Philipp Casula and Mark N. Katz

295

19 The Caucasus Maxim A. Suchkov

311

20 Central Asia Mariya Y. Omelicheva

325

21 The Arctic Robert English and Andrew Thvedt

338

PART IV

Organizations 351 Introduction Andrei P. Tsygankov 22 The United Nations Alexander Sergunin

355

23 The G20 Andrej Krickovic

367

24 European organizations Hanna Smith

377

25 Asian organizations Artyom Lukin

388

26 The Shanghai Cooperation Organization Maria Raquel Freire

400

27 The Eurasian Economic Union Mikhail A. Molchanov

410

28 The Collective Security Treaty Organization Ruth Deyermond

421

Index 430

ix

ILLUSTRATIONS

Figures   5.1 A model for understanding the interaction between nationalism and RFP   6.1 Export revenues and annual percentage change, 1961–1991 22.1 Sustainable development: three dimensions

92 107 359

Tables   2.1 A comparative summary of theoretical perspectives on Russia   5.1 The main approaches to explaining nationalism and RFP 10.1 Russian, U.S. and Chinese military capabilities, 2015

x

38 88 177

CONTRIBUTORS

Boris Barkanov is a teaching assistant professor in the Political Science Department at West Virginia University. He received his PhD in political science from UC Berkeley, USA. He has been a postdoctoral fellow at the Davis Center (Harvard) and a Fulbright-Hays Scholar. His research interests include Russian politics/foreign policy, energy, and security. John Berryman teaches International Relations at Birkbeck, University of London, and is Associate Professor of International Studies at Ithaca College, New York (London Division). His publications include 30 chapters and articles dealing with Russian foreign and security policy and he is a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies and the Royal Institute of International Affairs. Philipp Casula is a postdoctoral fellow of the Swiss National Science Foundation at the University of Zurich, and is currently visiting scholar at the University of Manchester, UK. His PhD thesis at Basel University analysed the domestic politics of contemporary Russia in terms of hegemony and populism. Philipp’s current research interest includes the cultural history of post-colonial Russia, especially the relations of the USSR with the Middle East and their cultural representations. Ruth Deyermond is Lecturer in Post-Soviet Security in the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. Her publications include Security and Sovereignty in the Former Soviet Union (Lynne Rienner 2008). Robert English joined the faculty of the School of International Relations at the University of Southern California in 2001. Prior to that he taught at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, USA, and was also a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, USA. In the 1980s, he worked as a policy analyst with the US Department of Defense and the Committee for National Security. He is the author, among other works, of Russia and the Idea of the West: Gorbachev, Intellectuals, and the End of the Cold War (Columbia, 2000). Valentina Feklyunina is Senior Lecturer in Politics at Newcastle University, UK. Her publications include the monograph Identities and Foreign Policies in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus (co-authored with Stephen White), and articles on Russia’s identity and soft power in such journals as Europe-Asia Studies, British Journal of Politics and International Relations, and European Journal of International Relations. xi

Contributors

Tuomas Forsberg is Professor of International Relations at the University of Tampere, Finland. He was also deputy director and foreign policy cluster leader of the Academy of Finland Center of Excellence on Choices of Russian Modernisation at the Aleksanteri Institute (2012–17). His publications include Divided West: European Security and the Transatlantic Relationship (coauthored with Graeme Herd, 2006) and The European Union and Russia (co-authored with Hiski Haukkala, 2016). Maria Raquel Freire is researcher at the Centre for Social Studies (CES) and Associate Professor in International Relations at the School of Economics of the University of Coimbra (FEUC), Portugal. She holds a Jean Monnet Chair and is currently director of the PhD Programme in International Politics and Conflict Resolution, CES/FEUC Dr. Hiski Haukkala is Associate Professor of International Relations at the University of Tampere, Finland. Previously he has held positions at the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the Finnish Institute of International Affairs and the University of Turku. He is the author of numerous books and articles on EU foreign policy. His most recent book is The European Union and Russia (2016, together with Tuomas Forsberg). Mark N. Katz is a Professor of Government and Politics at the George Mason University Schar School of Policy and Government, USA, and was a visiting senior fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs in 2017. He writes on Russian foreign policy, especially toward the Middle East. Valery Konyshev is Professor of International Relations, St. Petersburg State University, Russia. He received his PhD (History) (1997) and habilitation (Political Science) (2006) from the Nizhny Novgorod State University, Russia. His fields of research and teaching include contemporary military strategy and International Relations Theory. Andrej Krickovic is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs, Higher School of Economics, Moscow. He specializes in issues of international security relations and published widely in The Chinese Journal of International Politics, Contemporary Security Policy, Global Governance, Post-Soviet Affairs, Russia in Global Affairs, and others. Dr. Elena Kropatcheva is a researcher at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg (IFSH), Germany. Her research interests include International Relations, European and Eurasian security policy, international security organizations, energy geopolitics, domestic and foreign policies of Russia and Ukraine. Natasha Kuhrt is lecturer in the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. Her main research interests are Russia’s Asia policy, as well as broader issues of international law, sovereignty, and intervention. She has published widely on Russia’s Asia policy, and her book, Russian Policy Towards China and Japan, based on her PhD, was published by Routledge in 2007 (paperback, 2011). Artyom Lukin is Deputy Director for Research and Associate Professor at the School of Regional and International Studies, Far Eastern Federal University, Russia. Lukin has authored numerous chapters, papers, and commentaries on Russia’s engagement with Asia. His latest

