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This book explores Russia’s sense of its own uniqueness and the impact this has had on Russia’s conduct of international relations. Examining concepts such as Russia’s special civilising mission, its difference from the West, its proneness to conduct violent warfare, and more, and discussing these concepts in relation to Russia’s history and its present behaviour, and also in relation to other countries’ views of themselves as exceptional, the book highlights Russia’s sense of its own identity as a key factor shaping current international events.
This monograph provides a novel long-term approach to the role of Russia’s imperial legacies in its interactions with the former Soviet space. It develops ‘Hybrid Exceptionalism’ as a critical conceptual tool aimed at uncovering the great power’s self-positioning between ‘East’ and ‘West’, and its hierarchical claims over subalterns situated in both civilizational imaginaries. It explores how, in the Tsarist, Soviet, and contemporary eras, distinct civilizational spaces were created, and maintained, through narratives and practices emanating from Russia’s ambiguous relationship with Western modernity, and its part-identification with a subordinated ‘Orient’. The Romanov Empire’s struggles with ‘Russianness’, the USSR’s Marxism-Leninism, and contemporary Russia’s combination of feigned liberal and civilizational discourses are explored as the basis of a series of successive civilising missions, through an interdisciplinary engagement with official discourses, scholarship, and the arts. The book concludes with an exploration of contemporary policy implications for the West, and the former Soviet states themselves.
In this sobering analysis of American foreign policy under Trump, the award-winning economist calls for a new approach to international engagement. The American Century began in 1941 and ended in 2017, on the day of President Trump’s inauguration. The subsequent turn toward nationalism and “America first” unilateralism did not made America great. It announced the abdication of our responsibilities in the face of environmental crises, political upheaval, mass migration, and other global challenges. As a result, America no longer dominates geopolitics or the world economy as it once did. In this incisive and passionate book, Jeffrey D. Sachs provides the blueprint for a new foreign policy that embraces global cooperation, international law, and aspirations for worldwide prosperity. He argues that America’s approach to the world must shift from military might and wars of choice to a commitment to shared objectives of sustainable development. A New Foreign Policy explores both the danger of the “America first” mindset and the possibilities for a new way forward, proposing timely and achievable plans to foster global economic growth, reconfigure the United Nations for the twenty-first century, and build a multipolar world that is prosperous, peaceful, fair, and resilient.
Russian Westernizers and Change in International Relations summarizes the Westernizing trend in Russian thought from the early nineteenth century to the present day. This book looks at Russian thinkers and politicians who have considered Western/European civilization to be superior to others and who have drawn the conclusion that Russia consequently ought to align itself with the West, rather than preserving certain traditional Russian values – and that not doing so is an impediment to political, social, and economic evolution. Within this trend of thought, the author identifies four schools – Christian Westernizers, Economic Liberals, Political Liberals, and Social State Supporters – and explores examples of each. The author compares Russian thinkers from different periods, finding contrasts and similarities within their political and historical settings and assessing their responses to their unique circumstances. He analyzes Russian Westernizers’ self‐definition and ideas of national freedom relative to those of Western nations, exploring how the West’s definition of values and institutions has changed over time. He shows how Western historical developments affected waves of Westernization and pro‐Western thinking inside Russia, arguing the importance of this being grounded in national state‐building priorities. The growing complexity of global relations, the declining global influence of the West, and the war in Ukraine present Russian Westernizers with new questions and challenges, and this book assesses the resulting implications. This book will appeal to students and scholars of Russian foreign policy, Russia–West relations, IR theory, diplomatic studies, political science, and European history including the history of ideas.
A powerful dissection of a core American myth. The idea that the United States is unlike every other country in world history is a surprisingly resilient one. Throughout his distinguished career, Ian Tyrrell has been one of the most influential historians of the idea of American exceptionalism, but he has never written a book focused solely on it until now. The notion that American identity might be exceptional emerged, Tyrrell shows, from the belief that the nascent early republic was not simply a postcolonial state but a genuinely new experiment in an imperialist world dominated by Britain. Prior to the Civil War, American exceptionalism fostered declarations of cultural, economic, and spatial independence. As the country grew in population and size, becoming a major player in the global order, its exceptionalist beliefs came more and more into focus—and into question. Over time, a political divide emerged: those who believed that America’s exceptionalism was the basis of its virtue and those who saw America as either a long way from perfect or actually fully unexceptional, and thus subject to universal demands for justice. Tyrrell masterfully articulates the many forces that made American exceptionalism such a divisive and definitional concept. Today, he notes, the demands that people acknowledge America’s exceptionalism have grown ever more strident, even as the material and moral evidence for that exceptionalism—to the extent that there ever was any—has withered away.
