Diploma thesis Role integračních procesů v ruské politice vůči postsovětskému prostoru v letech 2000 - 2010 deals with phenomenon of interstate integration in the Post-soviet with focus on Russian position. It's main goal is to reveal and define function of Post-soviet integrative processes within Russian foreign policy aimed to the region, which is in long-term period designated as primary area of Russian interests. Diploma thesis uses combination of descriptive and analytical method to achieve its purpose. Thus the first chapters are aimed at presentation of theoretical aspects of integration (Chapter 1), evolution of Russian approach to the region and basic trends of post-soviet integration in the 90's (Chapter 2), the same topic and its changes after 2000 (Chapter 3) and particular examples of the Post-soviet integrative projects (Chapter 4). This empirical data are then analyzed in the last chapter and answer to the question, what is the role of Post-soviet integrative processes in Russian policy in the region.

This thesis deals with the Russia's foreign policy pursued by presidents Vladimir Putin and Dmitri Medvedev, respectively. The studied phenomenon is viewed through the lens of the theory of neo-Eurasianism, coined by the Russian philosopher and political scientist Alexander Gelevich Dugin. The starting point of the neo-Eurasian geopolitical theory is a conviction that the current world order is unipolar and that the U.S.-led globalization is an instrument of its reproduction. The alternative to the hostile, free development of nations curtailing, Atlantic order is represented by multipolarity which, according to the neo-Eurasian theory, will supposedly be established through the messianic mission of Russia-Eurasia, which has nevertheless first to free itself from the Atlantic bond. Application of the neo- Eurasian theory in the context of Russian foreign policy since 2000 then points to the conclusion that Russia's foreign policy can, to some extent, be considered neo-Eurasian.

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In this paper I look at the evolving role of Russia in the Middle East, analyzing transfers of Russian military equipment to its main ally in the region, the Syrian Arab Republic. By using Syria as a case study, I provide insight as to the evolution of Russia’s Middle Eastern policy, examine the motivations that play a role in Moscow’s decision-making process and the discuss the changes that have taken place in the Middle East military landscape. My research illustrates that Russia is a prestige seeking state that is motivated my domestic issues. Furthermore, sixty years of arms transfers indicate that Russia has never sold game-changing weapons to Syria as this would be counterproductive to Moscow’s main goal in the region: the brokering of a new Middle East peace deal. / text

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) first came into being as a result of border negotiations between Russia and China but evolved shortly thereafter into more than this. A regional organization comprised of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and China the SCO’s mandate now encompasses trade and security. Most secondary literature on this organization tends to detail the interests of its constituent members, while overlooking the historical relationships underlying the SCO’s growth and evolution. This thesis argues that Russia’s long-standing relationships with the states of Central Asia created the conditions making the SCO a necessary tool of Russian foreign policy, while Moscow’s relations with China and the US have driven the development of the group. It concludes that the SCO has become the most viable of Central Asia’s regional organizations because it has effectively resolved contradictions and conflicts in Russia’s relationships with the other SCO members.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) first came into being as a result of border negotiations between Russia and China but evolved shortly thereafter into more than this. A regional organization comprised of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and China the SCO’s mandate now encompasses trade and security. Most secondary literature on this organization tends to detail the interests of its constituent members, while overlooking the historical relationships underlying the SCO’s growth and evolution. This thesis argues that Russia’s long-standing relationships with the states of Central Asia created the conditions making the SCO a necessary tool of Russian foreign policy, while Moscow’s relations with China and the US have driven the development of the group. It concludes that the SCO has become the most viable of Central Asia’s regional organizations because it has effectively resolved contradictions and conflicts in Russia’s relationships with the other SCO members.

