Russia says no: Power,status, and emotions in foreign policy

Since 2003, Russian foreign behavior has become much more assertive and volatile toward the West, often rejecting U.S. diplomatic initiatives and overreacting to perceived slights. This essay explains Russia's new assertiveness using social psychological hypotheses on the relationship between power, status, and emotions. Denial of respect to a state is humiliating. When a state loses status, the emotions experienced depend on the perceived cause of this loss. When a state perceives that others are responsible for its loss, it shows anger. The belief that others have unjustly used their power to deny the state its appropriate position arouses vengefulness. If a state believes that its loss of status is due to its own failure to live up to expectations, the elites will express shame. Since the end of the Cold War, Russia has displayed anger at the U.S. unwillingness to grant it the status to which it believes it is entitled, especially during the 2008 Russo-Georgian War, and most recently Russia's takeover of Crimea and the 2014 Ukrainian Crisis. We can also see elements of vengefulness in Russia's reaction to recognition of Kosovo, U.S. missile defense plans, the Magnitsky act, and the Snowden affair.     

The frustrating partnership: Honor,status, and emotions in Russia's discourses of the West

This paper analyzes Russia's presidential discourses and emotions of the West from March 2008 to December 2012. By studying the languages of inclusiveness and exclusiveness in annual addresses to the Federation Council and public statements, I have identified several distinct stages in the Kremlin's emotional evolution from fear to hope to frustration: the initial fear (March 2008–June 2009), hope (September 2009–the late 2010), and frustration (since the early 2011). The Russia's emotional shifts are shaped by the country's historically established social relations with the West and are not to be reduced to the dynamics of power and prestige/status. Russia's deep emotional connection to the West as well as Russia's own concept of national honor are the two factors that drive the nation's leaders' complex actions, feelings, and rhetoric. Russia displays emotions of hope each time it feels that its honor is being respected and those of frustration, fear and anger when in the eyes of Kremlin its identity/honor as not recognized.     

The three colors of Novorossiya,or the Russian nationalist mythmaking of the Ukrainian crisis

While the annexation of Crimea boosted Putin's popularity at home, the Donbas insurgency shattered the domestic ideological status quo. The Kremlin's position appeared somehow hesitant, fostering the resentment of Russian nationalist circles that were hoping for a second annexation. In this article, I explore the term Novorossiya as a live mythmaking process orchestrated by different Russian nationalist circles to justify the Donbas insurgency. The powerful pull of Novorossiya rests on its dual meaning in announcing the birth of a New Russia geographically and metaphorically. It is both a promised land to be added to Russia and an anticipation of Russia's own transformation. As such, Novorossiya provides for an exceptional convergence of three underlying ideological paradigms – “red” (Soviet), “white” (Orthodox), and “brown” (Fascist). The Novorossiya storyline validates a new kind of geopolitical adventurism and blurs the boundaries, both territorial and imaginary, of the Russian state.     

俄罗斯实用主义气候政策探析

气候变化议题在今天的全球治理中居于核心地位。俄罗斯的气候政策对于全球气候变化合作的开展有着非常重要的影响。"气候实用主义"是当前俄罗斯气候政策选择的核心。本文分析了近年来俄罗斯"气候实用主义"的内涵特征、政策特点、选择动因以及造成的影响。本文指出价值观、经济发展模式以及国际体系中的地位是决定俄罗斯实用主义气候政策选择的三个关键变量。这些变量通过观念、利益和身份的路径影响了俄罗斯气候政策的理念框架、国内偏好以及国际合作参与。对于气候变化起源的"怀疑论"、对碳氢能源企业的重点保护,通过气候政策对内增强治理合法性,吸引投资和技术以缓解美欧制裁是当前俄政府实用主义气候政策的突出特点。俄罗斯的这种气候政策为国际气候变化合作的加强提供了新动力,也为中俄区域合作开辟了新领域。但却难以弥合俄罗斯与美欧在气候变化问题上的根本分歧,也不会对俄罗斯依赖能源经济的发展模式造成实质影响。     

