week1: Patterns in Russian Foreign Policy (Does Russia have a bias toward expansionism? If so, why?) week2: Bolshevik Foreign Policy and the Origins of the Cold War (To what extent was early Bolshevik foreign policy shaped by domestic forces, and to what extent by the international system?) week3: Soviet New Thinking and What Came After (Why did Moscow pursue a radical rapprochement with the West in the 1980s?) week4: Military and Foreign Policy in the Soviet Union and in Russia (What is the significance of military power as a tool of Soviet/Russian foreign policy?) week5: Status and Status-Competition in Russian Policy (What is the importance of status competition in Russian foreign policy? IR scholars are devoting increasing attention to the role of status concerns. This has also been a prominent theme in research on Russian foreign policy. The case study of Russia-NATO relations will investigate Russia’s great power aspirations in more depth.) week6: Russia and Its Neighbours (What drives Russia’s relationship with its near neighbours (post-Soviet space) and with China?) week7: Russia’s Annexation of the Crimea (Russia’s annexation of the Crimea in 2014 shocked much of the world, while proving popular at home. Why did Moscow do it? Was it naked aggression, a defensive reaction to Western actions, both, or neither?) week8: Russia and Hybrid Warfare/Information Warfare (Has Russia found a ‘new way of war’ in the shape of hybrid and/or information warfare that the West can’t defend against?) week9: Tsar Vladimir?: Conservatism in Russia’s Policy and Its Relations with the West (Is Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy underpinned by the ideology of ‘conservatism’?) week10: Russia, Human Rights and International Relations (Why have human rights, including LGBTQ rights, turned into such a difficult issue in Russia’s relationship with the West?) I can send you specific reading list for each week that you interested to work on in the message box.
