Analysis

This listing contains all the analytical materials posted on the Russia Matters website. These include: RM Exclusives, commissioned by Russia Matters exclusively for this website; Recommended Reads, deemed particularly noteworthy by our editorial team; Partner Posts, originally published by our partners elsewhere; and Future Policy Leaders, pieces by promising young scholars and policy thinkers. Content can be filtered by genre and subject-specific criteria and is updated often. Gradually we will be adding older Recommended Reads and Partner Posts dating back as far as 2011.
article

Joe Biden’s Risky Russia Sanctions Game

Nikolas K. Gvosdev March 03, 2021 Recommended Reads
How will U.S. action towards Moscow affect two more critical relationships for Washington: the ones with Berlin and Beijing?
debate

The Future of Russia

Thomas Graham, George Beebe, Steven Pifer and Michael McFaul March 01, 2021 Recommended Reads
In this four-part debate, Thomas Graham, George Beebe, Steven Pifer and Michael McFaul discuss the future of Russia and drivers of possible change.
article

Putin, Putinism and the Domestic Determinants of Russian Foreign Policy

Michael McFaul October 19, 2020 Partner Posts
For a complete understanding of Russian foreign policy today, individuals, ideas, and institutions—President Vladimir Putin, Putinism, and autocracy—must be added to the analysis. Putin's ideas about illiberalism, orthodoxy, sovereignty and the West shaped his decision-making in unique ways. 
article

Why the Wealthy Fear Pandemics

Walter Scheidel April 09, 2020 Recommended Reads
Scheidel argues that the coronavirus pandemic could “prompt redistributive reforms akin to those triggered by the Great Depression and World War II, unless entrenched interests prove too powerful to overcome.”
article

Piketty on Eurasia

Ivan U. Klyszcz March 10, 2020 Recommended Reads
Every society in history has justified inequality. In today’s Russia the ideological framework was adopted in a hurry, argues the famed economist.
article

A Demographic Trap and Low Growth Are Putin’s Biggest Challenges

John Dizard January 17, 2020 Recommended Reads
Despite Western expectations of reports of doom and gloom from Russia, the country is in fact adopting expansionary economic and social policies that appear to be financially sustainable.
article

Why Putin Sounds Alt-Right Though He Really Isn’t

Leonid Bershidsky November 06, 2019 Recommended Reads
Bershidsky argues that "Putin sees Trump, Brexiters, the European far right and alt-right as his natural allies against the established global order, one of steady alliances and stable multilateral organizations."
article

What Cheese can Tell us About US-Russia Relations

Stephen Kinzer September 19, 2019 Recommended Reads
While traveling across Russia, Kinzer noted that “[t]he quality of Russian life has risen along with the quality of its cheese. Russians have decided to go their own way and not worry too much about us. We should return the favor.”
article

Geopolitics, Sanctions and Russian Sovereign Debt Since the Annexation of Crimea

Maximilian Hess June 25, 2019 Recommended Reads
The politicization of Russia's sovereign debt may have lasting effects on Russia's economy, capital markets and geopolitics.
article

The Golunov Case Exposes Russia’s ‘Submerged State’

Alexey Yeremenko June 13, 2019 Recommended Reads
The 'submerged-state' is the level of government most often interacted with by investors and is capable of derailing the policies of the ‘outer state.’
article

Putin Wants to Dissolve the Russian People and Elect Another

Alexander Baunov February 06, 2019 Recommended Reads
Vladimir Putin's popular support is waning as he approaches Russia's 2024 presidential transition. In his efforts to seek out a new base, talk of stability goes out the window.
article

Putin Doesn’t Sweat His Unpopularity

Nate Reynolds November 28, 2018 Recommended Reads
Russian President Vladimir Putin's dip in popularity will mostly prove that he is far more resilient than the West would like to think.
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