Russian Perceptions Research Articles

EU–Russia Security Relations and the Survey of Russian Federation Foreign Policy: One Year On

The Kremlin's change of leadership on 7 May 2008 and growing international fears of Russia's resurgence, especially in the aftermath of the Georgian conflict, make this an interesting time to reflect upon EU–Russia security relations. This article does so by examining closely the Survey of Russian Federation Foreign Policy and, one year on from its approval, drawing upon subsequent developments as preliminary corollary or otherwise of its bearing on policy. On balance, it seems that the Kremlin's evolving perception of Russia and international relations has encouraged revised priorities and objectives and a more forceful foreign policy that not only slow progress in filling the Common Spaces, but also increase the likelihood of Russia–EU competition especially in their shared neighbourhood.

Why <i>по</i>слушать, but <i>у</i>слышать?

This article provides a preliminary analysis of aspectual prefixation of Russian perception verbs. It is argued that the choice of prefix is not arbitrary, but depends on the meaning of the verb stem.

Between Spiritual Self and Other: Vladimir Solov'ev and the Question of East Asia

In this essay, Susanna Soojung Lim examines the philosopher Vladimir Solov'ev's representation of China and Japan in his theory of Pan- Mongolism. Emerging at the disjuncture between Solov'ev's ecumenism and the geopolitical realities of contemporary history, Pan-Mongolism was a creation onto which the philosopher projected his anxiety and disillusionment at the failure of his vision. Lim begins by surveying Russian perceptions of East Asia before the 1850s and situating Solov'ev within the popular discourse of the “yellow peril.” Discussing how Solov'ev recapitulates previous notions of this east, she considers Pan-Mongolism in terms of an acute Russian response to the historical and cultural changes originating in China and Japan at a period when the modernization of these nations was challenging the existing relationship between, and indeed the very categories of, east and west. A hybrid construct shaped by Russian occidentalism as well as orientalism, Pan-Mongolism is an idea that reveals both the strength and weakness of Solov'ev's Utopian universalism.

Russian Perceptions of Feminism in Moscow and St. Petersburg

Russian Perceptions of Feminism in Moscow and St. Petersburg

A Sociology of Dependence in International Relations Theory: A Case of Russian Liberal IR

This article addresses the question of interaction between Western and “non-Western” international relations (IR) by analyzing liberal theory of IR that is emerging in contemporary Russia. We argue that, despite a growing diversity within Russian scholarship of liberal orientation, it remains largely a product of Western, particularly American, intellectual hegemony, and more so than any other theoretical perspective. As compared to two other existing traditions in Russian IR—realism and critical studies—liberalism remains the most dependent and therefore must be explored before any other traditions as a crucial case for understanding the dialectic of cultural dependence and hegemony in production of global knowledge. We argue that the greater dependence of Russian liberal IR results from its relatively weak indigenous tradition, perception of Russia's material weakness as opportunity, and greater availability of Western research funds. We also discuss an alternative, less dependent version of Russian liberal IR, and opportunities that its existence implies for development of a global, de-centered international relations theory.

The European Union in the Russian Press

Analysis of articles devoted to the EU and EU–Russia relations in broadly representative Russian national newspapers reveals the level of attention paid to the EU, the kind of EU image – positive or negative – that dominates in Russian media, and the characteristics that are associated with the EU in the Russian media. The evidence suggests that the EU image is rather stable and slightly positive. However, the EU's image is also ambivalent, and the majority of EU characteristics are bipolar, with negative and positive characteristics opposing each other. The frequency of mentioning positive and negative characteristics is broadly balanced, confirming the conclusion that the EU image in the Russian press is neutral or slightly positive. This research was carried out with the financial support of INTAS Fellowship Grant for Young Scientists No. 03-55-887, Project ‘Russian elite awareness and perceptions of the EU’ and of the Russian Foundation for Humanities, Project No. 06-03-02106а, ‘Image policy of the European Union: Experience for Russia’. Opinions expressed in the article are strictly personal and cannot be associated with INTAS, RFH or any other institution with which the author is affiliated. The author thanks the Department of Politics of the University of Glasgow for the opportunity to carry out research in the department. He also wishes to acknowledge the very helpful comments of Stephen White.

