Informal Political Networks and Putin’s Foreign Policy: The Examples of Iran and Syria

Abstract

While many analysts use an informal political network perspective to describe Russian domestic politics under Vladimir Putin, almost none have applied that framework to Russian foreign policy. This article explains why Russia is a useful case to use in developing such a framework, and then proposes a preliminary set of arguments about what a foreign policy based on informal politics would look like. While a realism or state interest framework still explains a lot, this article argues that an informal politics perspective explains Russian actions better than realism can alone, and explains why a personalized network approach is different from a more classic interest-group model. It cites a variety of examples from the Putin era to begin to illustrate the arguments, and then provides longer illustrative case-studies of Russian policy toward Iran and Syria to show how the arguments can be used in practice. It concludes by asking whether the perspective is useful in understanding Putin’s actions in Ukraine in 2014.