The question "what does Russia want?" has been asked by politicians, policy analysts, and academics alike. Unfortunately, it has been answered in ways that we in the West have wanted to hear, yet the answers we came up with may not be completely accurate, as reflected by our own academic literature. Analysts like Ivan Krastev have argued that "Russia's foreign-policy goals seem less predictable than ever, designed to provoke the West and control its neighbors ... what does the. Kremlin really want?" He criticized realist and liberal perspectives alike and offered that Russian foreign policy is held hostage by the sense of fragility that niarked the· Russian experience of the 1990s. The position of one senior French diplomat was that the Soviet Union was easier to bargain with than Russia is today. Dealing with the Soviets was difficult, but they had a goal in mind. Putin's Russia is just hostile without a clear objective. My paper challenges such thinking. The purpose behind Russia's belligerence is found in the realist perspective that Krastev so casually dismissed. Much along the lines of Stephen Cohen's work, I use descriptive analysis to look at how the ideologies of the past left Russia and the United States at odds. Now that we essentially agree on market economics (with more or less government control of the markets) we can begin to have a compatible coexistence. I have found that in its search for a return to Great Power status, Russia felt betrayed by the United States and treated like a defeated nation. What some dismiss as "paranoia" in the Kremlin is actually a manifestation of balance of power logic. This is firmly grounded in the concept of Kenneth Waltz's defensive realism.

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2031-01-01

Tsarist Russia, the USSR and modern Russia have had unique perspectives on Africa and aid, due to geographical location, changing ideologies, non-colonial history with Africa, the Cold War, alternating aid status of recipient and donor, and a historic view of Africa in a tripartite relationship with the West. Western development discourse evolved to produce a large aid apparatus, accompanied by depoliticised discourse on Africa. The USSR’s discourse on Africa was political. Using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), Discourse Historical Approach (DHA) and a postcolonial approach, with a structural analysis of 262 pages of Soviet newspaper Pravda and discourse analysis of 54 articles, this thesis relates findings to the Russian, Soviet and Western contexts in which the discourses arose. It shows that Pravda used Africa and aid as discursive tools to establish the USSR’s position in the international hierarchy, used Africa as a rhetorical proxy, and carried a theme of “freedom as development”. Similarities between Soviet, Russian and Western representations of Africa, development and aid (for example Africa’s low status) were built on different motivations and assumptions, and used different tools. The USSR’s Cold War rhetoric conveyed a partial and incomplete construction of Africa, aid and development. Pravda conveyed assumptions that all countries, including the USSR, are developing, that the USSR and Africa are comparable and in some ways similar, and that freedom is an overriding aspiration. Constructing development as natural, Pravda constructed a weak link between development and aid, and in general Pravda presented aid as harmful Western aid. Russia’s legacy is an ideology in which Africa is still eternally “developing” but shares this activity with all countries, Africa is weak and yet is Russia’s friend and ally, competition continues between Russia and the West over Africa’s friendship, and aid has mainly humanitarian rather than development value. Socialist ideological discourse of equal nations remains in today’s Communist Pravda. This thesis explores the evolution of perceptions in Soviet Pravda discourse, and makes a substantive analytical contribution to the literatures on development and aid, Russian foreign policy and international relations, and postcolonialism. It increases knowledge of Cold War Africa, and the USSR’s and Russia’s self-perceptions and attitudes towards others. Russia’s status as a non-Western donor and recent aid recipient make its legacy and attitudes of particular interest.

The modem business economy is characterized by increased collaboration among different organizations across nation al boundaries. Post-Soviet Russia is one of the regions that is witnessing rapid economic growth and development of international business relations. Because of the challenges in intercultural communication the current study focuses on the problem of power distance, specifically in the workplace (in post-Soviet Russia). A phenomenological perspective, based on qualitative methodology, guided this research into the meaning of power experiences for individuals. Symbolic interactionism was used as a research paradigm of the study to view humans as active participants of the workplace, who engage in the power relationships actively-reacting to controversies of interactions and constant change in the everyday situations. The researcher developed and conducted several sets of interviews with employees, with relatives/friends of employees, and with country experts. The data were collected from employees of four companies in one of Central Russian regions (where intercultural connections develop especially rapidly)-with two private, two public, two prereform, and two postreform companies. These four companies were selected to examine influences of two dimensions, public versus private and older traditional versus newer entrepreneurial organizations. Analysis included transcribing of the interviews, identification and categorizations of the statements of meaning, description of participants' experiences, and identification of social processes. The results were grouped into gender, age, and ethical themes depending on three major dimensions (ownership, generation, gender). The major findings included: (a) contrary to previous research older managers appear not to be more aversive to risk-taking behaviors, (b) younger superiors are better accepted in the private postreform companies, but are less often appointed to such positions as compared to the other three settings, (c) public companies hold to the Soviet egalitarian gender ideas, but attitudes and hiring practices remain traditional in preferring male leaders, (d) although recognizing that female superiors can be as good as male superiors, young employees emphasize the "natural calling" of the women (that women's primary focus should be family), (e) emphasis on the importance of ethical leaders was common to all company types.

