How can we best understand Russia’s relationship with Europe today? Is Russia a European country? What binds us together and divides us? And is there a viable basis for cooperation? Is Russia a friend, a partner, a neighbour or a foe to Europe? This book brings together an impressive group of academic specialists and practitioners to provide a timely and important study of these complex questions. The recognition of mutual dependency, it is argued, needs to be qualified by a range of political, economic and normative tensions which make this a problematic and frequently turbulent relationship. There has never been a more important time to understand Russia’s relationship with Europe and it is the subsequent sense of unease both in Russia and Europe which provides the focus for this investigation and which will make it of use to specialist and general readers alike.

Jackie Gower is a visiting lecturer in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London. Previously she taught at the University of Kent where she is still an Honorary Research Fellow.

Graham Timmins is Jean Monnet Professor in European Integration Studies at the University of Stirling.

The Right Honourable Lord Robertson was the Secretary-General of the NATO, between October 1999 and early January 2004; he succeeded Javier Solana in that position. He served as Defence Secretary for the UK from 1997 to 1999, before taking up his NATO position and becoming a life peer as Baron Robertson of Port Ellen, of Islay in Argyll and Bute.

List of Contributors; Acknowledgements; List of Abbreviations/Acronyms; Foreword: Russia and Europe; Preface; Introduction; PART I: Russia looking West; PART 2: Europe looking East; PART 3: Partnership in Practice; Conclusion; Index

‘Recommended.’ —‘Choice’

‘[Recent] crises have illustrated the urgent need to improve our understanding of the processes leading to conflicts involving former Soviet republics and the role played by Western states and institutions in post-Soviet space, and to communicate this understanding to policy-makers, the media and the general public. [This book contributes] to meeting this need, and […] should be bought by libraries which support Russian or European Studies.’ —Peter J. S. Duncan, ‘Slavonic and East European Review’, University College London

‘Examining the interpenetration of linguistics, psychology, sociology and political thought, this collection makes an excellent interdisciplinary contribution to our knowledge of Soviet cultural and intellectual history.’ —Galin Tihanov, University of Manchester

‘Drawing on political and historical concepts, this superb collection offers an array of rich variations on one of the central issues of current European international politics.’ —Evgeny Dobrenko, University of Sheffield