I have identified the key concepts, theoretical frameworks and empirical concerns in the Russian academic studies on Russia-EU relations. The analyses have evolved from optimism and positive descriptions of the EU towards exposing problem areas of the EU and in Russia-EU relations. Contemporary political discourse of the Russian authorities on the European Union generally downplays the role of Russia-EU economic and political ties and portrays the European Union as determined to deny Russia an equal standing in international affairs. The Russian discourse emphasised growing instability and chaos inside the EU, cast doubts on the viability of the integration project and focused primarily on the fragility and instability of the EU.
I presented the project’s results in several publications, some of which are forthcoming or under review. My peer reviewed article ‘Academic community and policymaking in Russia: impact or detachment?’, Problems of Post-Communism, analysed scholars’ attitudes to policy impact and the Russian government’s efforts to maintain a monopoly on producing foreign policy narratives. Empirical research conducted in Russia within the project’s framework served as the basis for writing a monograph titled Making Global Knowledge in Local Contexts: The Politics of International Relations and Policy Advice in Russia (forthcoming with Routledge in 2020). The monograph shows how socio-political context affects epistemic and disciplinary practices in IR in Russia and engages with the evolution of EU studies in Russia.
I published two analytical pieces with research results stemming from the research project in Times Higher Education. I further publicised the results with an interview for Research EU. Drawing on my research, I designed and taught an entirely new undergraduate module ‘Russia in World Politics: Propaganda, Strategic Narrative and Soft Power’. The module introduced students to issues in and instruments of Russia’s foreign policy.
The dissemination of research results to academic communities took place through panel and paper presentations at a number of international conferences.
In 2019, I co-convened a panel at the ISA Annual Convention in Toronto and presented a paper titled ‘International Relations – a view from somewhere or a view from nowhere?’. I delivered a guest lecture titled The politics of expertise in international studies at the School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Glasgow. I was invited by BISA Post Graduate Network to share my experiences of a post-doctoral fellowship at a Workshop for PhD students and early-career scholars at the University of Portsmouth.
In 2018, I convened a panel ‘IR knowledge contextualized’ at the ISA Annual Convention in San Francisco. I presented tentative results of my project at three conferences. A paper titled ‘IR knowledge and the importance of the socio-political context of its production’ (EISA Annual Conference) discussed the theoretical aspects of my research project. Another conference paper titled ‘The European Union and Russia: the visions of other in academic discourse’ (delivered at the BISA Annual Conference) presented the empirical part of research conducted in Russia. A paper titled ‘Representations of the international in Russia contextualized: a case for situated IR knowledge’ (the ISA Annual Convention) focused on broader implications of my project for knowledge production in the discipline of International Relations.
In 2017, I discussed preliminary results of my research in a paper titled ‘Whose knowledge? The knowledge-power nexus in contemporary International Relations scholarship beyond the West’ (the EISA Annual Conference).