Russia's Strategic Nuclear Deterrent: Realistic or Uncertain?

The U.S.-Russian nuclear relationship is not a Cold War anachronism, as many assume, but a vital constituent of a robust international body politic. War between Russia and America is unlikely, but misunderstanding and misperception with respect to their military ends and means are not. U.S. nuclear modernization plans impact on Russian perceptions of their great-power status and vice versa. The U.S. and Russia are downsizing their numbers of operationally deployed strategic nuclear weapons to meet the Moscow Treaty (SORT) requirements. Even Moscow Treaty–compliant forces will be well in excess of what some experts regard as necessary for deterrence.

Russia's destination image among American pleasure travelers: Revisiting Echtner and Ritchie

This study measured Russia's destination image among US pleasure travelers by the means of a Web-based survey. The methodology proposed by Echtner and Ritchie [(1993). The measurement of destination image: An empirical assessment. Journal of Travel Research, 31(Spring), 3–13] was enriched by using a combination of two software programs, CATPAC and WORDER, to analyze responses to open-ended questions about stereotypical holistic, affective, and uniqueness images and facilitate statistical comparisons of images between visitors and non-visitors to Russia. A favorability variable was operationalized on the textual data, and affective images of visitors and non-visitors to Russia were statistically compared. The study found that American travelers’ perceptions of Russia were often negative and there is a lack of awareness about Russia's destination features. Marketing implications for Russia's Federal Travel Agency based on the study results are discussed.

The narratives of exclusion and self-exclusion in the Russian conflict discourse on EU–Russian Relations

Abstract The article focuses on the interplay of the narratives of ‘exclusion’ and ‘self-exclusion’ in the Russian discourse on EU–Russian relations. Since the late 1990s, this discourse has acquired an increasingly conflictual orientation, whereby the official foreign policy objectives of ‘strategic partnership’ with the EU and Russia's ‘integration with Europe’ are increasingly problematised across the entire Russian political spectrum. In the analysis of the Russian conflict discourse we shall identify two at first glance opposed narratives. Firstly, the EU enlargement has raised the issue of the expansion of the Schengen visa regime for Russian citizens, travelling to Europe. Particularly acute with regard to Kaliningrad Oblast', this issue has also generated a wider identity-related discourse on the EU's exclusionary policies towards Russia. Secondly, the perception of Russia's passive or subordinate status in EU–Russian cooperative arrangements at national, regional and local levels resulted in the problematisation of the insufficiently reciprocal or intersubjective nature of the EU–Russian ‘partnership’ and the increasing tendency towards Russia's ‘self-exclusion’ from integrative processes, grounded in the reaffirmation of state sovereignty that generally characterises the Putin presidency. This article concludes with the interpretation of the two conflict narratives in the wider context of debates around the project of European integration.

Andrei P. Tsygankov. Whose World Order?: Russia's Perception of American Ideas after the Cold War. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2004. xv, 205 pp. $45.00 (cloth), $24.00 (paper).

Andrei P. Tsygankov. Whose World Order?: Russia's Perception of American Ideas after the Cold War. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2004. xv, 205 pp. $45.00 (cloth), $24.00 (paper).

Between Assertiveness and Insecurity: Russian Elite Attitudes and the Russia-Georgia Crisis

A political scientist discusses the content and sources of Russian elite perspectives on international affairs. The "color revolutions," the perceived specter of Islamic radicalism, contestation over Russian identity, and evolving perceptions of Russia's international leverage are examined for their impact on elite attitudes. Discussion of the crisis in relations between Russia and Georgia illustrates the article's theme about the relationship between insecurity and assertiveness.

