This course offers a comparative look at the making and implementation of Russian Foreign Policy after the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union. The course offers a combination of two options. We shall begin with an investigation of the sources of Russian conduct and analyze Russia’s foreign policy institutions and priorities.
We will examine several theoretical models that focus on the impact of different factors on Russian Foreign Policy: type of government, ideology, leadership politics, bureaucratic and interest group politics, the European security system, Russia’s historic borderlands and "empire", and the international economic system.
The second part of the course is aimed at a close examination of regional aspects of Russian Foreign Policy with particular attention to relations with the West, newly independent states of the former Soviet Union, and the Far East.