Russia's many foreign policies

Demokratizatsiya

Volumn 7, Issue 3, 1999, Pages 393-412

  Mcfaul, Michael ^a,b  

^a CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE   (United States)

^b STANFORD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

FOREIGN POLICY; INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS; NATIONAL POLITICS; POLITICAL SYSTEM;

RUSSIAN FEDERATION;

EID: 0032750387     PISSN: 10746846     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (51)

1. In the United States, the debate over NATO expansion is a recent but classic case in which different groups supported the policy but for very different reasons. Likewise, opponents of the ideas also had very different motivations. See James Goldgeier, Not Whether hut When: The U.S. Decision to Enlarge NATO (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1999).
2. There are many brands of realism - classical realism, neorealism, structural realism, and so forth. This essay is not concerned with evaluating the different explanatory powers of these variations. Realism in its most generic form will be treated as one approach to international politics. The classic explication of structural realism is Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics (New York: McGraw-Hill Publishing Company, 1979). For a discussion of Waltz's theory along with a presentation of these variations on realism, see Robert Keohane, ed., Neorealism and Its Critics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986).
3. There are many brands of realism - classical realism, neorealism, structural realism, and so forth. This essay is not concerned with evaluating the different explanatory powers of these variations. Realism in its most generic form will be treated as one approach to international politics. The classic explication of structural realism is Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics (New York: McGraw-Hill Publishing Company, 1979). For a discussion of Waltz's theory along with a presentation of these variations on realism, see Robert Keohane, ed., Neorealism and Its Critics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986).
4. Robert Keohane, "Neorealism and World Politics," in Keohane, Neorealism and Its Critics, 7.
5. Hans Morganthau, Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace (New York: Knopf, 1960), 27.
6. James Goldgeier and Michael McFaul, "A Tale of Two Worlds: Core and Periphery in the Post-Cold War Era," International Organization 46, no. 2 (Spring 1992). Furthermore, states have two alliance options, balancing or bandwagoning.
7. See Steve Walt, Origins of Alliances (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 1989).
8. See, for instance, Stephen Krasner's treatment of ideology in Defending the Nationalist Interest (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978).
9. See William Wohlforth, "Realism and the End of the Cold War," International Security 19, no. 3 (Winter 1994): 91-129. More generally, when old patterns and institutions breakdown, rationalist models are least useful. See George Tsebelis, Nested Games: Rational Choice in Comparative Politics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990).
10. See William Wohlforth, "Realism and the End of the Cold War," International Security 19, no. 3 (Winter 1994): 91-129. More generally, when old patterns and institutions breakdown, rationalist models are least useful. See George Tsebelis, Nested Games: Rational Choice in Comparative Politics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990).
11. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1979), 69.
12. Wohlforth, "Realism and the End of the Cold War."
13. Goldstein and Keohane, "Ideas and Foreign Policy," 5.
14. See Stephen Krasner, ed., International Regimes (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1982); Robert Keohane, International Institutions and State Power: Essays in International Relations Theory (Boulder, CO; Westview Press, 1989); W. Richard Scott, John Meyer, and Associates, eds., Institutional Environment and Organizations: Structural Complexity and Individualism (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1994); Martha Finnemore, "Norms. Culture, and World Politics," International Organization 50 (Spring 1996): 325-48; Robert O. Keohane and Lisa L. Martin, "The Promise of Institutionalist Theory," International Security 20 (Summer 1995): 39-51.
