A Precarious Peace: Domestic Politics in the Making of Russian Foreign Policy

Abstract

Why have Russia's relations with the West since 1991 been relatively peaceful and stable? How has Russia's leadership avoided engaging in the kind of belligerent behavior that some suggest often accompanies rapid regime transformation? In our first article, Michael McFaul of Stanford University examines the painstaking process of Russia's transition from autocracy to democracy has for the most part been peaceful ebcause of the ascendancy of it liberal economic and political forces over their illiberal counterparts. According to McFaul, "as these liberal groups have had both ideational and material motivations for avoiding war, especially with liberal democracies in the West, Russia's regime change has not led to belligerent international behavior."