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Contributors

book (co-authored with Rens Lee) is Russia’s Far East: New Dynamics in Asia Pacific and Beyond (Lynne Rienner, 2015). Luke March is Professor of Post-Soviet and Comparative Politics at the University of Edinburgh, UK. His main research interests include the politics of the European (radical) Left, and Russian domestic and foreign politics. He has published in journals including Party Politics, Comparative European Politics, Europe-Asia Studies, and East European Politics. His books include The Communist Party in Post-Soviet Russia (2002), Russia and Islam: State, Society and Radicalism (edited with Roland Dannreuther, Routledge, 2010), Radical Left Parties in Europe (Routledge, 2011) and Europe’s Radical Left. From Marginality to the Mainstream? (edited with Daniel Keith, 2016). Mikhail A. Molchanov lectures at the University of Victoria, Canada. He is Foreign Member of the National Academy of Educational Sciences of Ukraine. Dr. Molchanov has published 7 books and nearly 120 articles and book chapters. His most recent book is Eurasian Regionalisms and Russian Foreign Policy (Routledge, 2015). Viatcheslav Morozov is Professor of EU–Russia Studies at the University of Tartu, Estonia. He also chairs the Council of the UT’s Centre for EU–Russia Studies (CEURUS) and the Programme Committee of the Tartu Conference on Russian and East European Studies. Julien Nocetti is a research fellow in the Russia/New independent states Centre at the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI), Paris. He focuses his Russia-related research on Russian foreign and domestic Internet policies through both top-down and bottom-up approaches. He is also a specialist in Russia’s foreign policy towards the Middle East. Dmitry Ofitserov-Belskiy is an Associate Professor at Humanities Department of National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE), a leading analyst of the agency Foreign Policy Advisory Group. Mariya Y. Omelicheva is an Associate Professor of political science at the University of Kansas, USA. Her research interests include Eurasian security, Russian foreign policy, democracy promotion, and terrorism/crime nexus. She is the author of Counterterrorism Policies in Central Asia (Routledge, 2011), and Democracy in Central Asia: Competing Perspectives and Alternate Strategies (University Press of Kentucky, 2015). Nicolai N. Petro currently holds the Silvia-Chandley Professorship of Peace Studies and Nonviolence at the University of Rhode Island, USA. His scholarly work focuses on Russia, and on the role that religion, history, and cultural symbols can play in democratic development. Kari Roberts is Associate Professor of Political Science in the Department of Economics, Justice, and Policy Studies at Mount Royal University, Canada. Her research concerns the domestic influences on Russian foreign policy toward the United States as well as American post-Cold War attitudes about Russia and their impact on the relationship. Alexander Sergunin is Professor of International Relations, St. Petersburg State University, Russia. He received his PhD (History) from the Moscow State University (1985) and habilitation (Political Science) from the St. Petersburg State University (1994). His fields of