Russian Perspectives on Elder Abuse: An Exploratory Study

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this exploratory study was to analyze Russian perceptions of elder abuse as reflected in their examples of abusive behavior from an adult child to an aging parent. Also of interest was the possibility of gender differences in the Russian perspectives on elder abuse. The convenience sample consisted of 21 Russian participants (10 males, 10 females, and one without gender identified), who provided examples of extreme, moderate, and mild abuse from an adult child towards an aging parent. Most examples of extreme abuse were forms of physical violence. Typical examples of moderate abuse were instances of psychological aggression–particularly verbal aggression–and neglect. The most common examples of mild abuse were verbal aggression and neglect. One-way analyses of variance revealed statistically significant gender differences in the number of references to psychological aggression in general and to verbal aggression in particular in the examples of moderate abuse, with females giving more examples than males.

Miscalculating One’s Enemies: Russian Military Intelligence before the Russo-Japanese War

On the basis of archival and printed sources, this article examines the role that Russian military intelligence played in miscalculating the Japanese threat before the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-05. The treatment focuses on three general problem areas: assessments of Japanese military and naval strength and combat readiness; perceptions of war imminence and the related possibility of surprise; and Japanese intentions. Evidence indicates that the overall quality of intelligence was uneven, although reasonably accurate with regard to the Japanese navy. However, genuine situational and structural constraints clouded perceptions of the Japanese ground forces. Still other constraints obscured Russian perceptions of war imminence and Japanese intentions. The cumulative result was that Russia would enter far eastern conflict at a substantial disadvantage.

Russian perceptions of state failure and Russia's involvement with fragile states

Russia's policies towards fragile states demonstrate not only the sustained reduction of outreach to its immediate neighbourhood, but also the accumulation of contradictory claims, and combination of incompatible activities. Its sensitivity to the problem of international interventions is underpinned with the uncertainty in the viability of the bureaucratized political order and in the outcome of the forthcoming political transition. Sustained economic growth driven primarily by the energy sector leads to the unmistakable rise of great power ambitions that shaped Russia's chairmanship in the G8 in 2006. At the same time, there is very little readiness to accept responsibility for maintaining order in the world system, and public opinion remains firmly set against providing humanitarian aid to states suffering from civil wars or natural disasters. Moscow is increasingly inclined to interfere in the political processes in other post‐Soviet states while neglecting the needs to put its own house in order; it also fails to build reliable instruments of conflict management. These contradictions have acquired a particularly pronounced character in the Caucasus where Georgia has emerged as the main target of 9 sanctions and pressure aimed at exacerbating internal vulnerabilities, while the overlapping economic and security challenges in the regions of the North Caucasus demonstrate many features of state failure in progress.

