UPTAKE 2018-2019 aasta publikatsioonid

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The Kremlin’s Second Preventive Counter-Revolution: A Case of Authoritarian Learning from Success
(Tartu : Tartu Ülikooli Kirjastus, 2018) Hall, Stephen G. F.
In 2004, the Kremlin began what was termed its first preventive counter-revolution to counter a potential Colour Revolution reaching Russia and leading to the collapse of the Russian regime, like in Georgia in 2003 and Ukraine in 2004. The first preventive counter-revolution involved restrictions on the media, the opposition, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and the repression of other independent areas of society to alleviate a Colour Revolution occurring on the streets of Moscow. The contention made here is that the second preventive counter-revolution, which lasted from 2012 to 2018, incorporated many of the practices of the first preventive counter-revolution and is an example of authoritarian learning from success. Nevertheless, there is also a case to be made that the second preventive counter-revolution took learnt from the success, or rather perceived success, of another source. Believing that the West, especially America, had supported protesters and democratic opposition groups in the Colour Revolutions, as well as helped instigate the revolutions of the Arab Spring and Euromaidan and attempts at revolution in Russia between 2011 and 2012, the Kremlin adapted these successful strategies for its own purposes. It devised methods to take the second preventive counter-revolution abroad in an attempt to counter Western actions and alleviate the possibility that a revolution could occur in Russia. The second preventive counter-revolution of the Kremlin provides further the literature on authoritarian learning. As will be shown the existing literature has largely concentrated on learning from failure. However, the Kremlin’s second preventive counter-revolution provides an example of learning from internal and external success.
In Between War and Peace: The Conceptualisation of Russian Strategic Deterrence
(Tartu : Tartu Ülikooli Kirjastus, 2018) Lucassen, Okke Geurt
The Russian Federation has expanded its foreign policy instruments in recent years to include a broader range of tools, both military and non-military for times of peace and war. The implications of this pivot in Russian foreign policy is often referred to in terms such as Hybrid Warfare, Cross-Domain Coercion, New Generation War, or the Gerasimov doctrine. Examples of this turn include the annexation of Crimea, the use of paramilitary groups (such as the Wagner Group), and foreign election tampering. The present paper contributes to the growing literature on contemporary Russian foreign policy by dissecting what the Russian Federation has named ‘Strategic Deterrence’ (сдерживание стратегическое) as a part of its foreign policy strategy. Whilst established theories of foreign policy strategies such as Hybrid Warfare have been adapted to better fit the contemporary Russian model, the notion of Russian Strategic Deterrence is best understood through its conceptualisation as a uniquely Russian take on contemporary foreign policy. This paper provides an analysis on how Russian perceptions of Western expansionism have influenced the Russian conceptualisation of Strategic Deterrence, and how the Russian concept of Strategic Deterrence is distinct from seemingly similar and commonly interchanged concepts such as Hybrid Warfare.
Testing Revisionist Toolkits: Russia in Kyrgyzstan
(Tartu : Tartu Ülikooli Kirjastus, 2018) Elgin, Katherine K.
It is now commonplace in the West to describe Russia as a revisionist power, seeking to change the international system and regain its status as a great power. This perception became more popular after 2008 in Georgia but only truly solidified after Russian interventions in Crimea and Syria. Russia, however, did not act on its revisionist tendencies overnight. What were the mechanisms that allowed Russia to become revisionist, and how did it test these mechanisms? This paper argues that Russia’s revisionism started earlier than many claim – in Kyrgyzstan and Central Asia more broadly in the early 2000’s. In overlooking these earlier historical developments, we risk misunderstanding Russian revisionist tendencies, the roots of which stem back to the ‘Colour Revolutions’ in Georgia, in Ukraine, and in Kyrgyzstan. In examining Russian revisionism, most scholars concentrate on the first two, but this focus only tells part of the story. While this paper does not try to understand the relative success or failure of Russian actions in these countries, it does demonstrate that Kyrgyzstan was in many ways a testing ground for Russia as it developed its revisionist toolkit. Through analysing Russian efforts to reduce U.S. influence in Central Asia in the early 2000s, this paper helps us to better understand how Russia developed techniques used in Georgia and Crimea, how Russia conceptualized their own abilities to intervene in other countries, and ultimately how Russia conceives of its ability to revise the international system with minimal external response.
