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Recurring Referendums: The Struggle for Constitutional ‘Reform’ in Kyrgyzstan

With the adoption of its new constitution by referendum on June 27, 2010, Kyrgyzstan made history by becoming only the second state in post-Soviet Eurasia (after Moldova, and not including…

Russian-Chinese Oil Relations: Dominance or Negotiation?

Russia and China are destined by geography and development to be linked. For its part, China needs to import large quantities of oil (and gas). Oil production in the country…

The Kyrgyz Crisis and the Political Logic of Central Asia’s Weak Regional Security Organizations

For the second time in five years, political events in Kyrgyzstan shook the Central Asia region and caught the international community off-guard. In early April 2010, a few sporadic protests…

Rubles Against the Insurgency: Paradoxes from the North Caucasus Counties

As part of its counter-insurgency strategy in the volatile North Caucasus region, the Russian government has stressed economic development and invested considerable resources into the region. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin…

Citizens and Compatriots: The Politics of Citizenship Policy in Russia

When Russian forces went into South Ossetia last year, Russia cited the protection of its citizens as one justification for its actions. That more than half of South Ossetia’s 70,000…

Kyiv and Tbilisi: No Longer Washington’s Favorites?

Since Barack Obama has come to power, the United States has not fundamentally distanced itself from Ukraine and Georgia or, as some critics would have it, abandoned them to their…

Russia-Georgia Today: An Illusory Stability

Both the frozen and unfrozen conflicts of the past two decades in post-Soviet Eurasia have undermined regional progress and cooperation and have negatively impacted broader European security. Weak states and…

Russia’s State Armaments Program 2020: Is the Third Time the Charm for Military Modernization?

For the first two years of the Russian military reform program that began in October 2008, the top priority of the Ministry of Defense was reorganization. This involved the transformation…

Has Moscow Come to Terms with Iran?

In strictly geographic terms, Iran is not Russia’s immediate neighbor: Azerbaijan on the western side of the Caspian Sea, and Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan on the eastern side form wide buffer…

Developing New Measurements of State Institutional Capacity

Most would agree that state institutional capacity is the ability of the state to provide goods and services that the state is responsible for, although many would disagree on what…

Russia’s New Model Army: The Ongoing Radical Reform of the Russian Military

Last August, the Russian army undertook its first offensive action on foreign soil since the end of the Afghanistan war in 1989. After the initial outburst of patriotic fervor faded,…

Russia’s Moldova Policy: Soft Power at the Service of Realpolitik?

This memo focuses on the intricacies of Russia’s policies towards Moldova in the aftermath of the electoral victory of the Alliance for European Integration (AEI). The defeat of the Communist…

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PONARS Eurasia Podcast

PONARS Eurasia