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Contributors

research and teaching include Russian foreign policy thinking and making, and International Relations Theory. Greg Simons, Associate Professor, is a senior researcher at the Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Uppsala University in Sweden and a lecturer at the Department of Communication Sciences at Turiba University in Latvia. One research focus is on Russian public diplomacy and the quest for soft power. Hanna Smith received her PhD from University of Helsinki and has been affiliated with Aleksanteri Institute, University of Helsinki specializing in Russian military and security policy and relations with European organizations. She is currently Director of Strategic Planning and Responses at the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats, Helsinki. Mikhail A. Strokan is a PhD student in Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania, USA. Maxim A. Suchkov, Associate Professor of International Relations and Deputy Director for Research at the School of International Relations, Pyatigorsk State University, Russia. He is also the Editor of Al-Monitor’s Russia-Mideast coverage and is the author of the Essays on Russian Foreign Policy in the Caucasus and the Middle East (Nomos, 2015). Andrey Sushenstov is a Programme director at the Valdai Discussion Club, Moscow. He is also a political analyst and international relations scholar at Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) and a managing partner with the Moscow-based consulting agency Foreign Policy Advisory Group. Brian D. Taylor is Professor and Chair, Department of Political Science, Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University, USA. Andrew Thvedt has a BA from the University of South California (USC), USA and is working as a postgraduate research assistant in USC’s School of International Relations. Andrei P. Tsygankov is Professor in the Departments of Political Science and International Relations at San Francisco State University, USA. His books have been published in the United States, Europe, Russia, and China, and include Anti-Russian Lobby and American Foreign Policy and Russia and the West from Alexander to Putin. Yuval Weber is the Kennan Institute Fellow at the Daniel Morgan Graduate School and a Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC, on leave from the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, Russia, where he is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs. He is a Center Associate at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University, and was previously a Visiting Assistant Professor in Harvard’s Department on Government. Charles E. Ziegler is Professor of Political Science and University Scholar at the University of Louisville, USA. He is the author of over 80 professional journal articles and book chapters, and has written or edited five books, the latest of which is Civil Society and Politics in Central Asia (University Press of Kentucky, 2015). xiv

PREFACE Andrei P. Tsygankov

The importance of studying Russian foreign policy (RFP) today is as great as ever. We are living through an era of global change which Russian authorities advocate and promote. Rules and conditions of the international system are being reordered in part because the Kremlin is working tirelessly to move the world in this direction. Some regret the change and recall with nostalgia the “stability” of the post-Cold War order. Others welcome the global transition arguing that it allows more room for potential non-Western contributors. The disagreement notwithstanding, it is clear that without Russia the world would not be where it is today. Another debate concerns conditions that shape RFP and the motives of the nation’s policy makers. Some scholars and politicians view the Kremlin as predominantly a geopolitical actor that seeks to protect its sphere of influence in Eurasia and facilitate the arrival of a global multipolar balance of power. Not infrequently, members of this group advocate the notion of a new Cold War for describing Russia’s behavior as aiming to undermine the West’s values and interests. Others insist that as a global citizen Russia works to ensure the protection of norms and principles practiced in diplomacy and international organizations. Rather than trying to destroy the West-centered global order, Russia is determined to make it more multilateral and carve out more room for its own contribution. A large and complex country, Russia must be understood in terms of the complexity of theoretical approaches, tools and actors, geographic directions, and membership in global/regional organizations. In recognition of this complexity, the resulting volume seeks to answer four broad questions about Russian foreign policy. 1 What are the main social and material conditions that explain change and continuity in RFP? 2 What tools and actors are especially prominent in forming and implementing RFP? 3 How is RFP conducted in various geographic and regional settings? 4 How are Russia’s goals and interests realized through membership in various global and regional organizations? With these questions in mind, the book contains four major parts. Part I explores various theo­ retical approaches, social, and material conditions in which RFP is formed and implemented. Part II investigates tools and actors that participate in policy making including diplomacy, military, xv

Preface

media, and others. Part III provides an overview of RFP’s directions toward various countries and regions such as the United States, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Eurasia, and the Arctic. Part IV addresses the issue of Russia’s participation in global governance and multiple international organizations operating at both global and regional levels. The decision by Routledge to commission this volume is recognition of both the importance and the complexity of studying Russia’s international behavior. I am grateful to the publisher for asking me to lead the project, being responsive to my requests, and providing helpful comments and various forms of editorial assistance along the way. The project includes twenty-eight chapters by experts on various dimensions of RFP. The highly diverse group of contributors includes individuals of different backgrounds, career stages, nationality, gender, and places of researching and teaching about Russia, including the United States, Canada, Russia, and Europe. It has been a privilege to work with this group of scholars. I am very grateful to all for being an excellent team by meeting deadlines, incorporating comments, serving as informal reviewers of each other’s work, and – most of all – for contributing comprehensive chapters on various subjects of RFP. This has been a long journey and a gratifying experience.