Chinese Europe: Alexander Herzen and the Russian Image of China

Chinese Europe: Alexander Herzen and the Russian Image of China Susanna Soojung Lim W H E AT O N C O L L E G E , M A S S A C H U S E T T S Alexander Herzen (1812-70), aleading nineteenth-century Russian thinker, memoirist, journalist, and novelist, spent the majority of his active professional life in exile in Europe, primarily England. Portrayed to genera¬ tions of Russians as the “father of Russian socialism,” Herzen is also known for his astute observations of the European scene and his reflections on Rus¬ sia’s relationship to the West. On the significance of Europe for Russia, he once declared, “We need Europe as an ideal, areproach, agood example; if she were not these things it would be necessary to invent her” (11:66). Yet Herzen’s thoughts on the West also lead us to an unexpected, reverse, direction: to the Far East and China. The present study examines the idea of China in the writings of the Russian thinker, in particular its sig¬ nificance as the source of adistinctive Russian discourse on China and Japan, one in which these Far Eastern nations figure not as clear signifiers of the exotic “Orient,” but rather as potent metaphors for considering Russia’s own place in history and its relation to the West.^ The first part discusses some specifics of Russian perceptions of China leading up to Herzen, fol¬ lowed by an analysis of his original contribution to the predominant nine¬ teenth-century idea of China. It then concludes with an examination of Herzen’s influence on Fyodor Dostoevsky and the Russian Symbolists. Beginning in the nineteenth century, the image of China in Russian thought and literature functioned as adual metaphor. On the one hand, it representedstagnationandconservatism,servingasastand-infortheRuss¬ ian self, in the way European thinkers used it to criticize their own societies. Ontheotherhand,beginninginthe1840s,Chinaalsobecameasymbolfor the other, the West. This counterintuitive conflation of China and Western Europewasshapedbywriters’awarenessofRussia’speculiarstatusbetween E a s t a n d W e s t . Thepasttwodecadeshaveseenagrowingnumberofstudiesdevotedto the question of Russia and the East in the theoretical context of postcolo¬ nialism and Orientalism. These studies have focused on the ways the Russian state and its intellectuals, writers, and artists have understood and described the empire’s eastern and southern peripheries.The need to readjust Edward Said’s notion of Orientalism when considering the Russian experience of the East has been noted by several critics.According to Mark Bassin, Russia’s ambivalent position is characterized by “a sort of existential indeterminacy between East and West, averitable geo-schizophrenia” (1998, 58); IntertextSy Vol. 10, No. 12006 ©Texas Tech University Press 5 2 I N T E R T E X T S Nathaniel Knight, in questioning the direct applicability of Said’s theory to Russia, writes that “when Russian scholars turned to the East it was often with asharp awareness of their own supposed backwardness and inferiority in the face of the grand civilization of Britain, France and Germany.” (77) This national insecurity has shaped Russian orientalist discourse: schol¬ arship on the treatment of the Caucasus in nineteenth-century Russian liter¬ ature, for instance, has shown how the creation of the south as Russia’s own Orient was significantly motivated by the desire to underscore Russians’ sim¬ ilarity to Europeans as colonizers and orientalizers.^ Like the use of the Cau¬ casus, the use of China reveals Russian perceptions of its “own supposed backwardness and inferiority in the face of the grand civilization” of Western Europe, but in adecidedly different manner. China in the writings to be examined below functions as astand-in not for an exotic or Romantic other that satisfied Russian imperial needs, but as afamiliar and contemptible Western other, and consequently as aweapon for critiquing the evils of Western modernity and stressing Russia’s distance from Europe. Russian thinking on China, then, becomes acomplex interaction among three ideas: Orientalism, Occidentalism^, and Russia. From Kitaishchina to “Chinese Europe” Although Russia was the first “western” nation to sign aformal treaty with China in 1689 (Treaty of Nerchinsk), its engagement with the Middle King¬ dom as atopic of cultural and intellectual life developed in the eighteenth century and simulated...