No nation is a stranger to war, but for Russians war is a central part of who they are. Their “motherland” has been the battlefield where some of the largest armies have clashed, the most savage battles have been fought, the highest death tolls paid. Having prevailed over Mongol hordes and vanquished Napoleon and Hitler, many Russians believe no other nation has sacrificed so much for the world. In Russia: The Story of War Gregory Carleton explores how this belief has produced a myth of exceptionalism that pervades Russian culture and politics and has helped forge a national identity rooted in war. While outsiders view Russia as an aggressor, Russians themselves see a country surrounded by enemies, poised in a permanent defensive crouch as it fights one invader after another. Time and again, history has called upon Russia to play the savior—of Europe, of Christianity, of civilization itself—and its victories, especially over the Nazis in World War II, have come at immense cost. In this telling, even defeats lose their sting. Isolation becomes a virtuous destiny and the whole of its bloody history a point of pride. War is the unifying thread of Russia’s national epic, one that transcends its wrenching ideological transformations from the archconservative empire to the radical-totalitarian Soviet Union to the resurgent nationalism of the country today. As Putin’s Russia asserts itself in ever bolder ways, knowing how the story of its war-torn past shapes the present is essential to understanding its self-image and worldview.
Is America unique? One of our major political analysts explores the deeply held but often unarticulated beliefs that shape the American creed. "(A) magisterial attempt to distill a lifetime of learning about America into a persuasive brief . . . (by) the dean of American political sociologists".--Carlin Romano, "Boston Globe".
Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia has been marginalized at the edge of a Western-dominated political and economic system. In recent years, however, leading Russian figures, including former president Vladimir Putin, have begun to stress a geopolitics that puts Russia at the center of a number of axes: European-Asian, Christian-Muslim-Buddhist, Mediterranean-Indian, Slavic-Turkic, and so on. This volume examines the political presuppositions and expanding intellectual impact of Eurasianism, a movement promoting an ideology of Russian-Asian greatness, which has begun to take hold throughout Russia, Kazakhstan, and Turkey. Eurasianism purports to tell Russians what is unalterably important about them and why it can only be expressed in an empire. Using a wide range of sources, Marlène Laruelle discusses the impact of the ideology of Eurasianism on geopolitics, interior policy, foreign policy, and culturalist philosophy.
Instead of resurrecting old images and nourishing new narratives about a ‘New Cold War’, Post-Soviet Conflict Potentials features politically and legally oriented critical investigations into conflict potentials and dynamics in the post-Soviet region and beyond. Contributions coming from the disciplinary perspectives of international relations, international law, and comparative political science are linked to investigations dealing with international, transnational, regional and local levels of the dynamics between conflict and cooperation in the region. Despite the diversity of perspectives, the authors of this volume take a shared critical view on an alleged ‘New Cold War’ as their point of departure, observing that contemporary post-Soviet conflict potentials are produced through various discursive practices ranging from intentional choices of belligerent language to unintentional misinterpretations. The chapters in this volume seek to shed light on conflict potentials from different angles as well as on processes that increase or decrease the probability of political and violent conflicts in the post-Soviet region. Together, the authors offer individual and shared outside-the-box approaches to the study of conflict dynamics and potentials in the post-Soviet space. The book draws connections to conflict potentials on the cross-regional and global levels, providing varied perspectives on what can be learned in and from the post-Soviet region. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Europe-Asia Studies.
This book explores Russia's sense of its own uniqueness and the impact this has had on Russia's conduct of international relations. Examining concepts such as Russia's special civilising mission, its difference from the West, its proneness to conduct violent warfare, and more, and discussing these concepts in relation to Russia's history and its present behaviour, and also in relation to other countries' views of themselves as exceptional, the book highlights Russia's sense of its own identity as a key factor shaping current international events.