xvi

PART I

Theories and conditions Andrei P. Tsygankov

Part I selects for a closer review six theoretical approaches each highlighting distinct conditions that explain Russian foreign policy (RFP) – international norms and identity, the country’s position within the global political economy, international military power, geopolitics, nationalism, and energy resources. Although the selected approaches are not meant to be exclusive, they cover most of existing explanations of Russia’s international behavior and should provide a comprehensive menu for those seeking to understand the nation’s strategy and individual decisions. As I approached individual contributors, I asked them (1) to assess the state of their theoretical school by identifying its most important representatives and research programs; (2) to compare the relevant school’s strengths and weaknesses to those of other theoretical approaches; (3) to address potential methodological pitfalls and formulate, to the extent possible, testable hypotheses; and (4) to do so by providing empirical illustrations and examples. In her chapter on the role of international norms and identity, Valentina Feklyunina provides an overview of constructivist research on RFP. While sharing similar assumptions about knowledge and reality, constructivists build on various subsets of social science such as psychology, sociology, and cultural studies. Feklyunina discusses four prominent research programs on RFP: studies of ideas and identity; recognition and non-recognition of Russia’s identity by others; international norms; and practices and habits. For instance, some scholars analyzed the role of ideas articulated by Soviet policy entrepreneurs during the early 1970s and the late 1980s. Others researched how Russia’s national identity was contested domestically in response to the West’s recognition or lack thereof and how it resulted in Russia’s relations with Western countries. Various episodes of Russia’s assertive behavior, including the Crimean War, the early Cold War, and the annexation of Crimea following the Euromaidan revolution in Ukraine can be understood as the Kremlin’s reaction to perceived Western disrespect of Russia’s status, reputation, and special cultural ties. Still other scholars investigated how internationally accepted norms of sovereignty and humanitarian intervention were constructed in the Russian domestic setting. Finally, there are those who followed insights of European philosophy and neoMarxism and studied the historically continuous role of diplomatic practices and social habits in Russia’s interaction with the outside world. Feklyunina identifies the interpretation of meanings in the selected sources as a main challenge for constructivists. She cautions against the notion of some specific “constructivist”

Routledge Handbook of Russian Foreign Policy

methods and argues for pluralism of methods as long as their application is consistent with the researcher’s ontological and epistemological assumptions. Feklyunina also argues for a more consistent engagement of constructivists with ethics, while preserving the scholarly objectivity. In particular, she challenges constructivist researchers to be explicit about their normative commitments and warns against seeing “the world through Russia’s eyes” while reconstructing Russia’s identity and worldview. Viatcheslav Morozov seeks to establish the notion of a “thick” structure and its effects on Russia’s international behavior. His chapter on (post) structural conditions of RFP partly engages with Feklyunina’s analysis. In particular, Morozov reviews historical materialist and discursive approaches to RFP. Of the former, he analyzes Leninist and Trotskian approaches, the world-system perspective, and critical International Political Economy. Of the latter, he reviews approaches associated with the English School, poststructuralism, and post-colonialism. His own approach is an effort to bridge materialist and discursive dimensions in order to make sense of Russia’s peculiar position within the global political economy and its implications for RFP. Morozov identifies Russia’s position as that of a “subaltern empire”: an exploited semiperiphery with respect to the Western core, and a capitalist colonizer with respect to Russia’s Eurasian periphery. Such position explains Russia’s engagement with counter-hegemonic projects such as the BRICS as well as Russia’s attempts to develop Russia-influenced Eurasian Economic Union within, rather than outside, the European hegemonic space. Morozov recognizes the limitations of the (post) structuralist approach for foreign policy analysis by proposing to combine his approach with second-image theories. The idea of combining different levels of analysis is also present in constructivism, which investigates how international norms are domestically understood and contested. Morozov shares with constructivists an interest in discourse and skepticism regarding the idea of hypothesis-testing. He proposes that researchers should aim not at “explaining specific events” but “understanding their conditions” and meanings. The third theoretical perspective on RFP is that of international power and security. Elena Kropatcheva reviews various approaches within realism by stressing the recently developed neoclassical school. In particular, she demonstrates how realists explain Russian/Soviet empire building, claims for status, and military interventions. In all cases, the analysis begins with pressures and opportunities presented by the international balance of power to which Russia reacts defensively or offensively depending on its leaders’ perceptions and constrains. For instance, realists explain Soviet “over-extension” in Afghanistan by perceived American pressures. They make sense of Russia’s opposition to Nato’s expansion and conflict with Georgia in August 2008 in terms of the Kremlin’s perception of threat to national security and search for great power status. Here, realists overlap with constructivists who have also studied RFP as a reflection of the country’s status aspirations. However, for realists the stress is always on relative power and security, not on mutually empowering social relations. Thus, the key to understanding Russia’s military interventions in the Caucasus and Ukraine is a global competition with the United States for power and security in the anarchical environment. According to Kropatcheva, scholars of neoclassical conviction differ from structural realists by adding domestic variables and perceptions. For instance, they argue that Western military and institutional expansion toward Russia’s borders must be understood not only in terms of the threats they present for Russia’s security, but also in terms of Russia’s state capacity, domestic vulnerability, and special relations with neighbors. In particular, the fear of “color revolutions” heightened Russia’s sense of insecurity creating the internal security dilemma. Kropatcheva therefore argues that in terms of providing a more nuanced understanding, neoclassical approaches are superior to those of structural realism. She also finds neoclassical 2

