Informal Political Networks and Putin’s Foreign Policy: The Examples of Iran and Syria

Marten, Kimberly

doi:10.1080/10758216.2015.1010896

Cited by 16 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 14 publications

(14 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…This paper has focused on the formal, bilateral agreements between Russia and these territories and did not examine the informal politics and networks which also shape Russia's relations with South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Given the importance of informal politics in the region for domestic (Gel'man 2004; Hale 2011) and international (Marten 2015) affairs, this is obviously important and would constitute a necessary avenue for future research. This can be approached in three ways.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The architecture of annexation? Russia's bilateral agreements with South Ossetia and Abkhazia

Ambrosio

Lange

2016

Natl. pap.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Following the August War of 2008, Russia recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states. Both territories remain dependent upon Moscow for their security and economic survival, and they remain dominated militarily, economically, and even politically by their northern patron. These relationships are structured, in part, by a series of bilateral agreements signed since September 2008, which have created a comprehensive legal architecture which, in turn, deeply affects the state- and nation-building processes in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. This article examines 78 agreements signed between Russia and these territories between 2008 and 2015 in order to better understand these processes and how they interact with and are influenced by their respective relationships with the Russian Federation. It groups these agreements into three categories: the 2008 “friendship” agreements which created the initial baseline for the bilateral relationship; the numerous, more narrowly defined documents which fleshed-out this relationship; and the “alliance” and “integration” agreements signed with Abkhazia and South Ossetia, respectively, through which Moscow sought to take its relations with these territories to a qualitatively new level. Of particular focus is the degree to which these territories exhibited signs of independent agency and formal autonomy, as well as the differences between them.

show abstract

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The architecture of annexation? Russia's bilateral agreements with South Ossetia and Abkhazia

Ambrosio

Lange

2016

Natl. pap.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Though theories of informal institutions have been developed mainly to address Russian domestic politics, there are significant implications for Russian foreign policy. Marten (2015, 74–7) outlined four distinct possibilities, two of which I discuss here 6 . First, foreign policy might be stable for long periods but then shift radically and unpredictably.…”

Section: Informal Politics and Russian Foreign Policymentioning

confidence: 99%

From Oligarchs to Oligarchy

Siegel¹

2022

World Affairs

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Drawing heavily on theories about Russia's informal politics, American sanctions were designed to change Russian foreign policy by exploiting political conflict among oligarchs and the state elite; however, after nearly eight years of sanctions, Russian elites seem more united than ever. I propose that Russia's oligarchs—the ruthless self-interested economic elite in Russia's informal political system—might sometimes act as a cohesive oligarchy, particularly when their wealth is threatened from external rather than domestic sources, as has been the case under Western sanctions. Through an in-depth case study on the design and outcome of sanctions, this article seeks to develop a more dynamic theory of Russia's informal politics and explain the apparent cohesion among state and economic elites since 2014 as the result of a politics of wealth defense induced by Western sanctions.

show abstract

“…Russia's attachment to the basic principles of international lawsovereignty, territorial integrity, and non-interference in the internal affairs of states unless authorized by the UN Security Councilis rooted in a powerful conviction that repudiates forced democratization and regime change, which can destabilize states (and expand Western influence all over the world). Moscow's profound discontent with the consequences of the West's interventions in Iraq and Libya on the stability of the international system and its attempts to preserve the legal basis of sovereignty and non-intervention have won diplomatic support from China, India, and other emerging powers of its envisaged polycentric world order (Averre and Davies, 2015;Marten, 2015;Cunliffe and Kenkel, 2016;Hofmann et al, 2016).…”

Section: Objectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Russian revisionism in the Putin era: an overview of post-communist military interventions in Georgia, Ukraine, and Syria

Pisciotta

2019

Riv. ital. sci. polit.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper seeks to develop a new typology of revisionism based on the nature of the aims (territorial/normative/hierarchy of prestige), the means employed (peaceful/violent), and the level of action (regional/global). This will then be used to explain the escalation of Russia's foreign policy from regional to global claims with reference to its military interventions in Georgia, Ukraine, and Syria and to identify the type of revisionism involved in each of the three Russian military interventions undertaken both inside (Georgia and Ukraine) and outside (Syria) the post-soviet space. The paper is divided into three parts. The first examines the concept of revisionism and suggests a new classification of six types in relation to the means, nature, and level of the claims put forward by revisionist powers. The second discusses the interventions carried out by Russia within its regional area (in Georgia and Ukraine). The third analyses the intervention in Syria and highlights the escalation of Russian claims from the regional to the global level.

show abstract

Informal Political Networks and Putin’s Foreign Policy: The Examples of Iran and Syria

Cited by 16 publications

References 14 publications

The architecture of annexation? Russia's bilateral agreements with South Ossetia and Abkhazia

The architecture of annexation? Russia's bilateral agreements with South Ossetia and Abkhazia

From Oligarchs to Oligarchy

Russian revisionism in the Putin era: an overview of post-communist military interventions in Georgia, Ukraine, and Syria

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About