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This report, from the Foreign Affairs Committee, examines the issue of global security in respect of Russia. It sets out 40 conclusions and recommendations covering the following areas: democracy and human rights; the bilateral UK-Russia relationship; energy security; EU-Russia relations; European security issues; international security issues. Specific recommendations from the Committee include: that the UK should continue to press its concerns about democratic and human rights standards with the Russian authorities; that the Government should continue to offer assistance to Russia in the preparation of extradition requests to the UK and in the development of the country's judicial system; further that the Government invites its Russian counterpart to renegotiate extradition arrangements between Russia and the UK; the Committee also recommends that the Government make the development of a united and coherent EU Russia policy an explicit goal of its work in the EU in 2008; also that the Government work to bring closer together the Western and Russian assessments of the Iranian nuclear threat.
We assume that the ideas, interests and strategies of regional powers are highly significant variables, with the power to influence foreign policy. Yet while comparative research projects involving OECD-countries are fairly common, comparative research integrating developing regions is still rare, despite the fact that these countries are among the key actors of the twenty-first century. This collection emphasizes the role of regional powers in intra-regional, interregional and global contexts, analyzing the rise of regional powers from a comparative perspective. In so doing, the book explains how these powers have power to shape regional and global politics.
As The European Union Opens Negotiations On Membership With Five Of The Ten post-communist states who have applied, this book looks at some of the challenges presented by Eastern enlargement - not only to existing member states and European institutions, but also to the Central and Eastern European countries themselves.; The approach is interdisciplinary, and brings together contributions from academic specialists on security and international relations; European institutions; the economics of european integration; and the domestic politics of Central and Eastern Europe.; The book has been structured to provide a clear and comprehensive introduction to the topic for students taking a range of courses, including European integration, the politics of post-communist democracies, and Europe's post-Cold war order.; At the same time. it will be accessible to more general readers with an interest in European Union affairs, while presenting research to specialists in the area.
The accelerated pace of European integration since the early 1990s has been accompanied by the emergence of increasingly prominent and multiform oppositions to the process. The term Euroscepticism has appeared with growing frequency in a range of political, media, and academic discourses. Yet, the label is applied to a wide range of different, and occasionally contradictory, phenomena. Although originally associated with an English exceptionalism relative to a Continental project of political and economic integration, the term Euroscepticism is now also identified with a more general questioning of European Union institutions and policies which finds diverse expressions across the entire con...
In March 2000 Vladimir Putin was elected President of the Russian Federation, the largest country in the world. In the space of just a few years Putin's radical reforms in the areas of domestic and foreign policy have made a major impact on Russian politics and society and we have witnessed a new orientation in Russia's external relations with the West. But is Putin an authoritarian or a democrat? Does his presidency signal a break with Russia's past or is he just another autocratic czar in modern clothing? This is a lively, comprehensive, and highly accessible account of contemporary Russian politics. There are fifteen chapters covering such key areas as: leadership and regime change, political parties and democratization, economy and society, regional politics, the war in Chechnya, and Russian foreign policy.
Many authors have alluded to the unique nature of Russia’s dual transition and its difficult task of simultaneously reforming its economy and polity. But there is in fact a third transition still far from completed that is of no less importance, the need to reconfigure central-regional relations and to create a stable and viable form of federalism. There are vast economic, demographic and political variations across the Russian federation. Therefore an understanding of regions, and the causes and consequences of cross-regional diversity, is a vitally important dimension of Russian politics that should not be overlooked. It is only by studying regional level politics that we can gain a full...
Debates about multi-level governance have led to a profound restructuring of regional and local government. The second level of local government is under review in most European countries, with the aim to strengthen the institutional capacity of municipalities or to develop appropriate institutional structures for governing fragmented urban areas. This book provides a thematic and cross-national analysis of the key actors in local government that form the crucial components of effective and democratic policy making. Focussing on the second tier of local government, it examines new empirical data on councillors from this level of government in 15 European countries and integrates important va...
The economic crisis of 2008, starting from the crisis in banking in the USA in 2008, affected economic and political development in varied ways around the world. This edited volume covers the impact and policy responses in Eastern Europe and Russia. Taken as a whole, the economies of the former state socialist countries – frequently still referred to for convenience as transition economies – were hit hard by the crisis, suffering falls in GDP in 2009 that were deeper than the average around the world. However, there was considerable variety in the effects on individual countries, with a few continuing to grow while some others suffered quite exceptional falls in output. Policy responses ...
This important text provides readers with a systematic and comprehensive overview of the historic and ever-evolving relationship between Russia and the European Union, and on that basis discusses what the future of relations could look like. The EU's policy towards Russia can be regarded as one of the toughest tests of the credibility of its external relations, and in examining the dynamics of the relationship, this book poses essential questions about the EU's ability to sustain itself as a meaningful entity in world politics. Written by two experts in the field, it analyses the political and institutional development of EU-Russia relations from three perspectives: European studies, Russian...
Following the disintegration of the Soviet bloc, many Central and Eastern European Countries launched a vigorous 'return to Europe' campaign, which primarily focused on accession to NATO and the European Union. By 2007, ten countries became members of the Euro-Atlantic community, personifying the long-awaited reunification of Europe.