Russia and Europe in the New World Order

SEER,Vol. 83, No.3,JUlJy 2005 Review Article RussiaandEuropein theNew WorldOrder NEIL MALCOLM Brown,J. L. Vladimir PutinandtheJ/ew World Order: Looking East,Looking West? Rowman and Littlefield,Lanham, MD and Oxford, 2004. xiv + 366 pp. Notes. Appendix. Bibliography. Index. $36.95 (paperback). Newton, Julie M. Russia,France,andtheIdeaofEurope.St Antony's Series. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke and New York, 2003. xiv + 357 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. f55.oo. Tsygankov, Andrei P. WhoseWorldOrder? Russia's Perception ofAmerican Ideas after the Cold War. University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, IN, 2004. xv + 206 pp. Notes. Tables. Bibliography. Index. $22.00 (paperback). AT a dinner in the Kremlin in I956 Nikita Khrushchev was overheard saying: 'A little country doesn't count any more in the modern world. In fact, the only two countries that matter are Russia and the United States. And Russia is superior. The other countries have no real say.'l This outburst, made at the height of Soviet self-confidence in the I950s, is a world away on one dimension from Gorbachev's appeals for international partnership at the end of the I980s, and on another from the Russian Foreign Minister's statement in 2000 that his task was one of concentrating the limited foreign-policy resources at his disposal on the most vital priorities. One way of explaining these contrasts would be to say that the international balance of power shifted sharply over the last half century, to Moscow's disadvantage. It was out-developed, outgunned, and stripped of its allies and dependencies. But in order to gain more than the crudest understanding of how this came about, not to mention in order to be able to have any idea of what possibilities the future holds for Russia's place in the world, we need to base ourselves on something more sophisticated than the materialistic 'correlation of forces' style of analysis which underlay Khrushchev's judgement. The very changes which Khrushchev sparked off, and the domestic political turmoil associated with them stimulated interest in the West in Neil Malcolmis formerHead of theRussiaandCIS Programmeat ChathamHouse,and of theRussianandEastEuropeanResearchCentreattheUniversityofWolverhampton. ' M. Wight, International Theogy. The ThreeTraditions, Leicester and London, I99I (hereafter, International Theory), p. 33. 496 RUSSIA & EUROPE IN THE NEW WORLD ORDER somehow getting inside the blackbox of Soviet foreignpolicy making.2 An increasinglypopularapproachwas to supplementthe Kremlinological focus on emigre accounts, official statements and the newspaper pressby analysingthe kindof 'perceptions'thatcould be deduced from the expanding published output of Soviet foreign policy research institutes.3It was acknowledged that Soviet publications on international themes were above all directed at manipulatingWesternpublic opinion. Internationalrelationsspecialists,however, were supposedto be providing policy inputs. Senior experts mixed with officials and came to play a quasi-diplomaticrole. At the very least, writersof this kind (the mezhdunarodniki of the Academy of Sciences institutes)were attuned to what was acceptable at the policy-making level, and calibratedtheir statementsto fit. Westerncommentatorstried to draw out the policy implications of persistent differencesof opinion in the expert community. Franklyn Griffiths used the term 'transactional perceptions'to describeSovietanalysesof internationalrelationswhich appeared to be designed to supportparticularimages of the West and hence particularpolicy optionsforMoscow.4 Since the onset of glasnostand the passing of the Soviet Union the linkage between specialist writing and policy has loosened. Political affiliationshave become more transparent,but opinions are expressed more freely. They may well be just what they seem -the opinions of one individual. With the loosening of controls the range of views expressedhasbecome muchwider,sometimesalarminglyso. However, the interweaving of the specialist and the official community hlas persisted, and there is a rich source here, provided it is carefully interpreted.All three authorsunderreviewdrawon it to one degree or another. Julie Newton's study has the widest historical scope. It is a comprehensive analysis of Russian European policy as seen through the prism of Russo-Frenchrelations, divided into three partscovering the periods I958-85, I985-9 I and I 99I-200I . Because of France's role in East-Westdiplomacy in the Soviet period, and its continuing political leadership in Europe, this gives her an opportunity to look afresh at classic questions concerning Soviet strategy towards the AtlanticAlliance and the EuropeanCommunity,and to shednew light on the European dimension of post-Soviet...

Whose World Order? Russia's Perception of American Ideas After the Cold War

Whose World Order? Russia's Perception of American Ideas After the Cold War. By Andrei P. Tsygankov. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2004. 224p. 22.00 paper.One consequence of the end of the Cold War has been the muddling of boundaries between Russian and Western, notably American, scholars. In my own experience, this has been all to the good. Social scientists at the University of Michigan have had, for instance, an ongoing relationship with their counterparts at the European University in Saint Petersburg (EUSP) for many years now. In our meetings, the distinctions between the Self and the Other (to use the constructivist jargon favored by Andrei P. Tsygankov in the book under review) have often been rather arbitrary. The intellectual divide we have most frequently encountered has been between those of us, Russians and Americans, who attach relatively greater weight to the role of culture and those for whom institutions matter more, a divide that separates us more by disciplinary background than by citizenship or where we teach.

Whose world order?: Russia's perception of American ideas after the Cold War

Intellectual ideas on the international community can make important contributions to how cultures perceive one another. Yet these same ideas can also be misunderstood by other societies when they are framed in a culturally exclusive manner. In Whose World Order? Andrei P. Tsygankov examines how Russian elites engage American ideas of world order and why Russians perceive these ideas as unlikely to promote a just or stable international system. Tsygankov focuses on Francis Fukuyama's end of history thesis, which argues for the global ascendancy of Western-style market democracy, and Samuel Huntington's clash of civilizations, which drew attention to what Huntington perceived to be an increasingly dominant global disorder. Tsygankov argues that Russian intellectuals received the ideas of these two prominent American scholars critically. Despite Huntington's and Fukuyama's intentions to contribute to the development of freedom and stability in the world, Russians viewed their theories at best as limitations to social and cross-cultural creativity and at worst as justification for a war-mongering, West-centered global dictatorship.