Theories and conditions

realism well-suited for RFP analysis given its ability to incorporate domestic factors and perceptions as stressed by liberal and constructivist scholars. Along with others, she advocates multiple methods of demonstrating Russia’s (in)security and power capabilities. The geopolitical perspective as stressed by John Berryman can be broadly housed within the realist tradition of analysis, yet is distinct in highlighting geographical and spatial considerations in RFP. The often abstract notion of the international system in realism is made specific in geopolitics, which analyzes Russia as a land-based empire with a constant challenge to protect borders and preserve access to water. Berryman combines traditional geopolitics associated with thinkers such as Halford Mackinder and Alfred Mahan with some insights from critical geopolitics, although he remains more firmly rooted in traditional geopolitical approaches. Critical geopolitics analyzes traditional geographic and spatial factors in the context of social and ideological forces and perceptions. Here, geopolitics comes full circle by becoming receptive to constructivist assumptions about inter-subjectivity and social structure of knowledge. The overall geopolitical approach is better suited for explaining continuity rather than change in RFP. Berryman acknowledges that the approach that stresses the size, topography, and spatial and strategic location can “influence or condition but not determine” international choices. Other theories and factors must account for more nuanced explanations of Russia’s choices. However, Berryman’s approach contributes to a historically rich description of the rising Russian state and security predicaments. He is in agreement with realists that Russia’s empire-building is a product of international environment, but in his account, Russian rulers responded to Western colonial and great power aspirations in the particular geographical settings, having met some earlier resistance from nomadic tribes and seeking to gain access to the Baltic Sea in the west, the Black Sea in the south, and the Pacific Ocean in the east. In the south, Russia faced a fierce competition from the British Empire by eventually colonizing the Caucasus and Central Asia. Berryman then applies the geopolitical competition approach to RFP during the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries, explaining the consistent preoccupation of the Russian rulers with borders and position in the “heartland” of Eurasia. He amplifies the realist analyses of Russia’s interventions in Georgia and Ukraine by describing the pervasive sense of geopolitical insecurity in the Kremlin. The systemic conditions therefore are limited in their power to explain RFP and must be supplemented by analysis of domestic factors and institutions. Constructivism and neoclassical realism in particular indicate that they are open to integration of domestic conditions within their framework, albeit on their own terms. Constructivism believes in the logic of a social interaction between international and domestic, whereas neoclassical realism recognizes the ability of domestic to interfere with the (ultimately decisive) impact of the international. The remaining two chapters each stress various domestic conditions. Luke March analyzes the role that nationalism plays in Russia’s international behavior. He defines nationalism as the congruence of the state and national and considers theories of nationalism that stress the defining role of the international system, national and historical values, and characteristics of political regime. The latter have gained prominence in Western academic and political circles among those who attribute Russia’s annexation of Crimea and international assertiveness in Europe, the Middle East, and the cyber space to a diversionary tactic to boost Putin’s popularity. March recognizes nationalism’s utility for regime legitimacy but objects to over-simplifying links between domestic and foreign policy. Nationalism, he argues, is a complex, multi-layered ideology that incorporates various influences and may contain both negative and positive impulses. March develops a holistic model of nationalism that incorporates analysis of official beliefs, political considerations, and mainstream non-official discourses. In particular, he demonstrates how nonofficial “civilizational” nationalism developed before and after Russia’s intervention in Georgia 3

