Mezhdunarodnye Protsessy最新文献

{"title":"Statecraft in U.S.-Russia Relations: Meaning, Dilemmas, and Significance","authors":"J. Jordan, A. Stulberg, M. Troitskiy","doi":"10.17994/it.2021.19.1.64.6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17994/it.2021.19.1.64.6","url":null,"abstract":"The article introduces the special issue of International Trends dedicated to the current tendencies in the evolution of statecraft. It sets the analytical agenda for other special issue contributions by discussing the meaning of the term “statecraft” and illustrating the concept through several dilemmas that policymakers commonly face when choosing foreign policy toolkits. The authors posit that, at base, a meaningful definition of statecraft subsumes the ends, means, and ways embraced by a government in its attempt to exert influence over another state short of the resort to brute military force, either directly or via pressures on key non-state stakeholders. The article goes on to highlight how a clear-cut formulation of a country’s “national interests” may, on one hand, serve as lodestars for the national bureaucracy and draw “red lines” for the country’s adversaries, but on the other hand, entail a difficult and politically costly choice between mutually exclusive priorities for the country’s foreign policy goals. The authors also discuss the impact of technological innovation on the evolution of great power statecraft. They describe a variant of the security dilemma arising from the choice between immediate weaponization of new technology, on one hand, and refraining from such move with the aim of avoiding an arms race or escalation of existing conflicts, on the other. In its turn, developing a strong identity as a means of statecraft for an international player may increase that player’s power of commitment, but at the same time, foreclose attractive policy options that cannot be implemented because they could compromise the chosen identity. Pioneering the use of big data in the study of statecraft, the authors find that, notwithstanding very different power positions, traditions, and interests, U.S. and Russian discourse surrounding great power competition resemble each other more than commonly acknowledged. Keywords:","PeriodicalId":37798,"journal":{"name":"Mezhdunarodnye Protsessy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67545193","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Cloud of Sanctions: Contending U.S.-Russian Approaches & Strategic Implications","authors":"A. Stulberg, J. Darsey","doi":"10.17994/it.2021.19.1.64.7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17994/it.2021.19.1.64.7","url":null,"abstract":"Economic sanctions have been the defining feature of the relationship between Russia and the U.S. / EU since the 2014 Ukraine crisis, and both Moscow and Washington appear to accept that sanctions will remain in place indefinitely. This persistence of sanctions presents a paradox: Western policy makers have repeatedly increased the breadth and depth of these sanctions, despite little evidence that the sanctions have ‘worked’ to achieve their explicit and tangible objectives. This paper examines the nature and origin of this paradox using a multi-dimensional examination of Russian and US actions and discourse since the first imposition of Ukraine-related sanctions on Russia in March 2014. This analysis exposes fundamental differences over how the two sides perceive the appropriateness and strategic context of these sanctions, which reflect a basic difference in worldviews between Moscow and Washington. These contending worldviews potentially compound burdens of uncertainty and costly signaling in sanctions between the U.S. and Russia, which also introduces cross-domain risks that can defy efforts to fine-tune the imposition of costs. If not redressed, this dynamic can derail efforts at strategic reengagement, if not inadvertently elevate prospects for dangerous escalation.","PeriodicalId":37798,"journal":{"name":"Mezhdunarodnye Protsessy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67545206","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Poland in International Relations of the 21st Centuries","authors":"K. Khudoley","doi":"10.17994/it.2021.19.1.64.10","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17994/it.2021.19.1.64.10","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":37798,"journal":{"name":"Mezhdunarodnye Protsessy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67544717","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Echo of Arab Spring in Western Europe","authors":"N. Khokhlov, A. Vasiliev, A. Belichenko, P. Kirdyankina, Andrey Korotayev","doi":"10.17994/it.2021.19.2.65.7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17994/it.2021.19.2.65.7","url":null,"abstract":"Our analysis allows us to talk about two waves of the echo of the Arab spring in Western Europe. The first wave was observed in 2011 and was expressed in the explosive growth of mainly peaceful protests. Taking into account the data on the direct impact of the events of the Arab Spring on the protest activity in Western Europe, the explosive increase in the number of anti-government demonstrations, riots and general strikes recorded in Western Europe in 2011 can be attributed to the influence of the Arab Spring up to a very considerable extent. In 2012–2014 the protest movement in Western Europe acquired its own logic and continued at a fairly high level, despite the disappearance of the \"Arab impulse\" – to a large extent under the influence of the second wave of the financial and economic crisis. The second wave of the echo of the Arab spring in Western Europe was observed with a noticeable time lag in 2014–2015. and manifested primarily in the form of rapid growth of terrorist (mainly Islamist) activities. One of the consequences of the Arab Spring was the collapse or sharp weakening of several sufficiently effective Arab authoritarian regimes, which led to a significant improvement in the possibility of the activities of terrorist organizations of various kinds, the rapid growth of their strength, influence and effectiveness of organizational forms – including, which is very important for Western Europe, in cyber space. Terrorist activities penetrated from Arab countries to Western Europe through various channels: refugees, quite effective Internet propaganda of ISIS, jihadists returning to Western Europe, and so on. The second wave was expressed in a certain increase in protest activity, but it radically differed from the protests in 2011, since in the latter case it was a matter of the protests organized mainly by the right-wing forces against the migrant wave, which was generated to a very high degree by the tsunami of the Arab