Russia’s Perception and Hierarchy of Security Threats

As Russian President Vladimir Putin enters his second term and Russia embarks on the course toward modernization (some experts would call it authoritarian modernization, though), the country is approaching an important phase in its development. The general message sent by the modernization process is the end of the transition period in Russian politics and economy, which will require the formulation of new tasks for the future. Among them, it will be necessary to reassess Russia’s place in the world and to see how to ensure the country’s competitiveness (a fashionable word for the Russian establishment) in the global arena. Therefore, the Russian perception of security threats becomes a subject of extreme importance. Meanwhile, all the major conceptual documents behind the modernization process were approved as long ago as 2000—i.e., before the major shifts in international relations that have taken place in the past five years. At the time of their elaboration, the authors did their best to predict the trends of global development and tried to make the formulas as abstract as possible. Somehow, they succeeded in grasping some of the prevailing tendencies (e.g., NATO’s use of force beyond the traditional areas of responsibility and without authorization of the UN Security Council) and in foreseeing, for example, the increasing influence of the international terrorist threat on the world’s security situation. This has helped to preserve the relevance of certain elements of Russia’s National Security Concept and Military Doctrine. However, as usual, the interpretation was more important than the facts and, regrettably, the perception contained in the 2000 doctrines is partly outdated today and contains certain hints of Cold War thinking. The 2000 National Security Concept gives a broad vision of Russian national security interests and the key factors affecting them. It starts with economic security issues, and clearly emphasizes the importance of the downgrading of the Russian economy, and especially its technological potential, its evident orientation on the export of raw materials and fuel, the stagnation of the agriculture and banking sectors, and the brain drain that has resulted in technological dependence. The World Bank report on Russia’s development issued in 2004 indicates that not much has changed since then, and predicts that the influence of energy export will only increase in the foreseeable future. This will not only be connected with high oil prices, but also with the government’s need for extra resources to implement Putin’s presidential ambitions (doubling of the GDP by 2010, and cutting poverty in half in the next three years) and the lack of alternative sources of revenue other than export duties and taxation on oil and gas. The social threats highlighted in the report include uncontrolled migration, secessionism and economic disintegration of the state, diminishments in the effectiveness of the legal system, depreciation of spiritual values, extremism, the worsening crime

Homeland Security and the Russian Approach

Homeland security remains a vague notion in the Russian understand- ing, but essentially refers to the safeguard of key national interests, the struggle against global threats, with a strong focus on international terrorism, and eventually the fight against transnational organized crime. Homeland security tasks are usually performed in the Russian Federation by several security agencies distributed among three different ministries, i.e. the Interior Ministry, the MOD, and the Ministry for Civil Emergencies (EMERCOM). However, this trilateral structure is perhaps not sufficient to ensure concrete results in Russia's attempts to fight against organized crime. Although having repeatedly stated the need to re-establish the rule of law, the current Russian government appears to deal with oligarchs in a discretionary way. It would therefore be rather utopian to expect any real improvement without a radical change of attitude from the top leadership. Russian approach towards homeland security is rather close to the European standards in terms of structural implementation, but much closer to the U.S. approach in terms of response and the preference for the use of force. The analysis of Russia's security concepts demon- strates that security threats to the country are assessed as having clearly increased in the last ten years. A gloomier worldview combined with a reduced influence on the international scene obviously calls for more assertive security documents. In the same logic, the Russian perception advocates force as the preferred solution to deal with asymmetric threats, such as international terrorism. This became even more apparent in the wake of the 11 September attacks on the United States and the re- newed strategic partnership between Moscow and Washington. The recognition of Russia's key role in the fight against international terrorism did indeed bring Russia back into the Western security community. On the Russian side, the Russian leader- ship soon understood that Russia was too weak to counter these new threats on its own and would lose any prospective benefit by openly confronting the West.