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13 february 2017
Spies, Jurists, Diplomats
The Russian political system is hard to understand, but not impossible to understand. The simplistic interpretation of a “Tsar ruling alone” shows its limits every time it is recalled to explain the Kremlin’s latest decision in foreign or domestic policy.
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13 february 2017
The Future of Democracy
If elites continue to encourage the racist demagogues of the right, they will live in societies fundamentally transformed beyond their control. Where unpredictable authoritarian leaders take power, elites can lose their liberties and ultimately even their wealth.
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13 february 2017
The Knight of Russian Realism
The current elites lack Primakov’s ability to find a balance between national and international interests, see a better future, and choose the best way to achieve it. It is this ability that has placed Primakov among the brilliant representatives of realist thought.
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6 february 2017
A view from Moscow
The victory of Donald Trump reinforced international tendencies, which had been obvious for Russians and which had been guiding Russian behavior for last few years.
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24 january 2017
Russia’s 2016-2018 Election Cycle: Popular Engagement and Protest Potential
In the wake of the For Fair Elections protest movement in Russia in 2011-2012, the Kremlin initiated a new strategy of state-society relations that was aimed at diminishing the propensity for protest in the next election cycle.
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9 january 2017
Restructuring Extractive Economies in the Caspian Basin: Too Little, Too Late?
The oil- and gas-rich states of the Caspian Sea basin—Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan—registered phenomenal growth throughout most of the 2000s. However, the heady days of resource-fueled development now appear to be over, and local governments are suddenly struggling to overcome massive budget deficits, devalued currencies, and overall economic stagnation.
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20 december 2016
Ukraine’s New Government: Possibility of Progress or Another Pre-Term Election in Sight?
Two and a half years after the Euromaidan revolution, Ukraine represents a mixed story of improvements and setbacks.
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19 december 2016
Putin Is Giving America a Taste of its Own Medicine
Aiming to spread democracy, the U.S. has meddled in foreign countries’ politics for decades. Russia just returned the favor.
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6 december 2016
Correction of Errors: How the Kremlin Re-Equilibrated Authoritarian Elections in 2016
After Russia’s wave of protest during the 2011-2012 election cycle, the country’s authorities embarked on an effort to prevent anti-regime mass mobilization during subsequent election periods.
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9 november 2016
What If… the Soviet Union Had Not Collapsed?
The 13th annual meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club includes a special session on the theme “What if… the Soviet Union had not collapsed?”
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12 october 2016
Power-Sharing in Europe: Models for the Ukraine?
Some form of power-sharing arrangement could pave the way to reconciling the conflict in the Ukraine and in relations between the EU and Russia is a valid one.
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11 october 2016
The “Return of Stalin”: Understanding the Surge of Historical Politics in Russia
Two principal and emotional points of history have again been placed on the national stage: the Great Patriotic War (a unifying memory) and the era of Joseph Stalin (a point of contention).
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6 october 2016
Post-Western World and the Rise of a Parallel Order
In the coming weeks, observers from Moscow to Bras?lia will look towards the United States, where voters face a stark choice between two radically different presidential candidates.
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4 october 2016
More Europe!
No one would be served by cutting short the unique European experiment. It should develop and be an example for other regions to emulate.
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29 september 2016
Everyday Patriotism and Putin’s Foreign Policy
Discussions of popular support for the Kremlin’s foreign policy often invoke common international relations concepts, like the “rally around the flag” effect...
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25 september 2016
Illusion as a Necessity
Like any ideology, patriotism comes along with an illusion of being part of “a big common cause.” However, illusion here is not deception, but an objective necessity, something that has to be hidden for society to continue to exist and at the same time adequately conceived at a conscious level.
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25 september 2016
Law and National Interest
Russia should reasonably assess the need for itself to participate in old, mostly European, formats of integration, and to think of new formats that would be more consistent with modern requirements. The principles of Russia’s interaction should be revised in favor of greater pragmatism and protection of national interest.
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28 july 2016
Winter and Spring Together, Geocultural Signs of Renewal Throughout Europe
Despite its deep crisis of identity, spawned by nihilistic elites who are both unable to give a sense to existence and to act in favour of the common good, France is marked by a discreet renewal.
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16 july 2016
After Nice, a continent contemplates an ever-clearer truth
As yet another attack claims a shocking toll in innocent lives in France, political analyst Fyodor Lukyanov writes how terrorist acts and the helplessness of secret services are changing Europe before our very eyes
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15 july 2016
After Brexit, Europe’s Dueling Nostalgias
As the European Union hangs in the balance, both sides seem to be thinking of past golden ages instead of planning for the future.