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abstract: This dissertation explores how rank-and-file political prisoners navigated life after release and how they translated their experiences in the Gulag and after into memoirs, letters, and art. I argue that these autobiographical narratives formed the basis of an alternate history of the Soviet Union. This alternate history informed the cultural memory of the Gulag in the Komi Republic, which coalesced over the course of the late 1980s and 1990s into an infrastructure of memory. This alternate history was mobilized by the formation of the Soviet Union’s first civic organizations, such as the Memorial Society, that emerged in the late 1980s. However, Gulag returnees not only joined post-Soviet civil society, they also formed a nascent civil society after their release in the 1950s. The social networks and informal associations that Gulag returnees relied upon to reintegrate back into Soviet society after release, also played an essential role in the memory project of coming to terms with the Stalinist past after the collapse of the Soviet Union. As one of the first and most populous epicenters of the Gulag archipelago located in the Far North, from 1929-1958 Komi saw hundreds of thousands of prisoners, in addition to hundreds of thousands more who were exiled to the region from all over the Soviet Union. While some left the region after they were released, many were not able to leave or chose not to when given the choice. Regardless of where they lived when the Soviet Union collapsed, many former prisoners sent their autobiographies to branches of the Memorial Society and local history museums in Komi. For many, this was the very first time they had shared their stories with anyone. While Komi is unique in many ways, it is emblematic of processes that unfolded throughout the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe at the end of the Twentieth Century. This project expands our understanding of how civil societies form under conditions of authoritarian rule and illuminates the ways in which survivors and societies come to terms with difficult pasts. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation History 2019

This thesis examines the historical progression of social and political transitions in late Soviet and post-Soviet Russia, seeking to establish the development of Putinism in an historical context and assert a definition of Putinism as a governing philosophy which exploits the rhetoric of democracy and civil society to conceal authoritarian practices. Analysis begins with Mikhail Gorbachev’s ‘moral position’ as the basis of the Gorbachev reforms and the conceptual introduction of democratic and market mechanics, followed by the rejection of the Soviet system and the mixed legacy of shock therapy under Boris Yeltsin, culminating in the ultimate ascendancy of Vladimir Putin as a response to the perceived loss of national status and social dislocation resulting from the Gorbachev and Yeltsin eras. Ultimately, it is asserted that Putinism is ideologically grounded in Chekism, fundamentally anti-democratic and inherently kleptocratic, seeking to maintain power and perpetuate a sistema centered on the Kremlin. Through vertical centralization of the state, the development of alternative mechanisms of governance, domination of political discourse, development of a personality cult, state sponsored redefinition of Russian identity and the encouragement of exceptionalist and neo-imperialist policies.

This thesis analyzes women&rsquo / s status in the Russian Federation in the period after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Yeltsin&rsquo / s reforms radically changed the quality of political, economical and social aspects of Russian life. Yeltsin&rsquo / s period together with the policies of the subsequent governments proved to be mostly detrimental to women&acute / s status in the country. Women have become the ones who suffered most from the instability and lawlessness of the transition period. This study discusses increasing gender inequality and gender asymmetry in economy, politics and in social realms in post-Soviet Russia and examines the transformation of women&rsquo / s role and status in this period

During August 2012 the issues of women's rights in Russia attracted attention of the U.S. newspapers, which was an unusual occurrence for this unprivileged region in feminist theorizing. In my thesis I explore the rhetoric around the Pussy Riot trial and verdict. I argue that international media rendered the protest metonymically, thereby reducing its political content to human rights and Cold War frames. I explore the usage of historical references in the narratives, based on these paradigms. The oppressiveness of the Russian government is constructed through Cold War rhetoric by references to Stalinism, which masks the neoliberal content of this case. The confrontation is represented as a clash of cultures based on the contrast between democracy and oppressive regimes, with Pussy Riot as martyrs for Western values and Putin as an Oriental dictator. I argue that this rhetoric has troubling implications for social activism, that democracy could be only achieved through non-violent and individualist symbolic activism which relies on the Western standards. The second part of my thesis analyzes how social movements in the U.S. and Russia interact with each other and influence each other's tactics through interaction with media representations of the Pussy Riot trial and dominant narratives regarding activism. My support for this argument comes from an analysis of the U.S. and Russian movements' responses to the Pussy Riot trial. Embracing a complex combination of political meanings, these events were significantly determined by prolific mass media coverage and mediated interaction between activist groups. / text