Russia’s controversial annexation of Crimea in 2014 and its involvement in the conflict in Ukraine have left international audiences stunned. Russia now occupies a central place on the Western security agenda and has been recast as an important area of scholarly inquiry. The conflict has raised important questions about Russia’s understanding of conflict management and its approach to contemporary European security. This book provides a timely and contextual exploration of Russia’s post-Soviet legacy of conflict management in the backdrop of its interaction with Europe’s system of security governance. By exploring Russia’s approach from the early 1990s to the present day, the book offers a comprehensive exploration into the evolution of Russian behavior, investigating whether Russia’s approach has developed in accordance with the policies and practices of security governance that have emerged in the European experience of conflict management. Together with extensive documentary analysis and elite interviews, it employs the framework of security governance to examine Moscow’s behavior across a set of case studies situated in the European political and security environment. It offers a timely contribution to our understanding of Russia’s response to intrastate conflict and Russia’s broader engagement with its contemporary security environment.

It is not hyperbole to suggest that the foundations of post-cold war security in Europe have been badly damaged by the conflict in Ukraine since 2014. Russia’s annexation of Crimea and intervention in eastern Ukraine appear to have created a ‘simmering’ conflict, which may take years to resolve and have profound consequences for the European security environment. This volume explores the various political, economic and social aspects of these profound changes and their wider significance for Europe, bringing together contributions by scholars from across the continent and in various disciplinary fields to offer an authoritative, in-depth examination of the complex causes of the Ukraine crisis and the consequences for Ukrainian statehood, Ukraine’s relations with Russia, Russia’s own domestic governance and Russia’s relations with Europe. This book was originally published as a special issue of Europe-Asia Studies.

Covering the historical background, domestic developments, the role of military factors, and Russia's immediate security environment, Russia and Europe provides a comprehensive analysis of the increasingly important security relationship between Russia and Europe. Particular attention is paid to Russia's relations with its Slavic neighbours, the Baltic and nordic countries, and the Caucasus. It concludes with an examination of Russia's present and potential relations with all the existing European security structures.

The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Regionalism - the first of its kind - offers a systematic and wide-ranging survey of the scholarship on regionalism, regionalization, and regional governance. Unpacking the major debates, leading authors of the field synthesize the state of the art, provide a guide to the comparative study of regionalism, and identify future avenues of research. Twenty-seven chapters review the theoretical and empirical scholarship with regard to the emergence of regionalism, the institutional design of regional organizations and issue-specific governance, as well as the effects of regionalism and its relationship with processes of regionalization. The authors explore theories of cooperation, integration, and diffusion explaining the rise and the different forms of regionalism. The handbook also discusses the state of the art on the world regions: North America, Latin America, Europe, Eurasia, Asia, North Africa and the Middle East, and Sub-Saharan Africa. Various chapters survey the literature on regional governance in major issue areas such as security and peace, trade and finance, environment, migration, social and gender policies, as well as democracy and human rights. Finally, the handbook engages in cross-regional comparisons with regard to institutional design, dispute settlement, identities and communities, legitimacy and democracy, as well as inter- and transregionalism.

From Moscow, the world looks different. It is through understanding how Russia sees the world—and its place in it—that the West can best meet the Russian challenge. Russia and the West are like neighbors who never seem able to understand each other. A major reason, this book argues, is that Western leaders tend to think that Russia should act as a “rational” Western nation—even though Russian leaders for centuries have thought and acted based on their country's much different history and traditions. Russia, through Western eyes, is unpredictable and irrational, when in fact its leaders from the czars to Putin almost always act in their own very predictable and rational ways. For Western leaders to try to engage with Russia without attempting to understand how Russians look at the world is a recipe for repeated disappointment and frequent crises. Keir Giles, a senior expert on Russia at Britain's prestigious Chatham House, describes how Russian leaders have used consistent doctrinal and strategic approaches to the rest of the world. These approaches may seem deeply alien in the West, but understanding them is essential for successful engagement with Moscow. Giles argues that understanding how Moscow's leaders think—not just Vladimir Putin but his predecessors and eventual successors—will help their counterparts in the West develop a less crisis-prone and more productive relationship with Russia.

The end of the Cold War has changed the shape of organized violence in the world and the ways in which governments and others try to set its limits. Even the concept of international conflict is broadening to include ethnic conflicts and other kinds of violence within national borders that may affect international peace and security. What is not yet clear is whether or how these changes alter the way actors on the world scene should deal with conflict: Do the old methods still work? Are there new tools that could work better? How do old and new methods relate to each other? International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War critically examines evidence on the effectiveness of a dozen approaches to managing or resolving conflict in the world to develop insights for conflict resolution practitioners. It considers recent applications of familiar conflict management strategies, such as the use of threats of force, economic sanctions, and negotiation. It presents the first systematic assessments of the usefulness of some less familiar approaches to conflict resolution, including truth commissions, "engineered" electoral systems, autonomy arrangements, and regional organizations. It also opens up analysis of emerging issues, such as the dilemmas facing humanitarian organizations in complex emergencies. This book offers numerous practical insights and raises key questions for research on conflict resolution in a transforming world system.

David G. Lewis explores Russia's political system under Putin by unpacking the ideological paradigm that underpins it. He investigates the Russian understanding of key concepts such as sovereignty, democracy and political community. Through the dissection of a series of case studies - including Russia's legal system, the annexation of Crimea, and Russian policy in Syria - Lewis explains why these ideas matter in Russian domestic and foreign policy.

The authors of this volume offer a proposal for a revised regional order in post-Soviet Europe and Eurasia that would boost security, facilitate prosperity, and address conflicts in the region, and thus reduce tensions in Russia-West relations.

Asia's new prominence in the world arena is likely to reshape the configuration of forces in the international system and Russia's interaction with Asia is poised to become one of the defining elements of world politics at the turn of the century. This new book analyses Russia's security issues and the emerging geopolitical balance in Central Asia, South-West Asia, South Asia and Asia-Pacific. It examines the domestic political background to Russia's foreign and security policy and the importance of Asia in its domestic and foreign policy. It complements the volume on Russia and Europe published in 1997.