De Gaulle y Europa. Nacionalismo frente a integración en la construcción Europea
(Revista de Occidente, 2018) Ramiro Troitino, David; Polese, A.; Braghiroli, S.
The article discusses the role of De Gaulle in the first years of European integration and his peculiar vision when it comes to the process of unification and the role of the nation states. The idea of nationalism and patriotism is deeply connected to the thought of the French statesman and it has deeply influenced French perspective on Europe, both in the past and today. The article looks at De Gaulle's background and socialization as well as its relationship with other stakeholders that have shaped the European institutions. In particular, the Fuchet plan, the "empty chair crisis", the relationship with the UK, and the Common Agriculture Policy are discussed.
How to study and teach anew EU– Russia relations: a methodological conclusion in seven points
(Routledge, 2018) Braghiroli, Stefano; Hoffmann, Thomas; Makarychev, Andrey; Hoffmann, Thomas, toimetaja; Makarychev, Andrey, toimetaja
Baltic Perspectives on the Ukraine Crisis: Europeanization in the Shadow of Insecurity
(Foundation for Good Politics, 2018) Vilson, Maili
This article reviews the policy positions of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania with respect to the Ukraine crisis – the biggest foreign policy challenge for the Baltic states since they regained independence. Ukraine dominated the Baltic foreign policy agenda from the outbreak of the crisis, because it touched upon a dimension of existential threat for the Baltic countries. While giving an overview of the main policy domains where the effect of the Ukraine crisis could be observed, this article demonstrates that the three Baltic countries adopted a comprehensive approach to security and foreign policymaking, underlining cooperation both at a national and European level. In light of this, the Ukraine crisis can be seen as a maturity test for postindependence Baltic foreign policy.
Discursive Opportunities for the Estonian Populist Radical Right in a Digital Society
(Routledge, 2018) Madisson, Mari-Liis; Wierenga, Louis; Kasekamp, Andres
This article analyzes the discursive opportunities, narratives, and dominant themes used by the Conservative People’s Party of Estonia (EKRE), a new populist radical right party, to achieve increasing visibility. Applying thematic analysis of EKRE’s social media content, we identify four main groups of issues that have formed the mainstay of EKRE’s political communication and framed the narrative that social media channels have disseminated: an anti-Russian stance, Euroskepticism, promotion of family values, and an anti-refugee discourse. We conclude that EKRE has successfully capitalized on specific conditions in the public sphere to increase its popularity.
Sovereignty, Self-Determination, and Human Rights from Walzer to the Responsibility to Protect
(2018) Piirimäe, Eva
This essay explores the intellectual context and conceptual foundations of R2P. Michael Walzer reinitiated debates about humanitarian intervention by grounding sovereignty and non-intervention in individual human rights and communal autonomy (self-determination). Liberal cosmopolitan critics of Walzer highlighted the tension between these two values, and proposed that sovereignty should rather be grounded in individual rights and democratic self-determination. In the post-Cold War era, international lawyers and international relations scholars came to endorse the idea that state sovereignty is qualified by the most basic human rights. High ranking UN officials further proposed that state sovereignty should be redefined as the sovereignty of the people, which, however, was seen as coextensive with the protection of the fundamental individual rights, and as such could be shared by the ‘international community’. R2P adopted a similar approach, glossing over the potential tensions between sovereignty, self-determination and human rights.
From the Cold War’s End to the Ukraine Crisis: NATO’s Enduring Value for Estonia’s Security Policy
(2018) Kasekamp, Andres; McNamara, Eoin Micheál
Upon restoring its independence in 1991, Estonia immediately looked westwards. There was a strong societal consensus to leave the Soviet legacy behind as quickly as possible and ‘return to Europe’. The lesson of history that guided Estonian foreign and security policymakers was the failure of neutrality to save Estonia from Soviet military occupation in 1940. The conclusion drawn from this experience was to never again to be alone without allies. The consistent strategic goal, as formulated by Estonia’s first president, Lennart Meri, has been to ensure Estonia’s security by embedding the country as deeply and tightly as possible in international (especially Western) institutions and organizations. That same strategy is equally relevant today.