Spring.","PeriodicalId":37798,"journal":{"name":"Mezhdunarodnye Protsessy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67544901","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Interwar Europe on the Crossroads: Creation and Evolution of the Versailles and Locarno Security Regimes","authors":"A. Sidorov","doi":"10.17994/it.2021.19.4.67.10","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17994/it.2021.19.4.67.10","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":37798,"journal":{"name":"Mezhdunarodnye Protsessy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67544964","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Notion of “Digital Sovereignty” in Modern World Politics","authors":"O. Rebro, A. Gladysheva, M. Suchkov, A. Sushentsov","doi":"10.17994/it.2021.19.4.67.6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17994/it.2021.19.4.67.6","url":null,"abstract":"The global digital revolution transforms technological and economic structures, social relations and the very philosophy of human life. Along with that, it has a dramatic impact on states as key actors in international relations. For many centuries sovereignty has been a fundamental principle of a functioning state and has been mainly defined in physical and geographical terms. However, the transboundary nature of the digital environment has brought new issues to the agenda: how actors, including states, should function in a new digital reality; where the borders between the ‘national’ and the ‘transnational’ should lie and by which rules the new environment should be regulated. The key question summarizing all the above-stated is: ‘What does “state sovereignty” mean in the digital era?’. To answer this question, the article identifies key characteristics of digital space vis-à-vis sovereignty, studies the evolution of two approaches to the internet – as a new exceptional environment or as the next stage of telecommunications’ development – and points out challenges to maintaining digital sovereignty along with ways to mitigate them. Noting that the digital space is a unique environment for intergovernmental interaction which continuously evolves due to technological progress and the socio-economic practices, the authors observe the organic emergence of cyber-borders which brings seemingly obsolete idea of state sovereignty back into play. Modern states face a difficult challenge: how to find effective mechanisms to ensure sovereignty in the digital space without losing the benefits of the digital revolution while guaranteeing the equality and security of all parties involved. The absence of unified methodology and generally accepted conceptual terms in the previous scientific studies and political practice underpins the academic novelty of the research. At the same time, the study is practically oriented, since it is the digital technological sovereignty of the state that serves as a basis of its leadership in the new era and as a necessary condition for establishing and maintaining political independence and national coherence.","PeriodicalId":37798,"journal":{"name":"Mezhdunarodnye Protsessy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67545735","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Energy Toolkit of Statecraft","authors":"S. Golunov","doi":"10.17994/it.2021.19.1.64.3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17994/it.2021.19.1.64.3","url":null,"abstract":"While employing their energy potentials for advancing their foreign policy interests, Russia and the USA apply various political tools and practices, that can be classified as “positive”, “negative”, regulating energy markets, and reinforcing one’s own potential. The author argues that in both cases the application of energy-related statecraft is largely related either to energy security or to advancing ideologically inspired political interests. These two kinds of incentives can both work together or conflict each other. To pursue their relevant interests, both Russia and the USA have distinctive potentials, resources, and instruments that to a large extent were developed under influence of geopolitical and economic shocks: dramatic growth of global oil prices in 1970s for the USA and centrifugal post-Soviet geopolitical processes in 1990s for Russia. As a negative tool, the USA most often uses various kinds of sanctions to target energy sectors of their opponents, while the strongest Russian weapon is energy supply restrictions. To safeguard one’s own energy security and solidify their political influences both states manage bilateral complementary “producer–consumer” relations, while to stabilize global oil price, both states participate in international energy alliances. For instrumental purposes, both states also take advantage of purposeful or spontaneous transformations of their energy sectors (e.g. consolidation of the Russian energy sector and the U.S. ‘shale revolution’) for foreign policy purposes. In most cases, the effectiveness of applying statecraft tools for advancing energy-related interests proved to be limited. Those sanctions and other ways of pressure that targeted opponents’ energy sectors (especially if applied unilaterally) themselves rarely led to desirable alterations in those opponents’ policies. The results of energy alliances building also have proved to be limited both for Russia and for the USA as those alliances do not secure full-fledged control over global oil prices and are not solid or representative enough.","PeriodicalId":37798,"journal":{"name":"Mezhdunarodnye Protsessy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67545065","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Cognitive Dimension of Security","authors":"K. Koktysh, A. Renard-Koktysh","doi":"10.17994/it.2021.19.4.67.3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17994/it.2021.19.4.67.3","url":null,"abstract":"The article is devoted to the analysis of the algocognitive culture, the new reality that humanity has already entered, but remains far from being understood. Today we can speak about dissolution of the concept of privacy: almost all actions of a person, including his daily trips, his social circle and values it shares, his correspondence and purchases are automatically observed, and completely transparent to information corporations. The problem of fake news has become insurmountable: their appearance into the information cascade converts in an event immediately, making later investigations and refutations almost obsolete. A «culture of cancellation» has emerged, within which a priori there is no criteria for good and evil, where it has become possible to «delete» from the information circulation any arrays of knowledge that do not meet the requirements of the self-proclaimed «new ethics», and to ostracize people associated with