15. See Stephen Krasner, ed., International Regimes (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1982); Robert Keohane, International Institutions and State Power: Essays in International Relations Theory (Boulder, CO; Westview Press, 1989); W. Richard Scott, John Meyer, and Associates, eds., Institutional Environment and Organizations: Structural Complexity and Individualism (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1994); Martha Finnemore, "Norms. Culture, and World Politics," International Organization 50 (Spring 1996): 325-48; Robert O. Keohane and Lisa L. Martin, "The Promise of Institutionalist Theory," International Security 20 (Summer 1995): 39-51.
16. See Stephen Krasner, ed., International Regimes (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1982); Robert Keohane, International Institutions and State Power: Essays in International Relations Theory (Boulder, CO; Westview Press, 1989); W. Richard Scott, John Meyer, and Associates, eds., Institutional Environment and Organizations: Structural Complexity and Individualism (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1994); Martha Finnemore, "Norms. Culture, and World Politics," International Organization 50 (Spring 1996): 325-48; Robert O. Keohane and Lisa L. Martin, "The Promise of Institutionalist Theory," International Security 20 (Summer 1995): 39-51.
17. See Stephen Krasner, ed., International Regimes (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1982); Robert Keohane, International Institutions and State Power: Essays in International Relations Theory (Boulder, CO; Westview Press, 1989); W. Richard Scott, John Meyer, and Associates, eds., Institutional Environment and Organizations: Structural Complexity and Individualism (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1994); Martha Finnemore, "Norms. Culture, and World Politics," International Organization 50 (Spring 1996): 325-48; Robert O. Keohane and Lisa L. Martin, "The Promise of Institutionalist Theory," International Security 20 (Summer 1995): 39-51.
18. See Stephen Krasner, ed., International Regimes (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1982); Robert Keohane, International Institutions and State Power: Essays in International Relations Theory (Boulder, CO; Westview Press, 1989); W. Richard Scott, John Meyer, and Associates, eds., Institutional Environment and Organizations: Structural Complexity and Individualism (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1994); Martha Finnemore, "Norms. Culture, and World Politics," International Organization 50 (Spring 1996): 325-48; Robert O. Keohane and Lisa L. Martin, "The Promise of Institutionalist Theory," International Security 20 (Summer 1995): 39-51.
19. Classic studies from this approach include Graham Allison, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (Boston: Little, Brown, 1971) and Motion Halperin, Bureaucratic Politics and Foreign Policy (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1974). Surprisingly, this approach has occupied a marginal place in the study of international relations. For a review of the field with some clues as to why, see Peter Katzenstein, Robert Keohane, and Stephen Krasner, "International Organization and the Study of World Politics, International Organization 52, no. 4 (Autumn 1998) 645-86.
20. Classic studies from this approach include Graham Allison, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (Boston: Little, Brown, 1971) and Motion Halperin, Bureaucratic Politics and Foreign Policy (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1974). Surprisingly, this approach has occupied a marginal place in the study of international relations. For a review of the field with some clues as to why, see Peter Katzenstein, Robert Keohane, and Stephen Krasner, "International Organization and the Study of World Politics, International Organization 52, no. 4 (Autumn 1998) 645-86.
21. Classic studies from this approach include Graham Allison, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (Boston: Little, Brown, 1971) and Motion Halperin, Bureaucratic Politics and Foreign Policy (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1974). Surprisingly, this approach has occupied a marginal place in the study of international relations. For a review of the field with some clues as to why, see Peter Katzenstein, Robert Keohane, and Stephen Krasner, "International Organization and the Study of World Politics, International Organization 52, no. 4 (Autumn 1998) 645-86.
22. On the power of ideas in these contexts, see John A. Hall, "Ideas and Social Sciences," in Ideas and Foreign Policy: Beliefs, Institutions, and Political Change, Judith Goldstein and Robert O. Keohane (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993), 48.