Russia's Internal Otherness
(Yale Global, 2018) Morozov, Viacheslav
Identity beyond othering: crisis and the politics of decision in the EU’s involvement in Libya
(2018) Morozov, Viacheslav; Leek, Maria
This article focusses on the concept of decision and its significance for identity politics. Constructivist scholarship established long ago that identity and foreign policy are mutually constitutive and that difference and othering are key for the production of identities. As a consequence, constructivist literature on EU foreign policy has focussed on the role of specific others and explored how interaction with them shapes the EU’s identity. Our article turns the attention back inside and looks at the hegemonic struggles around the purpose and meaning of the European project. By analyzing the EU’s reaction to the Libyan events in 2011, we demonstrate how a major international crisis dislocates the identities involved and unleashes a struggle for hegemony between conflicting discursive articulations. Eventually this conflict is resolved through a political decision, which reconfigures the entire ‘global’ outlook on Europe and its role in the world. By defining decision along poststructuralist lines, as distinct from the conventional literature on decision-making, we demonstrate that the use of this conceptual prism helps deepen our understanding of how othering and bordering work to produce and reshape identities. By doing that, we seek to contribute to a better understanding of how identities change in time.
Global (Post)structural Conditions
(London, New York: Routledge, 2018) Morozov, Viatcheslav
Structuralist approaches are gaining prominence in the study of Russian foreign policy, mostly due to their ability to offer a solid comparative perspective on the Russian case. This chapter reviews the existing structuralist literature on the subject and contrasts it with other ways of looking at Russia’s position in Europe and in the world, in particular with mainstream constructivism. It differentiates between historical materialist approaches, which stay true to the classical Marxist precept of determination in the first instance by the economy, and discursive and institutionalist theories, foregrounding institutionally embedded hierarchies and multi-layered hegemonic orders. What all structuralist perspectives share is the emphasis on inequality inherent in the international system. This, in turn, results in conceptualising Russia’s insecurities and its ambiguous identification both with and against the West as resulting from its subaltern, semi-peripheral status in world politics and global economy. Building on these insights, the chapter puts forward the image of Russia as a subaltern empire, positioned in the interstice between two hegemonic orders of unequal scale.
Indigeneity and subaltern subjectivity in decolonial discourses: a comparative study of Bolivia and Russia
(2018) Morozov, Viatcheslav; Pavlova, Elena
The decolonial discourse of buen vivir in South America has declared the need to overcome Eurocentrism by tapping into indigenous knowledge. We compare the Bolivian version of this project with the conservative turn in Russian politics to demonstrate that they make a structurally analogous argument and they both end up with a false promise. The fullness of indigenous being that underlies such discourses is a Eurocentric, romanticist myth, which contributes to the silencing of the subaltern by imposing on them political categories not directly rooted in any genuine native experience. We reformulate postcolonial critique using Laclau’s theory of populism to suggest that subaltern subjectivity can only emerge in a bottom-up manner, through the aggregation and universalisation of local demands. While it might still be true that the subaltern cannot speak, there is no way for the subaltern to come into being other than through speaking politically.
Identity and Hegemony in EU-Russia relations: Making Sense of the Asymmetrical Entanglement
(London, New York: Routledge, 2018) Morozov, Viatcheslav
The study of EU–Russia relations has been a fruitful testing ground for constructivist research. This chapter attempts to take stock of the existing constructivist work on EU–Russia relations and to suggest some avenues for further development. It focuses on the structuralist approach by interpreting the identities of the actors as deriving from their relationship. The aim is to highlight the findings that are most relevant for the problematic of othering, hegemony and inequality.
World society as collective identity: world society, international society, and inclusion/exclusion from Europe
(2018) Linsenmaier, Thomas
In a world of regions, inside/outside dynamics—the identity politics of international society—are effectively reinstated. Accounting for these dynamics from an English School (ES) perspective requires, first, prior clarification of the place and role of the concept of identity in ES theory. Constitutive of society in both inter-state and inter-human domain, of international and world society, respectively, identity arguably is key to social structural ES theorising. This is visible in, second, the (in-)congruence of identities across domains, constellations of international and world society, instilling a state with the desire for belonging. Induced in this way is the ‘movement’ of a state in international society, triggering the identity politics of (regional) international society. This is illustrated, third, by the patterns of inclusion and exclusion currently on display at the Eastern boundary of the contemporary European society of states that transpire as the result of ‘neighbourhood’ states aspiring to join ‘Europe’.
