Report on Japan 1972

Abstract

Nothing has more mystified discussions of Japanese military development than the innumerable simplistic conclusions drawn from percentage comparisons with Gross National Product (GNP) or with international levels of military spending. This is seriously misleading from two broad angles: (1) the actual size and growth of the military and the hidden expenses of the military budget; (2) the key role that Japan’s defense expenditures play in supporting American imperialism in Asia.     

Russian defense spending after 2010: the interplay of personal,domestic, and foreign policy interests

Since 2010, Russia’s defense spending has seen an average annual real growth of 10%, causing a profound shift in the composition of government expenditure. This article examines the formal and informal processes through which Russia’s level of defense spending is determined and identifies personal, domestic, and foreign policy interests behind the rise in defense expenditures. Drawing on a combination of elite interviews and document and news analyses, I argue that domestic political and socioeconomic factors are at least as important as geopolitical and security ones in explaining Russia’s decision to push defense to the forefront of the political agenda. The findings suggest that high levels of defense spending may be politically sustainable in Russia, at least in the medium term, even though it comes at the cost of other public goods.     

The Great Game and the evolving nature of political talk shows on Russian television

ABSTRACT

Much has been written about the specific way in which the Russian government under President Vladimir V. Putin uses television to propagate pro-government views on domestic and international politics by influencing what is aired. This paper examines the first season of The Great Game (Bol’shaya Igra in Russian), a television talk show that appears on Russia’s national television network Channel One, as an example of the government’s effort to shape public opinion. A content analysis suggests The Great Game differs from the typical Russian talk show genre in that it delivers political messages without much entertainment, providing cerebral discussions of issues that nonetheless back up all nine of the core “neoconservative” concepts underlying recent Russian political strategy. This suggests that the Russian government and television executives innovate to determine how best to use television to win over skeptical citizens to the Kremlin’s point of view.     

Biting the hand that feeds them? Abkhazia–Russia client–patron relations

ABSTRACT

The article discusses the post-Soviet de facto state of Abkhazia, and its relationship to its main patron, Russia. All patron–client nexuses are marked by a high degree of asymmetrical power – especially with de facto states, which depend upon the patron for their very survival. Thus, it is surprising to see how de facto client states repeatedly show that they are both willing and able to defy the wishes of their patrons and pursue their own agendas instead. Moreover, the patron may be willing to tolerate such rebelliousness. What can explain such “disobedient” behavior? I examine three contentious aspects of Russian–Abkhazian relations: the process leading up to the signing of an extended bilateral agreement in 2014; the tussles over how to fight crime in Abkhazia; and acrimony over Abkhazia’s reluctance to allow Russians to buy property in their country, despite massive pressure from Russian authorities.     

Τhe energy parameters of the Russian–Ukrainian–EU impasse: dependencies,sanctions and the rise of ‘Turkish Stream’

The overwhelming dependency of Ukraine on Russian energy and the lack of any short-to-medium term diversification of European Union (EU) oil and gas supplies away from Moscow dictate a cooperative approach vis-à-vis Russia in dealing with the Ukrainian crisis. The EU is unable to impose any more severe sanctions on Russia’s energy industry without provoking a major negative impact on its own troubled economy. The continuation of the current confrontational friction in EU–Russian energy relations will most likely consolidate Russia’s decision to seek the elimination of its gas transit dependence on Ukraine after 2020. Such a target will be very difficult to attain by the end of this decade, even if Russia will be able to partly replace the now abandoned South Stream project with Turkish Stream.     

The Western Balkans and the EU budget: the effects of enlargement

ABSTRACT

The Western Balkan region needs credible European development prospects to break the cycle of enlargement and accession fatigue and to speed up regional adjustment to the EU. Post-accession EU budget flows can provide the necessary funding for such prospects. This article assesses the expected changes in the size and composition of EU budget flows to the Western Balkan countries after their EU accession. Our results show a sudden and substantial increase in gross and net flows, which gradually intensifies over several years before levelling off. EU budget flows are economically important relative to the size of the Western Balkan economies, and their composition is strongly biased towards development policies. We also find that Western Balkan enlargement comes at a minimal budgetary cost for the remaining EU member states. Our findings can help reduce scepticism behind the Western Balkan countries’ accession fatigue and the EU’s enlargement fatigue.     

Unthawed: post-Cold War economic ties between Kaliningrad and Europe

ABSTRACT

Kaliningrad’s post-Soviet economic interconnection with Europe is encountering obstacles due to specific Russian governmental idiosyncrasies as well as its particular regional challenges. In essence, the Kremlin’s direct control from afar and European misgivings have influenced the territory’s economic development in relation to Europe. The distance of the region from Russia, exclave status, large size for an exclave, and conflicted history subject the area to contradictory forces. On the one hand, it links Kaliningrad to Europe because of a shared history and geography. On the other, it promotes a sense of political instability and geographical isolation that discourages economic integration with Europe.     

