RUSSIA IN THE CONTESTED NEIGHBOURHOOD: A NEOCLASSICAL REALIST APPROACH TO REGIONAL PRIMACY

Under what conditions has Russia adopted assertive foreign policies towards neighbouring states in order to pursue regional primacy? Scholars usually map Russia’s foreign policy according to theoretical approaches that are generated either from the individual, the state or the structural levels of analysis. However, each of them, taken individually, cannot account for Russia’s foreign policy across space and time. This study analyses the complex interplay between causal factors by developing a neoclassical realist model of Russia’s pursue of regional primacy in the contested neighbourhood with the EU. This study employs fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) at a cross-case level and Process Tracing at within-case level. fsQCA aims to test the explanatory value of systemic conditions such as external pressure in the regional neighbourhood by other regional powers and membership of target states in a military alliance (i.e. NATO); and of domestic conditions such as Russia’s status recognition by the West, and Russia’s state capacity. This analysis is based on 27 cases of Russia’s interaction with post-Soviet states between 1992 and 2015. Process Tracing is employed as a confirmatory method for within-case analysis.The results of the study suggest that Russia was inclined to adopt assertive foreign policy instruments, particularly military intervention, if external pressure from other great powers in a neighbouring country was combined with Russia’s high state capacity to mobilise resources. Due to NATO membership by neighbouring states, Russia resorted to coercive instruments rather than to direct use of force to maintain regional primacy. Finally, from the comparative process tracing, it emerged that, besides international security concerns and domestic constraints related to Russia’s status recognition, the two violent conflicts of Nagorno-Karabakh and South Ossetia/Abkhazia in the 1990s, which were of equal threat to Russia’s regional primacy in the South Caucasus, bore a different ‘iconic significance’ to Russia.