Bücher von Aliaksei Kazharski

This book examines the politics and international relations of Central Europe (the Visegrd Four) three decades after the fall of communism. Once bound together by a common geopolitical vision of returning to the West, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia now find themselves in a more ambiguous position. The 2015 European migration crisis exposed serious normative differences with Western Europe, leading to a collective V4 rebellion against the European Unions migration policies. At the same time, as this book demonstratesdespite this normative rift with Western Europe and despite the democratic backsliding in some of the V4 statesthey remain deeply dependent on the West in both symbolic and material terms. Furthermore, ways in which individual Central European states position themselves vis-a-vis the West exhibit notable differences, informed by their specific political and cultural legacies. The author examines these in separate country chapters. This book also contains a chapter that analyzes the effect of the COVID-19 crisis on political discourses in the V4.

This volume examines Russian discourses of regionalism as a source of identity construction practices for the country's political and intellectual establishment. The overall purpose of the monograph is to demonstrate that, contrary to some assumptions, the transition trajectory of post-Soviet Russia has not been towards a liberal democratic nation state that is set to emulate Western political and normative standards. Instead, its foreign policy discourses have been constructing Russia as a supranational community which transcends Russia's current legally established borders. The study undertakes a systematic and comprehensive survey of Russian official (authorities) and semi-official (establishment affiliated think tanks) discourse for a period of seven years between 2007 and 2013. This exercise demonstrates how Russia is being constructed as a supranational entity through its discourses of cultural and economic regionalism. These discourses associate closely with the political project of Eurasian economic integration and the "e;Russian world"e; and "e;Russian civilization"e; doctrines. Both ideologies, the geoeconomic and culturalist, have gained prominence in the post-Crimean environment. The analysis tracks down how these identitary concepts crystallized in Russia's foreign policies discourses beginning from Vladimir Putin's second term in power.