23. Ikenberry cites other such "critical turning points" in his "Creating Yesterday's New World Order," in Ideas and Foreign Policy, 59.
24. Goldstein and Keohane, Ideas and Foreign Policy, 16.
25. This is the argument in Michael McFaul, "Revolutionary Ideas, State Interests, and Russian Foreign Policy," in Political Culture and Civil Society in Russia and the New States of Eurasia, Vladimir Tismaneanu, ed. (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1995), 27-52.
26. See Stephen Larrabee and Theodore Krasik, Foreign and Security Policy Decision-making under Yeltsin (Santa Monica: RAND 1997).
27. See Vladimir Lepekhin, "Gruppa Interesov v Sovremennoi Rossii," in Politika i Ohshchestvo Perekhodnogo Perioda, Sergei Markov, ed. (Moscow: Moscow Carnegie Center, 1997); Igor Khripunov and Mary Matthews, "Russia's Oil and Gas Interest Group and Its Foreign Policy Agenda," Problems of Post-Communism 43, no. 3 (May-June 1996): 38-49; Robert Corzine and Chrystia Freeland, "A Lubricator of Exchange," Financial Times, 1 April 1996, 17; Irina Savateeva, "Gazprom: Blesk i Nishcheta Imperii," Izvestiya, 18 September 1994, 2; Carla Anne Robbins and Andrew Higgens, "Money Hungry, Russia Finds a Foreign Market for Nuclear Knowledge," Wall Street Journal, 15 December 1998, 1; and David Fillipov, "What US Calls Arms Proliferation, Russia Calls Business as Usual," Boston Globe, 19 August 1998, 1.
28. See Vladimir Lepekhin, "Gruppa Interesov v Sovremennoi Rossii," in Politika i Ohshchestvo Perekhodnogo Perioda, Sergei Markov, ed. (Moscow: Moscow Carnegie Center, 1997); Igor Khripunov and Mary Matthews, "Russia's Oil and Gas Interest Group and Its Foreign Policy Agenda," Problems of Post-Communism 43, no. 3 (May-June 1996): 38-49; Robert Corzine and Chrystia Freeland, "A Lubricator of Exchange," Financial Times, 1 April 1996, 17; Irina Savateeva, "Gazprom: Blesk i Nishcheta Imperii," Izvestiya, 18 September 1994, 2; Carla Anne Robbins and Andrew Higgens, "Money Hungry, Russia Finds a Foreign Market for Nuclear Knowledge," Wall Street Journal, 15 December 1998, 1; and David Fillipov, "What US Calls Arms Proliferation, Russia Calls Business as Usual," Boston Globe, 19 August 1998, 1.
29. See Vladimir Lepekhin, "Gruppa Interesov v Sovremennoi Rossii," in Politika i Ohshchestvo Perekhodnogo Perioda, Sergei Markov, ed. (Moscow: Moscow Carnegie Center, 1997); Igor Khripunov and Mary Matthews, "Russia's Oil and Gas Interest Group and Its Foreign Policy Agenda," Problems of Post-Communism 43, no. 3 (May-June 1996): 38-49; Robert Corzine and Chrystia Freeland, "A Lubricator of Exchange," Financial Times, 1 April 1996, 17; Irina Savateeva, "Gazprom: Blesk i Nishcheta Imperii," Izvestiya, 18 September 1994, 2; Carla Anne Robbins and Andrew Higgens, "Money Hungry, Russia Finds a Foreign Market for Nuclear Knowledge," Wall Street Journal, 15 December 1998, 1; and David Fillipov, "What US Calls Arms Proliferation, Russia Calls Business as Usual," Boston Globe, 19 August 1998, 1.
30. See Vladimir Lepekhin, "Gruppa Interesov v Sovremennoi Rossii," in Politika i Ohshchestvo Perekhodnogo Perioda, Sergei Markov, ed. (Moscow: Moscow Carnegie Center, 1997); Igor Khripunov and Mary Matthews, "Russia's Oil and Gas Interest Group and Its Foreign Policy Agenda," Problems of Post-Communism 43, no. 3 (May-June 1996): 38-49; Robert Corzine and Chrystia Freeland, "A Lubricator of Exchange," Financial Times, 1 April 1996, 17; Irina Savateeva, "Gazprom: Blesk i Nishcheta Imperii," Izvestiya, 18 September 1994, 2; Carla Anne Robbins and Andrew Higgens, "Money Hungry, Russia Finds a Foreign Market for Nuclear Knowledge," Wall Street Journal, 15 December 1998, 1; and David Fillipov, "What US Calls Arms Proliferation, Russia Calls Business as Usual," Boston Globe, 19 August 1998, 1.
31. See Vladimir Lepekhin, "Gruppa Interesov v Sovremennoi Rossii," in Politika i Ohshchestvo Perekhodnogo Perioda, Sergei Markov, ed. (Moscow: Moscow Carnegie Center, 1997); Igor Khripunov and Mary Matthews, "Russia's Oil and Gas Interest Group and Its Foreign Policy Agenda," Problems of Post-Communism 43, no. 3 (May-June 1996): 38-49; Robert Corzine and Chrystia Freeland, "A Lubricator of Exchange," Financial Times, 1 April 1996, 17; Irina Savateeva, "Gazprom: Blesk i Nishcheta Imperii," Izvestiya, 18 September 1994, 2; Carla Anne Robbins and Andrew Higgens, "Money Hungry, Russia Finds a Foreign Market for Nuclear Knowledge," Wall Street Journal, 15 December 1998, 1; and David Fillipov, "What US Calls Arms Proliferation, Russia Calls Business as Usual," Boston Globe, 19 August 1998, 1.
