Inside Russian Politics is an intelligent, critical and engaging account of the realities of contemporary Russian politics. It is distinctive in widening our view of Russia beyond the standard account of global power plays and resurgent authoritarian menace. Putin matters, but he is not Russia. Russian military adventurism has had a major effect on contemporary international affairs, but assessing its aims and projecting future intentions and impacts requires analysis within a context deep...

This textbook offers an up-to-date and incisive overview of contemporary Russia. Systematically covering the country’s history, geography, society, politics, economy and culture, it analyses current developments —the headlines and the more everyday— and situates its analysis in the wider historical context to help readers make sense of one of the world’s most important regions. Building on the success of its previous editions and analysing complex questions in the light of expertise gather...

The Russian war in Ukraine has been accompanied, fuelled and legitimized by a Russian information war campaign that is unprecedented in its scope and nature. Increasingly lurid in form, sometimes surreal, the Russian state-media propaganda campaign has been surprisingly successful in disguising and distorting the nature of the war and shaping the way it is perceived and understood, both in Russia and beyond. This special issue sets out to launch an interdisciplinary discussion on the Russi...

Securitising Russia shows the impact of twenty-first-century security concerns on the way Russia is ruled. It demonstrates how President Putin has wrestled with terrorism, immigration, media freedom, religious pluralism, and economic globalism, and argues that fears of a return to old-style authoritarianism oversimplify the complex context of contemporary Russia.The book focuses on the internal security issues common to many states in the early twenty-first-century, and places them...

The unfolding crisis in Ukraine has brought the world to the brink of a new Cold War. As Russia and Ukraine tussle for Crimea and the eastern regions, relations between Putin and the West have reached an all-time low. How did we get here? Richard Sakwa here unpicks the context of conflicted Ukrainian identity and of Russo-Ukrainian relations and traces the path to the recent disturbances through the events which have forced Ukraine, a country internally divided between East and West, to ch...

The fall of the Berlin Wall sent shock waves around the world. It was, quite literally, a world-changing event. Now, more than two decades after the Wall's collapse, this book brings together leading authorities who offer a fresh look at how leaders in four vital centers of world politics--the United States, the Soviet Union, Europe, and China--viewed the world in the aftermath of this momentous event. Jeffrey Engel contributes a chronological narrative of this tumultuous period, followed ...

The new edition of this extremely well-received political biography of Vladimir Putin builds on the strengths of the first edition to provide the most detailed and nuanced account of the man, his politics and his profound influence on Russian politics, foreign policy and society. New to this edition:analysis of Putin's second term as Presidentmore biographical information in the light of recent researchdetailed discussion of changes to the policy process a...

This book provides an overview of the state of Russia after the 2012 presidential election. It considers a wide range of both domestic and international issues, examining both the run up to and the consequences of the election. It covers political, economic, and social topics. It assesses the political scene both before and after the election, and discusses the nature of and likely future of democracy in Russia. The election’s impact on the Russian economy is discussed in detail, as are Ru...

Russian Politics Today: Stability and Fragility provides an accessible and nuanced introduction to contemporary Russian politics at a time of increasing uncertainty. Using the theme of stability versus fragility as its overarching framework, this innovative textbook explores the forces that shape Russia's politics, economy, and society. The volume provides up-to-date coverage of core themes – Russia's strong presidency, its weak party system, the role of civil society, and its dependence o...

This book builds on the strengths of the previous volumes by the same author to provide the most detailed and nuanced account of the man, his politics and his profound influence on Russian politics, foreign policy and society.However, this is not a new edition of the earlier books but is an entirely new work. The focus now is on the dilemmas of power since 2008. There is a brief biographical sketch of Vladimir Putin and much analysis of his ideas and policies, but the book now focu...

The view that Russia has taken a decisive shift towards authoritarianism may be premature, but there is no doubt that its democracy is in crisis. In this original and dynamic analysis of the fundamental processes shaping contemporary Russian politics, Richard Sakwa applies a new model based on the concept of Russia as a dual state. Russia's constitutional state is challenged by an administrative regime that subverts the rule of law and genuine electoral competitiveness. This has created a ...

This is the first comprehensive analysis of the development of relations between Russia and NATO since 1991.Since the re-emergence of Russia as an independent state in December 1991, debates and controversies surrounding its evolving relations with NATO have been a prominent feature of the European security scene. This is the first detailed and comprehensive book-length analysis of Russia-NATO relations, covering the years 1991-2005. This new volume investigates the nature and subs...