Master 2025/2026

EU–Russia Strategic Studies: the Politics, Conflict and Theory of a 'Strategic Partnership'

Type: Compulsory course (Politics. Economics. Philosophy)

Delivered by: School of Politics and Governance

When: 2 year, 1, 2 module

Open to: students of all HSE University campuses

Instructors: Iain Ferguson

Language: English

Course Syllabus

Abstract

The European Union (EU) and Russia’s relationship has been described as a ‘troubled’ bilateral association of the contemporary global moment. These troubles have been defined by justifications of independent ‘security strategies’ that refer to an ongoing project of UN reform, ‘treaty–like’ and intermittent political settlements of regional order, and like–for–like ‘mission’(s) of regional governance into states of the lands between. These ‘mission’(s), initially into Serbia and Georgia in 2008 and subsequently into Ukraine since 2013–14, are the events when the ‘troubles’ in this relationship have flared up and seemed most obvious and intractable to policymakers at the center of them, and to the wider world.