32. See Vladimir Lepekhin, "Gruppa Interesov v Sovremennoi Rossii," in Politika i Ohshchestvo Perekhodnogo Perioda, Sergei Markov, ed. (Moscow: Moscow Carnegie Center, 1997); Igor Khripunov and Mary Matthews, "Russia's Oil and Gas Interest Group and Its Foreign Policy Agenda," Problems of Post-Communism 43, no. 3 (May-June 1996): 38-49; Robert Corzine and Chrystia Freeland, "A Lubricator of Exchange," Financial Times, 1 April 1996, 17; Irina Savateeva, "Gazprom: Blesk i Nishcheta Imperii," Izvestiya, 18 September 1994, 2; Carla Anne Robbins and Andrew Higgens, "Money Hungry, Russia Finds a Foreign Market for Nuclear Knowledge," Wall Street Journal, 15 December 1998, 1; and David Fillipov, "What US Calls Arms Proliferation, Russia Calls Business as Usual," Boston Globe, 19 August 1998, 1.
33. For instance, in conversations, both liberal Anatolii Chubais and statist Aleksei Podberezkin concur on this issue. My discussions with Chubias in February 1999 and Podberezkin during a roundtable discussion on National Public Radio in Los Angeles in which I participated.
34. For comparisons between Russia's current depression and the American Great Depression, see Branko Milanovic, Income, Inequality and Poverty during the Transition from Planned to Market Economy (Washington, DC: World Bank, 1998).
35. Because of Russia's preponderance of power in the region, this is one foreign policy issue area in which realist perspectives might be most powerful. See Rajan Menon, "After Empire: Russia and the Southern 'Near Abroad,'" in The New Russian Foreign Policy, Michael Mandelbaum, ed. (New York: Council on Foreign Relations. 1998), 100-66.
36. Leon Aron, "Foreign Policy Doctrine of Postcommunist Russia," in The New Russian Foreign Policy, 28.
37. On the early emergence of new ideas in Soviet foreign policy, see Sarah Mendelson, Changing Course: Ideas, Politics, and the Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998). On how ideas can impact on foreign policy more generally, see Judith Goldstein and Robert Keohane, "Ideas and Foreign Policy: An Analytical Framework," in Ideas and Foreign Policy, 3-30.
38. On the early emergence of new ideas in Soviet foreign policy, see Sarah Mendelson, Changing Course: Ideas, Politics, and the Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998). On how ideas can impact on foreign policy more generally, see Judith Goldstein and Robert Keohane, "Ideas and Foreign Policy: An Analytical Framework," in Ideas and Foreign Policy, 3-30.
39. See Coit Blacker, "Russia and the West," in The New Russian Foreign Policy, 167-93. Blacker makes a path-dependency argument by asserting that initial liberal, integrationist policies advocated by Yeltsin in the early years of his presidency have constrained the parameters of subsequent Russian foreign policies.
40. This is the argument in Michael McFaul, "The Precarious Peace: Domestic Politics in the Making of Russian Foreign Policy," International Security 22, no. 3 (Winter 1997/98): 5-35.
41. On the other hand, Russia and Russian commentators have attempted to use negative linkage, such as threatening to proliferate nuclear weapons if the IMF does not provide financial support to the Russian government. See Nikolai Sokov, "The IMF-Russian Negotiations and the Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons," PONARS Policy Memo Series, No. 56, March 1999.
42. See "Vneshnyaya politika Tatarstana: pretensii I realinost'," Panorama-Forum 16 (Summer 1997).
43. Poll conducted by the Foundation for Public Opinion in April 1999.
44. See Aleksei Podberezkin, Russkii Put': Sdelai Shag (Moskva: RAU-Universitet, 1998).
45. See Vladimir Zhirinovsky, Poslednii Vagon na Sever (Moskva: Conjou, 1995).
46. On the power shift, see Michael McFaul, "Authoritarian and Democratic Responses to Financial Meltdown in Russia," Problems of Post-Communism (July/August 1999): 1-11.
47. Polls taken by the Foundation for Public Opinion, 3-4 April 1999. See www.fom.ru.
48. Ibid.
49. "Press Conference with CPRF Leader Gennady Zyuganov, State Duma," 2 June 1999, translated and distributed by Federal News Service.
50. Barry Schwied, "Clinton, Yeltsin Going Steady Again," Associated Press, 22 June 1999.
51. Currently, they are banking on Stepashin as the candidate in 2000, but even Stepashin is not as prone to follow the liberal line on foreign policy as Yeltsin has been.