Russia’s interventions in conflicts of the Middle East and Africa: Local perspectives on a Russian emerging model of conflict management

forthcoming

RuMEA aims to analyse Russia’s interventions in recent conflicts of the Middle East and Africa (MEA), exploring their interaction with local political contexts. Russia approaches these crises through a mix of hard power, coercive diplomacy, and economic activism, guided by the principle of non-interference with these regions’ authoritarian regressions. As such, it provides local leaders with a model of conflict management that differs radically from liberal-oriented approaches that dominated international customs in the post-Cold War era. But what explains local preferences for ‘the Russian model’? This project adopts a dual perspective to analyse (1) the Russian model’s distinctive features and (2) explain its appeal to countries on the ‘receiving end’ of Russia’s political intervention, advancing debates in Russian and Middle Eastern/African studies. It utilises a diverse set of methodologies to deepen specific aspects of Russia’s engagement in the MEA, including elite interviews (to assess local preferences), media content analysis (to understand public discourse), and archival investigation (to document Russia’s long-dated experiences of dealing with regional crises – Cold War and the 1990s – which may offer insights into contemporary practices). These are the gaps I intend to address with this research project, which lies at the intersection of Area Studies, International Relations (IR), and International History. RuMEA builds upon methodological skills I gained during my previous experiences as a historian working on Soviet-Arab relations while taking my research trajectory into new directions. The Fellowship will be based at Harvard University (Kennedy School, HKS) and Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (UNIVE), and includes secondments at the University of Oxford and Carnegie Beirut office.