them. The author compares the current state of affairs with the era of the dominance of sophists in ancient Greece, when the truth was determined depending on the conjuncture, and finds relevant parallels. In this context, the author formulates the concept of «cognitive vulnerability»: the new reality makes possible control of the masses of people, setting not only their consumer, but also political behavior. The author defines network reality as an alternative system of socialization, where the «network» ontology and values turn out to be more competitive than real ones, and therefore de facto displace them. The latter becomes possible due to a kind of «splitting» of the personality, when the emotional reaction is de facto separated from the real goal-oriented activity, and connected with the virtual reality. Ruling algorithms in social networks are aimed at achieving this goal: for an example author turns to recent investigation by The Wall Street Journal regarding Facebook: the MSI algorithm used by the latter provokes disputes and splits on every occasion. De facto, this leads to a situation where American information corporations are moving towards the new quality of the actual owner of sovereignty over the consciousness of the external societies. This challenge has already been met by China: since September 1, 2021, Beijing had nationalized algorithms, and handed control over them to the Communist Party. The author analyzes the steps taken by China and comes to the conclusion that in case of success China will become not only an economic, but also an ideological alternative to America, thereby making a bid to restore a bipolar world political system.","PeriodicalId":37798,"journal":{"name":"Mezhdunarodnye Protsessy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67545036","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Regional Reform and Its Impact on the Electoral Behavior during 2012 and 2017 Presidential Elections in France","authors":"ВО Франции, Евгения Захарова","doi":"10.17994/it.2021.19.3.66.5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17994/it.2021.19.3.66.5","url":null,"abstract":"The article deals with the 2015 territorial reform in France which reduced the number of regions and changed jurisdiction of the center and regions. In the paper the authors try to learn whether and how this reform affected electoral behavior in the regions during the first round of 2012 and 2017 presidential elections, whether there is a difference between them, and what are the voting patterns in French regions. The author used Moran’s index of spatial autocorrelation in order to answer the questions and analyze “neighborhood effect”. Besides the researcher employed multivariate explanatory data analysis to uncover the electoral patterns. Among the variables underlying the patterns the author selected socio-economic and demographic ones, as well as the number of criminal acts against Muslim-migrants in the context of the 2015 migrant crisis in Europe. The scholar concludes that territorial reform mitigated the neighborhood effect in regional electoral behavior which indicates the process of decentralization. As for electoral patterns, it is in the Eastern regions where the citizens vote for Marin Le Pen given high levels of migration and unemployment there. In the West where migration and unemployment are low people tend to choose a candidate whose agenda is not centered around migrants. The winner usually gets support from the capital region where migration and unemployment are low but many criminal acts against Muslim-migrants were reported. Consequently, the reform itself did not change electoral patterns in the regions which indicates the tendency towards recentralization and leaves the capital region in the center of political process.","PeriodicalId":37798,"journal":{"name":"Mezhdunarodnye Protsessy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67545295","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"International Politics of Russia’s Water Strategy","authors":"D. Lanko, D. Nechiporuk","doi":"10.17994/it.2021.19.2.65.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17994/it.2021.19.2.65.1","url":null,"abstract":"The article summarizes the outcomes of the implementation of the Water Strategy of the Russian Federation for the period up to 2020 in its part concerning international politics and assesses the new challenges to international cooperation in the field of protection and use of transboundary waters that Russia is expected to face in the coming decade. 2010s witnessed both the changing situation in the field of water availability in Russia, its neighbor countries and the whole world, and the changing scholarly approaches to the impact of water scarcity on international politics. Most of the approaches agreed that water scarcity more often leads to international cooperation. While agreeing with this approach, the authors critically assess the assumption that water scarcity is more often a source of conflicts, and that multilateral international institutions are the best tool to mitigate these conflicts. The authors find that this approach is based on Hobbesian notion of the natural condition of war of all against all for scarce resources, the only alternative to which are institutions of coercion, albeit not always perfect. The authors also find that other approaches based on Hobbesian political philosophy separate the international political processes caused by fear and by scarcity, the two most important “passions that incline men to peace”, according to Hobbes. Fear, including fear of scarcity, tends to drive conflicts, but scarcity as such is more likely to generate cooperation. While multilateral institutions are sometimes capable of mitigating conflicts, in conditions of water scarcity bilateral and minilateral, i.e., created by a small number of parties, institutions of cooperation turn out to be more effective. The experience of Russia’s interaction with its neighbors in the field of protection and use of transboundary water resources considered in the article provides with yet another evidence of that. The authors conclude that the international politics component of Russia’s water strategy for the coming period is more consistent with the approach that assumes that water scarcity generates cooperation rather than conflicts. They also conclude that bilateral and minilateral institutions of cooperation offer countries destined to share a common river basin instruments of interaction that are more suitable for the conditions of a particular basin than multilateral institutions can offer.","PeriodicalId":37798,"journal":{"name":"Mezhdunarodnye Protsessy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67545310","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}