Putin's Strategic Partnership with the West: The Domestic Politics of Russian Foreign Policy
Titel:
Putin's Strategic Partnership with the West: The Domestic Politics of Russian Foreign Policy
Auteur:
Bukkvoll, Tor
Verschenen in:
Comparative strategy
Paginering:
Jaargang 22 (2003) nr. 3 pagina's 223-242
Jaar:
2003-07
Inhoud:
Russia's new strategic partnership with the West has both international and domestic causes. In terms of domestic causes, Bruce Bueno De Mesquita and James Lee Ray propose that domestic interest groups are likely to have a particular impact on foreign policy in semi-democratic states such as Russia. This is because the political leadership is more dependent on satisfying these group interests than on providing for public/national interests in order to stay in power. The case of Putin's new partnership with the West suggests that although the preferences of domestic interest groups, namely the military, the military-industrial complex, the civilian bureaucracy, the security services, and the oil and gas lobby, are an important part of the explanation for the new policy, there is more to the domestic explanation than interest group pressure. Putin has, in fact, defied the opinion of a majority of the Russian elite through the new partnership, and unless some serious elite rethinking takes place the strategic partnership will remain on shaky ground.
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