From Systemic IR History to the Russian IR Theory. Interview with Professor Alexei D. Bogaturov

Abstract

Professor A.D. Bogaturov is a leading Russian IR scholar, orientalist and founder of the scientific school of applied analysis of international relations. A.D. Bogaturov graduated from the Faculty of International Relations of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations in 1976, defended his PhD thesis on foreign policy of Japan in 1983 at the Institute of Far Eastern Studies of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, and in 1996 at RAS Institute for US and Canadian Studies - his doctoral thesis on the relations of the USSR/Russia and the USA in East Asia. He was a visiting professor at the Brookings Institution, Columbia and Princeton Universities (USA). He worked at RAS Institute for International Security Problems, RAS Institute of World Economy and International Relations, RAS Institute for US and Canadian Studies, RAS Institute of Far Eastern Studies, Lomonosov Moscow State University, and the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Foreign Ministry. In 2007-2012 he was deputy-rector at MGIMO University, dean of the Faculty of Political Science (2006-2007) and founder of the Department of Applied Analysis of International Problems. Professor A.D. Bogaturov launched the leading in Russia scientific journal on the theory of international relations - International Trends. For many years he had been organizing winter schools for young researchers in Russia, CIS, which helped many of them to become leading IR scholars. He is the author of more than 200 scientific works, including fundamental works on history and theory of international relations, international political analysis published in Russia, as well as in the USA, Japan, Germany, France, South Korea, and Italy. In his interview A.D. Bogaturov describes the way how the systematic approach influenced the teaching of IR history in Russia and how it gradually led to the formation of the Russian theory of international relations.