IR379 Half Unit
Eastern Europe: Domestic Regimes and Foreign Policies
This information is for the 2024/25 session.
Teacher responsible
Prof Tomila Lankina CBG 10.13
Availability
This course is available on the BSc in International Relations, BSc in International Relations and Chinese, BSc in International Relations and History and BSc in Politics and International Relations. This course is not available as an outside option. This course is available with permission to General Course students.
Pre-requisites
None. If students have not taken Foreign Policy Analysis (IR202), they can consider attending the lecture of Foreign Policy Analysis (IR202) to enhance their knowledge and understanding.
Course content
The course offers an analysis of key issues in the development of the domestic, foreign and security policies of East European countries. The course covers the various factors shaping the domestic, foreign and security policy of Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, as well as countries in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the Baltic states. It will explore both the domestic aspects of politics, political regime and protest; and foreign policy and security issues, such as national liberation struggles, geopolitical orientations, membership in regional organizations and alliances. It will also discuss Russia's war against Ukraine and Ukraine’s popular movements and mobilization against Russia’s aggression.
Other topics that we will discuss in class are the economic power projection of countries in the region and those of external players like China and the European Union; the geopolitics of oil and gas; soft power and soft security aspects of the foreign policies of the countries studied in this class. We will also discuss authoritarian and democratic diffusion processes in the 1990s and 2000s; the role of the Russian state media and propaganda and attempts of other states to resist it; the role of ideas and norms in shaping national politics and geopolitical orientations; and the historical legacies influencing the politics and political regimes of the countries in the region. Each of the ten topics covered will speak to the major theoretical debates on the factors shaping domestic and foreign policy and students will be encouraged to evaluate the merits of the various theories based on available evidence.
The background class focuses on the domestic and international politics of the countries studied, in the twentieth century, including national liberation struggles and Soviet forcible annexations, and we will also discuss the p