Resource on Russian Politics

[Josh Wilson]

Dear SEELANGERs,

 

As Russia enters a new election cycle, I thought that some of your students
might be interested in the following free resource, recently fully updated
and expanded:

 

SRAS Announces Updated Resource on Russian Politics

 

The page may be accessed here: http://www.sras.org/library_russian_politics

 

In the decade between 1991 and 2001, English-speaking reporters and policy
wonks were buzzing about Russia's complex, tumultuous, and at-times
concerning domestic political arena. Although the liberal reformers had an
upper hand with Yeltsin in the presidency, they faced opposition from the
still-powerful Communists and the rising nationalists. After 2001, with the
rise of Vladimir Putin, simplification of Russian politics became
increasingly the norm, boiled down to a single a man and a handful of
adjectives to describe him. 

Perhaps because of this history, many students on our study abroad programs
to Russia can consistently name two political forces in Russia: Vladimir
Putin and Yabloko. The concerning part about this situation for me
personally, however, is that many of our students are aspiring wonks. They
want to go on to work for the US government, helping to develop and
institute policy concerning Russia. 

While Vladimir Putin is undeniably the most powerful face in Russian
politics today, those who want to work with Russia's political structures
are going to need a far deeper and more up-to-date view of how Russian
politics actually work: what systems are at play, what ideologies are
dominant, who are the major players and, perhaps most importantly, what do
the Russian people actually want and expect from governments? Foreign policy
that is formulated with the interests of the peoples affected in mind is
most often the most effective foreign policy.

This page has been developed primarily for young Americans like our
students. It represents a wide look at Russia's domestic politics with some
focus on its foreign policy organs and actors. We hope that this small
effort will help better prepare students for not only writing college papers
today, but perhaps, in writing better policy papers about Russia later and
bringing about a more stable and more fruitful US-Russia relationship. 

We would also like to thank our intern Elizabeth Bagot for her assistance in
updating this page in early 2011. The page was originally compiled in 2007.
We will continue to periodically update this resource to reflect the state
of modern Russian politics. 

 

The page may be accessed here: http://www.sras.org/library_russian_politics

 

P.S. Applications for our Home and Abroad Program and all our fall programs
are due May 13th! 

 

http://www.sras.org/home_and_abroad_scholarship

http://www.sras.org/program_fall 

 

The SRAS Home and Abroad Program offers $10,000 to students who want to
build translation, writing, research, and language skills at home and
abroad. The scholarship may be applied to any SRAS program held in Irkutsk
or Vladivostok lasting a full academic year. A rigorous internship component
will be included with the program.


Best, 

 

 

Josh Wilson
Assistant Director
The School of Russian and Asian Studies
Editor in Chief
Vestnik, The Journal of Russian and Asian Studies
SRAS.org 
jwilson at sras.org

 


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