Defending national sovereignty against two Russias: Estonia in the Russian Civil War, 1918–1920

Abstract

This article examines the establishment of Estonian independence from a wider perspective including the Petrograd front of the Russian Civil War which had a decisive influence on securing Estonia's independence. The contradictory military cooperation between the Estonian army and the White Russian troops under command of General Iudenich, who was an ardent fighter for a Greater Russia that also included Estonia, was skillfully used by the Estonians in order to secure their own borders. Based on primary sources from Estonian and Russian archives, this article sheds new light on Estonian Russian policy during the years 1918–1920, arguing that in the given framework of international policy it was the Estonian side that in decisive moments managed to set the rules of the game.     

After the Ukrainian crisis: Is there a place for Russia?

Revolutionary protests in Ukraine in winter 2014 resulted in the annexation of Crimea by Russia, and an anti-terrorist operation launched by Kiev in eastern Ukraine. What was a totally internal manifestation of displeasure with governmental policy transformed into an international security crisis. While Kiev considers it a Russian–Ukrainian conflict, Moscow perceives it as a Russian–West confrontation, claiming that the crisis was provoked by NATO’s desire to enlarge into the region where Russia’s vital interests lie. The article analyses the sources of the current Ukrainian–Russian conflict and looks into Russia’s place in post-crisis Ukraine. As history has shown, even those states which used to fight each other for centuries managed not only to find peace but to establish constructive relationships. Still, with the shift from material to ideological confrontation, there are fewer and fewer options for compromise.     

俄罗斯对叙利亚政策中的东正教因素

俄罗斯在叙利亚乱局中的表现,近期再次成为国际热点。自2011年介入不断升级的叙利亚危机以来,俄罗斯目前已经成为主导叙政治进程的主要外部力量。在俄罗斯此次应对叙利亚危机的外交中,东正教因素起到了重要作用。早在帝国时期,俄国就持续介入叙利亚事务。俄罗斯与叙利亚自古以来的东正教文化交往,影响着沙俄对安提阿教会和叙利亚东正教徒的情感,成为沙俄加入中东大国角逐的突破口。此次介入叙利亚危机,是历史的延续。俄罗斯东正教会领导人的公开发言、其附属机构在国际组织对叙基督徒问题的宣传以及提供人道援助,起到了公共外交的效果,一定程度上使俄罗斯的介入和军事行动合法化,获得了俄罗斯国内外民众的理解与支持。东正教因素的上述多重影响,是俄罗斯介入此次叙利亚危机、并成功实现其外交策略和目标的重要因素之一。     

浅析俄罗斯新税制——石油行业发展的十字路口

石油行业在俄罗斯产业结构中占重要地位。石油行业的税收收入是俄联邦财政预算收入的重要组成部分。俄联邦政府相关部门、石油企业经过多次博弈,对原油、成品油中轻油和重油税率进行了修改,旨在寻求国家财政预算收入与石油企业的投资收益之间的最佳平衡,在国家整个宏观经济调控与石油行业健康发展之间找到最好办法。进行海外油气合作、实施海外并购,一国的财税制度甚为重要。对"走出去"的中国油气公司、企业而言,了解和掌握俄罗斯新税制的通过、实施及其将产生何种影响甚为关键。     

Understanding Russia’s energy turn to China: domestic narratives and national identity priorities

This study investigates whether, as part of a broader “Asian Energy Pivot,” Russia’s energy giant Gazprom refashioned its export strategy away from Europe, and what impact such a reorientation might have on the EU–Russia gas relationship. It uses four empirical cases to emphasize the domestic movers underlying Russia’s eastward shift in energy trade, developing a constructivist theory rooted in the dynamics of Russia’s dominant public narrative and the contours of domestic politics. It argues that Russia’s national interests changed as a result of how Russian policy-makers interpreted and reacted to the stand-off with Europe, in response to what they perceived as Europe’s attempt to isolate it economically and geopolitically. Russia’s Eurasianists, who had advocated the notion of a necessary turn to the East for a long time, positioned themselves as norm entrepreneurs and their new interpretation of the preexisting material incentives shaped the future course of action.     

Appropriating and contesting ‘traditional Islam’: Central Asian students at the Russian Islamic University in Tatarstan

ABSTRACT

Based on an ethnographic case study of an Islamic university in Russia, I examine how the state-implemented and bureaucratized traditionalization of Islam in Russia affects the everyday life of Central Asian students and how this project ‘from above’ is entangled with their coping strategies. I show how religious education has become a resource for the state as well as for young students and their parents. The Russian state uses these official religious institutions to control the Muslim population by creating and promoting a state-approved version of ‘traditional Islam’ and producing official religious specialists. For the young Muslim students, however, Islamic education provides, in addition to religious knowledge, access to networks, social security and new economic opportunities. It thereby offers a way to cope with the uncertainty caused by high unemployment rates and other socio-economic difficulties among young people.     