Routledge Handbook of Russian Foreign Policy

in August 2008. The civilization ideology indeed influenced the regime yet in a more limited way than some would expect. March acknowledges that even his multi-layered approach to nationalism is not sufficiently nuanced to demonstrate causation and “the degree to which such nationalist ideas actually impact policy”. He calls for further research of the actual role of nationalism on RFP and proposes multiple methods for studying various layers and the real impact of nationalist ideas. March alerts readers to practical and methodological difficulties of researching beliefs and ideas, yet suggests that such research – for instance, by process-tracing and interviews with policymakers and experts with inside knowledge – is possible. The final chapter by Yuval Weber reviews yet another prominent approach that stresses the role of energy and explains RFP by the ways in which the political regime exploits the country’s available energy resources. Weber takes issue with the war chest theory that argues the connection between growing energy revenues and international assertiveness, including military intervention. He argues that the ultimate decisive influence in foreign policy results from leader’s beliefs and internal politics, whereas the revenue environment merely adds to the menu of available policy choices. Weber shows how the politically weak Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev lost the internal battle to military hawks and had to use oil revenue to fund expansionism in the developing countries, thereby derailing détente with the West. Alternatively, the politically strong Russian leader Putin used the oil “weapon” selectively. Against the expectations of the war chest theory, he did not challenge the West when oil prices were high, but he intervened in Ukraine and Syria long after energy prices had collapsed harming the Russian economy. By warning against the simplistic “oil makes Russia aggressive” arguments, Weber’s petropolitics theory shows the complexity of relations between energy and political regime and calls for researching both the political and energy sides of RFP formation.

4

1 INTERNATIONAL NORMS AND IDENTITY Valentina Feklyunina newcastle university, uk

The rise of social constructivism in International Relations (IR) theory has had a major impact on studies of Russian foreign policy (RFP). Although this may also be true of foreign policy studies related to other states, constructivist studies of Russian and Soviet foreign policies played a crucial role in the emergence of social constructivism as one of the mainstream approaches to studying international politics more broadly. It is sometimes suggested that the rise of social constructivism in IR was linked to the inability of other theoretical approaches at the time to predict or explain the largely peaceful end of the Cold War (Wohlforth, 1994). While the intellectual roots of social constructivism go back long before Moscow’s largely unexpected withdrawal from the Cold War (Adler, 2013; Fierke and Jorgensen, 2015), this tectonic change certainly challenged the then dominant structural and rational choice explanations of the Soviet Union’s international behaviour. As argued by Guzzini (2013: 196), ‘what spurred the constructivist critique was . . . that prevailing theories did not even recognize the possibility that it would happen in the first place’. It is hardly surprising that during the first post-Soviet decade the theoretical development of social constructivism in IR and the study of Soviet and RFP were often closely linked (Neumann, 1996; Checkel, 1997; Hopf, 2002). This chapter provides an overview of the existing constructivist work on RFP and discusses some of its most significant contributions to our understanding of Russia’s international behaviour. Similar to constructivist studies in IR and Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) more broadly, the constructivist work on RFP is remarkably diverse. It encompasses studies with fairly different epistemological and methodological positions, which focus on different aspects of Russia’s foreign and security policies broadly defined, ranging from the role of ideas in policy change to Russia’s engagement with cultural mega projects, such as the Sochi Olympics. Some studies explicitly articulate their constructivist positions, while others avoid attaching the label of ‘constructivism’ – and sometimes even explicitly differentiate their approach from constructivism – but nevertheless draw on the concepts which are central to the constructivist viewpoint. The diversity of constructivist work has led to numerous attempts to identify distinct constructivist approaches. Hopf (1998: 172), for example, differentiates between conventional and critical constructivisms, while Adler (2013: 115) singles out modernist, modernist linguistic, radical (which, in Adler’s view, includes a poststructuralist approach) and critical constructivisms. While these labels remain contested, they point to the continuing epistemological debate. Yet, despite their differences, constructivists generally share several key assumptions. As formulated 5

