The Role of Political Competition and Bargaining in Russian Foreign Policy: The Case of Russian Policy Toward Moldova

Recent discussions about Russian foreign policy have generally concentrated on its shift to the right. Along with numerous Western observers, who interpret Russian international behavior as a single-player activity, the Russian foreign minister Andrei Kozyrev has himself attempted to portray his policy in terms of realist theory. Answering numerous accusations on “embracing some policies that [he] once spoke out against” (Rafaei et al., 1994), Kozyrev paints an explicit picture of a strategic response by his ministry to objective world conditions. However, analysis shows that world conditions played a very small role in shaping Russian foreign policy.