Neomercantilism and Energy Interdependence: Russian Strategies in East Asia

Abstract

This article examines the potential for Russia's Siberian and Far East energy projects to create webs of interdependence with the major energy-importing countries of East Asia. Energy policy toward Asia is analyzed with reference to Europe's problematic energy dependence on Russia, where Moscow has supported attempts by state-owned companies like Gazprom to extend control over energy supply and distribution. This analysis finds that Moscow's neomercantilist energy strategy, designed to advance Russian state power, has been marginally more successful with the weaker, more energy-dependent states of Japan and South Korea. China, Asia's major rising power, is more sensitive to the prospect of becoming too dependent on Russia as a supplier of oil and gas, because dependence could constrain Beijing's global ambitions.     

俄罗斯修宪与普京长久国家

普京对1993年《俄罗斯联邦宪法》进行修改,俄罗斯将从叶利钦宪法过渡到普京宪法。1993年宪法是一部以超级总统制为特征的基本法,它保证了俄罗斯主权国家的建立和社会政治的稳定。但是这部宪法赋予总统的权力异常大,限制了其他权力机构和地方对决策的影响。修宪的目的是使权力机构更加平衡,运行更加有效。普京认为,修宪过程中必须遵守几个基本原则:俄罗斯只能是总统制共和国,不能搞议会制;俄罗斯不能出现双重权力,不能出现寡头政治;俄罗斯宪法高于国际法律和条约;重视劳动者、母婴、养老金领取者的社会保障。修宪能否实现俄罗斯政治进程从以保证社会政治稳定为主过渡到以发展为中心,是2024年以后俄国家领导人面临的主要任务。普京表示,如果人民有希望,宪法法院有裁决,不排除2024年继续竞选总统。     

The Russian Dimension of Baltic Maritime Governance

This paper seeks to reconstruct the development of Baltic maritime governance by filling in the gap in the systematic study of Russian maritime policy. In a review of historical, administrative, economic, and political facets of Russian maritime policy, the paper identifies the logic of “greatpowerness” underpinned by the category of “national interest” as its main driver. In this overall logic, cooperation with the EU in maritime affairs is a part of larger Russia’s EU politics. Thus, Baltic maritime governance depends on the ability of the EU and Russia to maintain constructive relations beyond the scope of the maritime domain.     

Fearing the Ghosts of State Officialdom Past? Russia's Archives as a Tool for Constructing Historical Memories of Its Persia Policy Practices

The overarching task of this article is to directly present the main crucial venues – a prototype road map of Russia's study of Persia in the context of foreign policy – to the students of Russia and its relations with Persia, as well as, more specifically, to researchers of Russia's late Imperial and early Soviet policy towards Middle East and Oriental studies therein. Simultaneously, taking into consideration the equivocal and quite often controversial nature of conducting archival research in Russia, it is worth knowing that a scholarly activity, seemingly conventional and rather straightforward in the West, can turn into an adventurous quest in present-day Russia, hampered by various factors. So the article also touches upon the current condition of the archival industry in present-day Russia, with the emphasis on the traditionally most burning issue in this field, namely the unjustifiably excessive secrecy, underpinned by the discourse of protecting Russian state interests, which can turn out to be an unexpected obstacle to research into a period even dating back a hundred years.     

Educational infrastructure created in conditions of social exclusion: ‘Kyrgyz clubs’ for migrant children in Moscow

ABSTRACT

This article demonstrates how social exclusion affects the strategies that migrants and their children experience vis-à-vis the preschool education system of the host society. We use the example of two private institutions established in Moscow by Kyrgyz migrants to explore their role in helping integrate migrant children into the host society. I examine the role the Kyrgyz community plays in the life of labour migrants in Moscow, and why private migrant infrastructure is created today by people from this particular country, though eventually migrants from other countries use it as well. I find that in recent years migrants have been creating private infrastructure in Russia as an alternative to the public one. It replaces state institutions for migrants that are not accessible to them. Migrants also view it as one of the channels for entering the Russian society and state institutions. These centres do not so much help migrants’ children escape social isolation as compensate for the lack of adjustment programmes in Russian schools.     

Social media and Russian territorial irredentism: some facts and a conjecture

ABSTRACT

After Kremlin policymakers decided to incorporate the territory of Crimea into Russia, updates on public attitudes in Russian-speaking communities elsewhere in Ukraine would have been in high demand. Because social media users produce content in order to communicate ideas to their social networks, online political discourse can provide important clues about the political dispositions of communities. We map the evolution of Russian-speakers’ attitudes, expressed on social media, across the course of the conflict as Russian analysts might have observed them at the time. Results suggest that the Russian-Ukrainian interstate border only moved as far as their military could have advanced while incurring no occupation costs – Crimea, and no further.     

The Decline of a Dominant Party and the Destabilization of Electoral Authoritarianism?

The demonstrations following the December 2011 legislative election and the poorer performance of United Russia in that election suggest a potential crisis in the Russian electoral authoritarian regime. Assuming the Russian leadership wishes to stabilize electoral authoritarian rule, how should it go about doing this? Increasing electoral competition and decreasing control potentially can lead to democratization, and therefore regime change. A safer course for the regime may be reform of United Russia. This article analyzes United Russia's performance, asking if it has been carrying out the tasks of a dominant party, and considers the party's best chances for long-term stabilization of electoral authoritarianism.