Russian Foreign Policy since 1917 - MA course
Course outline
The aims of this course are to give the student an understanding of the motives of Russian foreign policy, the forces that shape it, the instruments it uses and its impact on the world. The course begins by outlining the foreign policy of the USSR up to 1991 and then moves on to examine the foreign policy of the new Russian state as it has developed under Presidents Boris El’tsin and Vladimir Putin. With Putin in his second term as President, we shall consider the interrelationship between domestic change and international politics as the Russian elite attempts to define Russian national interests. We shall investigate how Russia, faced with NATO and EU enlargement and American unilateralism, faces up to its loss of superpower status. Additionally, the course aims to develop the presentational skills of the student, through the assimilation and analysis of the available literature (which is now quite substantial) and the requirements to offer seminar presentations and write essays; and to prepare the student for careers where a knowledge of Russian foreign policy will be an asset. The course will draw on a number of disciplines, in particular Political Science, History and Economics. There is no language requirement. 1. The study of Soviet and Russian foreign policy.
Historical development 2. From the Bolshevik Revolution to the Great Patriotic War (1917-1945). 3. From Cold War to Détente (1945-1975). 4. From Helsinki to Gorbachev (1975-1991). The making of Soviet foreign policy 5. The process of foreign-policy making before 1991. 6. Soviet theories of international relations. Marxism- Leninism and the ‘new thinking’. The foreign policy of the Russian Federation 7. The making of foreign policy under El’tsin and Putin. 8. Concepts of Russian foreign policy. Russia’s influence in the post-Soviet states 9. The Commonwealth of Independent States. 10. Russian-Ukrainian relations. 11. Russian policy in Transcaucasia and Central Asia. 12. Russia and the Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania). Russia’s principal Asian relationships 13. Russia and the Asia-Pacific Region (esp China and Japan). 14. Russia and India. Russia, Europe and the United States: rivalry and co-ope ration 15. NATO enlargement. 16. EU enlargement 17. Russia and Britain 18. Russia and the ‘war against terrorism’ after 11 September 2001 19. Russia and the Middle East 20. Putin’s foreign policy: an assessment
Peter J S Duncan, Department of Social Sciences, SSEES. Room 422, 020-7679 8762 29.7.06