The study analyzes Russian foreign policy discourse on NATO during and after the Georgian war as constructed in on-line news articles from the state-run RIA Novosti news agency. The thesis adopts constructivist and discourse analytical approach. Namely, it is based on the interplay between the three main theoretical pillars: language as constitutive part of social reality; media as a type of discourse; and the constructivist understanding of the foreign policy discourse as being embedded in the domestic social and cultural dimensions.  The research has shown that the discourse on NATO constructed in the news articles of Ria Novosti to a great extent reflected the official Russian government’s discourse.  The overall unfavorable representation of the organization was evident throughout the analyzed material. This ‘negative-other representation’ served to establish political frontiers between ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’ of the discourse. In the context of the Georgian war, the questions of the future power balance as well as effective transatlantic security mechanism gained particular prominence. The geopolitics of the regional security was represented as bipolar, comprising NATO (or ‘the West’ in its broad sense) on the one hand and Russia as the legitimate leader in most of the post-Soviet space, on the other. Such representation tended to possess distinctive features of the Cold War discourse.

By agreeing to The Responsibility to Protect doctrine (R2P) at the United Nations World Summit in 2005, and later adopting a resolution reaffirming the support, the Russian federation accepted a responsibility of the international community to protect populations of other states, if the state itself manifestly fails to protect its own populations. However, Russia has acted in an inconsistent way by exercising its commitment to the R2P principle occasionally. The purpose of this study is to give an answer to the question of why Russia has acted in an inconsistent way to The Responsibility to Protect doctrine. Analyzing the inconsistency puzzle through the realist, liberal and constructivist lens, questioning why Russia has accepted an R2P intervention regarding Libya to halt ongoing mass atrocities, but repeatedly has vetoed against R2P interventions regarding Syria and recently regarding Venezuela, the study concludes that a combination of the three approaches is needed to explain and understand Russia’s inconsistent reaction. Second, it concludes that Russia acted inconsistently because President Medvedev was affected by, and agreeing with, international norms, thereby accepting an R2P into Libya, while President Putin was affected by, and wanted to hold on to the Russian identity. By rejecting R2P interventions in the Syria and Venezuela cases, Putin thereby secured Russian national interests, using a liberal narrative as a pretext for the actions.

Neoclassical realism has the ability to advance our understanding of foreign policy responses through the recently designed neoclassical realist model. However as international relations have proven, a theory is not a concrete motionless design. Improvements can be made and the fluidity of theory allows social sciences to adapt and advance. This thesis introduces developments to neoclassical realism by stating that the individual factors and intervening variables hold varying degrees of importance that alter between each foreign policy decision. There is no overarching set of instructions for 'foreign policy', rather an adaptable model that takes into consideration the geopolitical arena, the state and the statesman. The case study chosen for this thesis is the Russian foreign policy response to annex Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. Analysis and comparisons of the variables resulted in three factors standing out as most significant. The most important influence within the systemic stimuli was the nature of the strategic environment and the window of opportunity that arose in Crimea due to Ukrainian political and military instability. The intervening variable leader images proved to be the decisive factor, as the consolidation of power by Vladimir Putin allowed the annexation to be completed...

Goal of this master thesis is to show that the myth of the Great Patriotic War is a source of Russian soft power in Belarus. After the methodology chapter, the thesis continues with connecting the concept of soft power authored by Joseph Nye with the concept of myth which is here defined on the basis of theories of Eliade and Malinowski. The next part discusses Russian soft power in the Post-Soviet area in general and in Belarus in particular. It demonstrates that Russian soft power rests largely on common history shared by Russians and other Post-Soviet nations. As a consequence, the main sources of Russian soft power rest on identities and narratives, including myths. The myth of the Great Patriotic War was at the center of Soviet mythology and it has preserved its dominant position also in the Post-Soviet period, what holds true particularly for Belarus. The following part retraces the evolution of the myth of the Great Patriotic War from its emergence during the Second World War until today. It shows that the essence of this myth is a feeling of togetherness and of community that unites the former Soviet nations. The last part presents an interpretative analysis of five qualitative interviews with Belarusians. The analysis of individual cases to a large extent confirmed that the myth of the...