EU-Russia political and security cooperation: major research trends

Abstract

ABSTRACT The Russia-Georgia conflict in August 2008 and Ukraine’s crisis have dramatic consequences for the security environment on the EU Eastern periphery and undermined ‘strategic partnership’ with Russia. The Western literature on security has been dominated since by Russia’s confrontation with Europe, the use of sanctions by the EU as an instrument of statecraft to ‘contain’ Russia, and the promotion by Moscow of ‘hybrid warfare’ tactics. The Russian literature has mainly concentrated on rivalry between Russia and the EU in the post-Soviet region, reciprocal sanctions and ‘Cold War 2.0’. In fact, much of the previous extensive literature reflected commonalities as well as divergences in Russian and European scholars’ perceptions of their security relationship. We identify the key conceptual and empirical concerns reflected in the scholarly literature: (1) legal-institutional issues; (2) EU–Russia bilateral cooperation in security governance; (3) EU–Russia cooperation at the international level to address common security problems and (4) EU–Russia relations in terms of ideational/identity issues. We have used these four themes as the basis of our analytical framework enabling us to compare approaches of Russian and European scholars. The conclusions focus on the commonalities and differences in European and Russian scholarship and identify epistemological and practical consequences.