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14 july 2016
The EU Looks Like the Dying Soviet Empire
The United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union—for which the majority of the British people voted in a referendum—has become an international sensation.
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28 june 2016
The Week Britain Pretended It Was Ukraine (Op-Ed)
If there is anything the last two years should have taught us, it is that the unthinkable can happen — separatism, disintegration, even wars — and that it can happen very quickly.
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28 june 2016
Do Russia and the West really need a pseudo-ideological confrontation?
Analyst discusses possible scenarios on heels of recent SPIEF meetings.
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17 june 2016
Betting on Legitimacy
Every legitimacy dispute revolves around a special combination of the internal and the external. International or external legitimacy is a resource for self-assertion in the global community and it is also a resource for those who wish to challenge the state system.
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17 june 2016
Water and Peace
The only strategic response to the global water challenge and international competition for water would be to improve water use efficiency by redistributing water intakes and introducing new water use technologies. Importantly, these measures do not require redistributing water flows among countries.
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17 june 2016
Supply-Side Reform, Chinese Style
The proclaimed supply-side structural reform is not a carbon copy of Reagan’s policy. Rather, it is the continuation of the search for the Chinese way of development and efforts to adapt foreign teachings to Chinese conditions.
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17 june 2016
Caught in the Web of Archaic Policies
The Syrian conflict has provided an example of the profound virtualization of politics (and even its power component) and of creating stable pre-engineered actors exclusively for the communication space. The “moderate opposition” is the most noteworthy one.
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17 may 2016
Will Europe Blink First on Ukraine?
Since July 2014, when Malaysian Airlines MH17 was shot down over the Donbas, the European Union has demonstrated an unprecedented level of solidarity with Ukraine that extends far beyond macroeconomic and technical assistance.
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20 april 2016
Does Islam Challenge the Legitimacy of Uzbekistan’s Government?
For more than twenty years, Uzbekistan has had no real political change and remains one of the most authoritarian countries in the world. How has President Islam Karimov held onto the reins of power for so long?
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15 april 2016
Housing and Political Grievances in Post-Soviet Eurasia
Due in part to the legacy of the Soviet system, in which the state allocated housing to families and individuals on the basis of non-market principles, and in part to endemic housing shortages in the post-Soviet era, housing concerns are an important potential source of political grievances in post-Soviet states.
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A new world order: A view from Russia
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Sergey Karaganov, Dmitry Suslov -
US Indo-Pacific Strategy: Myths and Reality
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Robert Manning -
Islam and Global Commons: The Gap between Principles and Practices
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Nourhan El-Sheikh -
The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities
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John Mearsheimer -
A Rapidly Changing Reality
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A new world order: A view from Russia
Since around 2017–2018, the world has been living through a period of progressive erosion, or collapse, of international orders inherited from the past. With the election of Donald Trump and the rapid increase of US containment of Russia and China—which is both a consequence of this gradual erosion and also represents deep internal and international contradictions—this process entered its apogee.
Russia-Japan -- peace can wait
Putin has snubbed Abe as he boosts links with China amid growing US hostility to Beijing and Moscow.
Political Crisis in France: Locked by Elites
We entered a political crisis. The incidents of Saturday, November 1, the evolution of claims and slogans of the Yellow Vests prove it.
Crimea and Punishment
On 25 November, Russia seized 24 Ukrainian sailors in the Kerch Strait, which connects the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. It is the first open clash between the two countries since 2014.
Scaling Down Ambitions? G20 Agenda Evolves from Global Governance to Bilateral Consultations
The fate of the G20 is an example of how difficult it is in the modern world to establish any formalized forms of international or global governance. Despite the fact that problems are increasingly truly global in nature, their solution is becoming increasingly national. States do their due for their own citizens and, as a rule, do not take into account the interests of mankind as a whole.
Why We Must Prohibit Cyberattacks on Nuclear Systems: the Case for Pre-Emptive US–Russia Arms Control
Almost 35 years ago, US President Ronald Reagan settled down in the White House to watch the latest Hollywood blockbuster WarGames as part of his regular Sunday film night. The film, starring a young Matthew Broderick, depicted a teenage computer hacker accidentally breaking into top-secret Pentagon supercomputers that controlled US nuclear weapons.
Russia’s Response to Sanctions: How Western Sanctions Reshaped Political Economy in Russia
Since August 2017, legislation allowing the imposition of a range of new sanctions against Russia has been passed by US lawmakers. Although not all this legislation has thus far been implemented by the president, Donald Trump, the mere threat of more draconian economic sanctions from the US created considerable uncertainty in Russia.