Global influences on Russian choices
Russia's delegation to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland is larger and includes more high level officials than in the past few years. New York Times reporter Alan Cowell writes that the politics of global energy have much to do with that.Russia Turns to Spin to Redefine Itself and Reassure the West
"Russia's elite players came to the World Economic Forum high in the Swiss Alps with a mission. At a meeting as much about posturing and politics as it is about business and trade, Moscow’s emissaries were here to say loudly that their country was not the bully its detractors depicted it to be..."
Cowell reports that the Russians faced a seemingly-standardized list of questions:
"Yet, at virtually every encounter with Western reporters, academics and business analysts here, the Russian leaders have encountered skepticism and the same series of questions: Is Russia a reliable trading partner? Is its widening state control of the energy business a threat to Russia’s avowed commitment to free markets and to foreign investors doing business inside Russia? Is Russian investment outside the country, equally, a threat to the steel, telecommunications and other companies that Russian executives have sought to invest in? And has the Kremlin moved back toward the centralized power that has dominated much of Russia’s history from the time of the czars to the Communists?"
A couple of the things our students need to consider is how the Russian government answers those questions and whether the questions themselves have any influence on the policy choices that Putin and the rest of the elite make. Does that begin to sound like a short paper topic?
Labels: globalization, politics, Russia
posted by Ken Wedding @ 8:08 AM
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