Valentina Feklyunina

by Guzzini (2000: 174), ‘constructivism is epistemologically about the social construction of knowledge and ontologically about the (social) construction of the social world’. Thus, constructivists understand the social world, i.e. the world of social relations, as ‘a project under construction, as becoming rather than being’ (Adler, 2013: 113). They also recognise that our understanding of this world can never grasp the world ‘as it is’, because our knowledge of the world is itself socially, i.e. intersubjectively, constructed. When applied to the study of RFP, these assumptions translate into the focus on the construction of Russia’s identity and its interests, and on Russia’s understanding of the world and its place in it. Despite their differences, constructivist studies emphasise the importance of the historical context and the need to open up the black box of the Russian state. It is also important to note that constructivist studies of RFP often draw on insights from other theoretical approaches in IR or other cognate disciplines, for example, historical institutionalism (Checkel, 1997), postcolonialism (Morozov, 2015), social psychology (Clunan, 2009; Larson and Shevchenko, 2010) or cultural studies (Makarychev and Yatsyk, 2014). This chapter is structured in the following way. It begins by briefly discussing some of the key constructivist assumptions as compared to other theoretical approaches in IR, and by introducing key constructivist concepts. The second section presents an overview of several major strands within the existing constructivist work on RFP, by focusing on such themes as (i) Russia’s identity; (ii) recognition and non-recognition of Russia’s identity by Others; (iii) norms; and (iv) practices and habits. The third section looks at various methodological challenges as they are addressed in constructivist studies of RFP. The chapter concludes by discussing possible avenues for future research.

Key assumptions: what makes constructivism constructivist? Having initially developed as a critique of rationalist approaches, IR constructivism has rapidly become one of the main approaches to studying international politics (Ruggie, 1998; Wendt, 1999; Guzzini, 2000; Adler, 2013). Although a very broad church, constructivism includes several key assumptions that are shared by most scholars subscribing to this research tradition. Compared to rationalist approaches, including neo-realism and neo-liberalism, constructivism emphasises a deeply social nature of international interactions. Unlike rationalist assumptions about the overriding importance of material structures, such as the distribution of material capabilities, constructivists argue that ‘normative or ideational structures are as important as material structures’ (Reus-Smit, 2013: 224). While not denying the significance of material factors, constructivists generally believe that these factors matter not on their own but through shared meanings that actors attach to them. To quote Wendt (1995: 73), ‘material capabilities as such explain nothing; their effects presuppose structures of shared knowledge, which vary and which are not reducible to capabilities’. This emphasis on shared knowledge points to the notion of intersubjectivity as central to the constructivist approach. Unlike psychological approaches that focus on peculiarities of cognitive processes of individual decision-makers (McDermott, 2004), constructivists are concerned with the social rather than with the individual. They see individual decision-makers as being able to ‘know, think, and feel only in the context of and with reference to collective or intersubjective understandings’ (Adler, 2013: 121). Thus, most constructivist studies are concerned with intersubjective understandings of identities, interests, international norms or rules as they develop and change in particular cultural and historical contexts. In addition to their emphasis on ideational structures, constructivists generally agree that agents and structures are co-constituted. While the existing structures shape actors’ identities, actors reproduce and transform these structures through their practices (Reus-Smit, 2013: 225). 6

International norms and identity

To illustrate this point about co-constitution, Wendt (1995: 74) uses an example of the Cold War which he describes as ‘a structure of shared knowledge’. Although it shaped identities of both the Soviet Union and the United States and was reproduced by them for several decades, ‘once they stopped acting on this basis, it was “over”’. Unlike rationalist approaches that treat states as strategic actors pursuing pre-existing interests and preferences in the international realm, constructivists see states and other agents as inherently social actors whose identities and interests are constituted in the process of interaction. Although constructivists vary in their conceptualisation of identity (see, for example, Wendt, 1999; Hopf, 2002)