The Biopolitics of International Exchange: International Educational Exchange Programs – Facilitator or Victim in the Battle for Biopolitical Normativity?
(Russian Politics, 2018) Erbsen, Heidi
This article addresses how international educational exchange programs are increasingly used as political, and particularly bio-political, tools to promote ideologies of biological normativity. Such programs have historically been promoted by national and international institutions as means to increase participants (and therefore the sending institution’s) knowledge of the world and transfer favorable values through individuals. US and EU exchange programs with Russia in particular have been focused on achieving a ‘mutual understanding’ or promoting ‘common’ or ‘shared values’ across countries; however, a tendency of educational institutions to select like-minded individuals and countries for participation has arguably complicated rather than mended global divides. The difference in values associated with biological practices in Russia, the US, and the EU related to traditional gender roles, marriage, nuclear families, birth control, etc. have become more apparent with the spread of information and globalization.The main argument of this work supports that attention to the promotion or cancelation of certain exchange programs can be used to better understand larger patterns in international relations and the modern system of global governance. An investigation into the founding ideologies behind programs such as FLEX and Fulbright (by the US) and Erasmus + (by the European Commission) and their politicization exemplifies how educational programs can become ‘battlefields’ for ideologies of biological normativity. The example of the cancelation of the FLEX program by the Russian Federation is used to understand key relationships between biopolitics and geopolitics, modern and post-modern, and value transfer and human capital.
Face to face with conservative religious values: Assessing the EU's normative impact in the South Caucasus
(London, New York: Routledge, 2018) Berg, Eiki; Kilp, Alar
The article analyzes how Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia react to the EU’s soft power, which is mainly based on its human rights policy including the freedom of religion and the promotion of pluralism. The EU has limited soft power in the South Caucasus. It remains attractive but only to a relative degree. The EU’s normative power is challenged by conservative value orientations which are backed up by religious institutions and politicians seeking to maximize their political gains.
Why the International Community Should Be More Accommodating to De Facto States
(PONARS Eurasia, 2018) Vits, Kristel; Berg, Eiki
De facto states are notorious for their pariah status, constant security deficit, and embryonic institutions, producing the perception that they are states-in-the-making perpetually striving for sheer survival. Their reliance on a patron is considered proof that they would not be viable states and thus are incapable of having independent agency. Without the freedom of choice, these entities lack deliberate will for action, and without capacity to do, they can hardly be in a position of exerting power. A focus on agency allows us to ask how far and in what ways these unrecognized entities have been able to act in the international system. We demonstrate that, despite their limited capacity, de facto states do display some agency, and that their foreign policy choices are sometimes not remarkably different from recognized small states or micro-states. Even imperfect agency may bring relief for local policymakers who are supposed to alleviate anarchy and chaos in their daily practices. The international community, we argue, should thus be more accommodating to de facto states; if their agency is continuously denied, they will be both increasingly reliant on their patron and separated from the international community.
The Do-or-Die Dilemma Facing Post-Soviet De Facto States
(PONARS Eurasia, 2018) Vits, Kristel; Berg, Eiki
This memo discusses the “do or die” dilemma of post-Soviet de facto states. Our examination looks in to patron-client relations that are highly unequal and asymmetric in terms of resources and capabilities: Russia vis-à-vis Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Transnistria, and Armenia vis-à-vis Nagorno-Karabakh. While relying entirely on a militarily and economically resourceful external patron is often seen as the only viable option, de facto states may be risking the loss of their “independence.” Hence their “do or die” dilemma that structures many of their policies.
Scrutinizing a Policy of “Engagement Without Recognition”: US Requests for Diplomatic Actions With De Facto States
(2018) Berg, Eiki; Pegg, Scott
De facto states are conventionally perceived as illegal entities, usually ignored by the rest of the world and therefore also isolated and severely sanctioned in most cases. We investigate US foreign-policy engagement with Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Northern Cyprus, Somaliland, and Transnistria and explore when, why, and how interactions between the United States and “places that do not exist” has taken place. This is done by extensively using WikiLeaks diplomatic cables from 2003– to 2010 as a primary information source. We assume that by engaging and not recognizing, the US has sought to increase its leverage and footprint in conflicts that somehow affect its national interests. This engagement approach is presumably most successful when targeted adversaries turn out to be agents of peace and stability, or when strategic calculus outweighs the rationale for the conventional treatment of sovereign anomalies.

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