https://refubium.fu-berlin.de/handle/fub188/17619 2026-04-30T16:57:08Z https://refubium.fu-berlin.de/handle/fub188/21978 A New Turn or More of the Same? A Structured Analysis of Recent Developments in Russian Foreign Policy Discourse Frear, Matthew; Mazepus, Honorata Russia and the European Union (EU) pursue active policies in their shared neighbourhood. The official Russian foreign policy discourses that we analyse here provide insights into the most important foreign policy ideas that Russia seeks to promote. They show how Russia perceives its role in the region and the world, as well as how it wants to develop its relations with neighbours. Building on previous studies identifying the main discourses in Russian foreign policy, this paper offers a new, comprehensive analysis of recent Foreign Policy Concepts and the annual Presidential Addresses to the Federal Assembly during President Vladimir Putin’s third term. The paper contributes to our understanding of Russian foreign policy discourses and Russia’s stance vis-a-vis the EU in the Eastern Partnership (EaP) region. Rather than focusing on a single aspect of foreign policy (a common practice adopted by many existing studies), it provides an analysis of all of them, thereby showing any shift in emphasis on different aspects of foreign policy and regions over time. Moreover, it takes a closer look at the content of the economic pitch within the official Russian discourses to attract the countries in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). In this way, rather than focusing on what Russia does not offer (the values and political system of Western countries), it investigates whether the discourses presented contain a potential positive offer for the countries in the region. 2017-01-01T00:00:00Z https://refubium.fu-berlin.de/handle/fub188/21865 Assessing Legal and Political Compatibility between the European Union Engagement Strategies and Membership of the Eurasian Economic Union Dragneva, Rilka; Delcour, Laure; Jonavicius, Laurynas One of the challenges to EU’s Eastern Partnership (EaP) policy relates to structuring cooperation with countries that have opted for membership in the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), such as Belarus and Armenia, while avoiding the problems faced in the Ukraine crisis of 2013-2014. Acting on its revised European Neighbourhood Policy, the EU has sought to develop differentiated and flexible tools of engagement with the EaP countries, including a new type of agreement with Armenia, the Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement (CEPA). Delivering on this agenda, however, requires clarity on the constraints and limits imposed by membership in the EAEU. The EU has tended to establish such limits by reliance on the technocratic analysis of current obligations contained in formal legal agreements. Yet, as revealed by the Ukraine crisis, this approach has not necessarily reflected the geopolitical realities in the region and Russia’s view of integration and its compatibility with EU’s policies, in particular. This paper argues that establishing the limits imposed by EAEU membership requires an assessment of the range of legal as well as non-legal levers at play in individual member states in relation to Russia’s integration projects. What matters is how Russia as well as its Eurasian partners play the ‘integration game’, and the degree to which political elites in Belarus and Armenia can manoeuvre a space for independent engagement with the EU. This is necessary because of the particular nature of the EAEU, defined by a mixture between current and future commitments, problematic institutional boundaries between delegated powers and members’ commitments, and the prevalence of power relations within a highly asymmetric hub-and-spoke context. In this context, Russia has a continued ability to interpret the nature of the commitments undertaken and their compatibility with overlapping international agreements, and enforce it using critical interdependencies of the members. We examine how the ‘compatibility space’ is negotiated by elites in Belarus and Armenia, and elaborate on the case of CEPA as the most recent test to complementarity of integration engagements in the region. 2017-01-01T00:00:00Z https://refubium.fu-berlin.de/handle/fub188/24141 Effects of Limited Access Orders on Science Policy and Scientific Cooperation Toshkov, Dimiter; Mazepus, Honorata; Chulitskaya, Tatsiana; Ramasheuskaya, Ina; Rabava, Natallia The European Union (EU) and the countries in the Eastern Partnership (EaP) framework have developed ambitious and comprehensive programmes for scientific cooperation that provide a major source of funding for science institutes and crucial support for science policies in the region. However, science policies and scientific cooperation areembedded in broader political and governance institutional structures. This paper exploresthe idea that in limited access orders(LAOs), institutions and powerful actors can constrain the design and implementation of scientific cooperation projects in a way that limits their broader transformative potential and societal effects. Empirically, the paper is focused on three EaP countries –Belarus, Moldova, and Ukraine –that differ in the forms and intensity of their scientific cooperation with the EU, but also in the types of regimes they have.The paper developstheoretically the possible and likely effects of LAOs on science policies and scientific cooperationandseeksevidence for such effects using sets of interviews with policy experts and scientists. Our empirical analysis shows that the results of scientific cooperation projects rarely spillover to broader society. It is unclear, however, to what extent this is a result of the generally limited capacity of EaP governments for strategic policy making and policy implementation, and to what extent it stems from features characteristic of LAOs. Overall, we find that,in line with our theoretical reasoning, the less open the regime, the more stringent the constraints on science and scientific cooperation it imposes. 2019-01-01T00:00:00Z https://refubium.fu-berlin.de/handle/fub188/22524 How Bilateral, Regional and International Regimes Shape the Extent, Significance and Nature of Interdependencies Dragneva, Rilka; Delcour, Laure; Marta Jaroszewicz, Marta; Kardaś, Szymon; Ungureanu, Carolina In discussing relations between post-Soviet countries, interdependence, and dependence on Russia in particular, is often portrayed as a natural inevitability. What this ignores, however, is that interdependence can be created and perpetuated by policy itself. It is the outcome of a political game where a range of interests is involved, resulting in a set of governance arrangements or regimes. Understanding this dynamic has important implications for the effectiveness of the European Union’s engagement in the region. This paper examines what regimes interdependence between Russia and its neighbours (Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine) are embedded in, but also how these arrangements affect interdependence in their own right. The focus here is on formal international agreements between these countries, but also on less institutionalized interactions and transactional dealings governing relations across four sectors of notable interdependence: trade, migration, energy and security. The sectoral analysis is based on a number of key theoretical propositions we formulate in the beginning of the paper about how the nature and characteristics of governing regimes affect interdependence or that is, the countries’ sensitivity and vulnerability to Russia’s actions as per Keohane and Nye’s framework. Importantly, we examine regimes not in isolation but note that certain subject matters are often regulated by a set of overlapping bilateral, regional or international agreements. Similarly, we note that interdependence is affected by interactions between regimes across sectors, reflecting a propensity for issue linkage. We find that, despite variations in nature and design, formal regimes developed post-USSR provide few constraints on Russia’s unilateral actions and have thus served to perpetuate the neighbours’ sensitivity. Overlaps with regional frameworks have been important particularly with regard to Belarus, but have produced similar effects. International regimes, such as the World Trade Organization and international arbitration, have the potential to induce a rule-based dynamics. However, the reduction of vulnerability is ultimately conditional on the progress of domestic reform. The implications for the European Union, which relies on sophisticated, rule-based regimes in marked contrast with Russia’s reliance on weak and non-transparent arrangements, are many and deserve further exploration. They all, however, point to the argument that the European Union should offer not only rule-dense regimes to the Eastern partners, but frameworks offering actual policy alternatives and allowing the prioritization of key domestic reforms. 2018-01-01T00:00:00Z