Broadcasting agitainment: a new media strategy of Putin’s third presidency

This article argues that accounts of the Russian media system that tend to view the time from Vladimir Putin’s rise to power in 2000 as a single homogenous period do not capture major qualitative shifts in state-controlled media coverage. By analyzing the output of Russia’s two main television channels during Putin’s third presidential term, we identify a range of distinctly new features that amount to a new media strategy. This involves a significant increase in the coverage of political issues through the replacement of infotainment with what we term agitainment—an ideologically inflected content that, through adapting global media formats to local needs, attempts to appeal to less engaged and even sceptical viewers. Despite the tightening of political control over the media following the annexation of Crimea, the new strategy paradoxically has strengthened the constitutive role played by the state-controlled broadcasters in the articulation of official discourse.     

俄罗斯税制改革的政治影响分析

普京上台伊始,即把发展经济、建立强大的国家确定为俄联邦的首要任务。普京认为,使俄罗斯失去其国际强势地位和独立性的很大原因是国家税收乏力,因此俄罗斯当务之急是尽快改革原有的税制结构和税收制度①。在普京的大力推动下,俄罗斯进行了大规模税制改革。以简化税制、减少税种、降低税率、减轻税负为核心的税制改革取得了很大成功,使俄罗斯“成为一个建立了良好税收制度的国家”。在此基础上,普京提出了进一步深化税改,在今后两年内全面完成税收改革的新的奋斗目标。     

普京建立欧亚联盟计划的动因和变数分析

2011年10月4日普京在《消息报》上撰文,提出将以俄白哈关税同盟和统一经济空间为基础,建立欧亚联盟,有效地连接欧洲和蓬勃发展的亚太地区。欧亚联盟计划提出后,得到俄罗斯各界的普遍支持,且计划本身具有一定合理性的成分,因此实现的可能性是存在的。但计划在实施过程中也将面临诸多障碍与困难,其前景仍有待进一步观察。     

Potholes,pensions, and public opinion: the politics of blame in Putin's power vertical

What are the risks and rewards of power centralization in competitive authoritarian regimes, and who in the regime bears those risks and enjoys the rewards? The elimination of gubernatorial elections in Russia in late 2004 provides a unique opportunity to study public reaction to policies that replaced democratically elected regional leaders with Kremlin appointees, thereby further concentrating power in the hands of the central state while simultaneously reducing the level of democratic accountability in Russian politics. Using a 2007 survey of 1500 Russians, it is possible to observe how key measures of public opinion and regime support were influenced by the elimination of gubernatorial elections. Because the timeline of gubernatorial appointments was determined exogenously based on the expiration of elected incumbent governors' terms, by 2007 some regions had governors who still held electoral mandates, while others had Kremlin appointees with no electoral mandate. This quasi experiment allows us to draw surprising conclusions about whom Russians blame – and do not blame – when power becomes increasingly centralized in the hands of the president.     

Causes of the Collapse of the USSR

The paper studies Russia's Ukraine policy since the Orange Revolution. Russia's policy toward its western neighbor has evolved from unhappy relations with Victor Yushchenko to rapprochement with Victor Yanukovich and then confrontation over the revolutionary power change in Kiev in February 2014. The paper argues that Vladimir Putin's actions following February revolution in Kiev demonstrate both change and continuity in Russia's foreign policy. Although these actions constituted a major escalation, relative to Russia's previous behavior toward Ukraine, the escalation of relations with Kiev also reflected a broader policy pattern of Russia's assertive relations with the Western nations adopted by the Kremlin since the mid-2000s. What made Russia's conflict with Ukraine possible, even inevitable, was the West's lack of recognition for Russia's values and interests in Eurasia, on the one hand, and the critically important role that Ukraine played in the Kremlin's foreign policy calculations, on the other. The paper provides an empirically grounded interpretation of Russia's changing policy that emphasizes Russia–Ukraine–West interaction and a mutually reinforcing dynamics of their misunderstanding. It also addresses four alternative explanations of Russia's Ukraine policy and discusses several dangers and possible solutions to the crisis.     

Putin as a flexible politician. Does he imitate Stalin?

The article is about Putin's ‘Jewish anomaly’. Against all expectations, Putin during his tenure as president of the Russian Federation showed in various ways his concern about the life of Jews in his country.