Table Of Content“How do we ‘know’ what we know about international politics? What social,
political and institutional forces structure imaginations of the international –
of policy practitioners or indeed of academics? This important book – the
first detailed analysis of the politics of knowledge about the international
in Russia – contributes to the important new literature in the social sciences
and International Relations on the politics of knowledge production. Much is
at stake: not only our understandings of Russian responses in international
politics but also what imaginations of the international more generally ‘do’
for analysts, states or other interests. Also, crucially, questions of academic
freedom and lack thereof, often ignored, are raised to our attention. This
study will be an important reference point – and a point of provocation –
for all analysts of Russia, International Relations and the Sociology of
Knowledge.”
– Milja Kurki, Aberystwyth University, Wales, UK
“If we take seriously the notion that scholarly knowledge is produced in a
*local* context, then we have to produce careful studies of how exactly
that context shapes the kinds of claims that scholars make and the ways
that they evaluate the validity of those claims. Kaczmarska’s remarkable
book illuminates the conditions under which Soviet, and then Russian,
scholars worked, and leads to an expanded appreciation of how social
science works in a non-democratic environment.”
– Patrick Thaddeus Jackson, American University
“The book is a very detailed and comprehensive analysis of the impact of
political and institutional context on knowledge production using IR in
Russia as a case study. I greatly appreciate the combination of familiarity
with the voluminous literature, in-depth engagement with the complex
realm of the Russian academia and evidence gathered from fieldwork and
interviews. The book should be welcomed by scholars of Russian studies
and Science and Technology Studies.”
– Vladimir Gel’man, Aleksanteri Institute,
University of Helsinki, Finland
“This book is a must for everybody engaging in building an international
community in the social science and humanities and in a policy-relevant dia-
logue across reemerged East-West divide. Katarzyna Kaczmarska demon-
strates the contexts in which International Relations and other social
sciences in Russia function and their striking difference with a “default” per-
ception of social research as exiting in the West. She gives the floor to a
wide variety of voices from Russian academia that demonstrate various
approaches and common problems. The book is not only an important addi-
tion to the volume of the social studies of IR, but it also brings its readers
closer to understanding the limits and pressures experienced by Russian
scholars and thus facilitates academic cooperation in this non-academic
age.”
– Ivan Kurilla, Department of Political Sciences,
European University at St. Petersburg, Russia
iii
Making Global Knowledge in Local
Contexts
This book draws on extensive ethnographic research undertaken in Russia to
show how the wider sociopolitical context – the political system, relationship
between the state and academia as well as the contours of the public debate –
shapes knowledge about international politics and influences scholars’
engagement with the policy world.
Combining an in-depth study of the International Relations discipline in
Russia with a robust methodological framework, the book demonstrates that
context not only bears on epistemic practices but also conditions scholars’
engagement with the wider public and policymakers. This original study lends
robust sociological foundations to the debate about knowledge in International
Relations and the social sciences more broadly. In particular, the book
questions contemporary thinking about the relationship between knowledge
and politics by situating the university within, rather than abstracting it from
the political setting. The monograph benefits from a comprehensive
engagement with Russian-language literature in the Sociology of Knowledge
and critical reading of International Relations scholarship published in Russia.
This text will be of interest to scholars and students in International Relations,
Russian and Post-Soviet Studies, the Sociology of Knowledge, Science and
Technology Studies and Higher Education Studies. It will appeal to those
researching the knowledge-policy nexus and knowledge production practices.
Katarzyna Kaczmarska is a lecturer in Politics and International Relations at
the School of Social and Political Science, the University of Edinburgh. Her
work on International Relations theory, the sociology of IR knowledge and
post-Soviet politics has appeared in International Studies Review, the Journal
of International Relations and Development, International Relations and
Problems of Post Communism. Before joining the University of Edinburgh,
she was Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow in the Department of International
Politics, Aberystwyth University (2016–19). While conducting long-term
fieldwork in Moscow and St Petersburg, she was affiliated with St Petersburg
State University. She obtained her PhD in 2015 from Aberystwyth University
for research on the representations of international politics in Anglophone and
Russian academic and policy discourses.
Worlding Beyond the West
Series Editors: Arlene B. Tickner
Universidad del Rosario, Colombia
David Blaney
Macalester College, USA
Inanna Hamati-Ataya
Cambridge University, UK
Historically, the International Relations (IR) discipline has established its bound-
aries, issues, and theories based upon Western experience and traditions of
thought. This series explores the role of geocultural factors, institutions, and aca-
demic practices in creating the concepts, epistemologies, and methodologies
through which IR knowledge is produced. This entails identifying alternatives
for thinking about the “international” that are more in tune with local concerns
and traditions outside the West. But it also implies provincializing Western IR
and empirically studying the practice of producing IR knowledge at multiple
sites within the so-called ‘West’.
Naming a Transnational Black Feminist Framework
Writing in Darkness
K. Melchor Quick Hall
NGOs, Knowledge Production and Global Humanist Advocacy
The Limits of Expertise
Alistair Markland
Theory as Ideology in International Relations
The Politics of Knowledge
Edited by Benjamin Martill and Sebastian Schindler
International Relations from the Global South
Worlds of Difference
Edited by Arlene B. Tickner and Karen Smith
Making Global Knowledge in Local Contexts
The Politics of International Relations and Policy Advice in Russia
Katarzyna Kaczmarska
For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com
v
Making Global Knowledge
in Local Contexts
The Politics of International Relations
and Policy Advice in Russia
Katarzyna Kaczmarska
First published 2020
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2020 Katarzyna Kaczmarska
The right of Katarzyna Kaczmarska to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN: 978-0-367-18643-2 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-19734-5 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
vii
Contents
List of figures viii
List of abbreviations ix
Acknowledgements xi
Note on translation and transliteration xiii
Introduction 1
1 The elephant in the room: the sociopolitical context of IR
knowledge-making 21
2 State-society relations 64
3 Contested heritage: Soviet IR and the turbulent transition 112
4 Epistemic practices 157
5 The uses of knowledge 194
6 Conclusion 218
Index 227
Figures
1.1 The explanatory model proposed by Ole Wæver 45
1.2 The exploratory framework 49
5.1 The spectrum of views concerning the impact of scholarly
expertise on foreign policy 208
ix
Abbreviations
ASEEES Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies
CPSU Communist Party of the Soviet Union
EEU Eurasian Economic Union
EU European Union
EUSP European University at St Petersburg
FANO Federal Agency of Scientific Organisations
FSB Federal Security Service
HE Higher education
HSE Higher School of Economics
IA Institute of Africa, Russian Academy of Sciences
IDV Institute of the Far East, Russian Academy of Sciences
IMEMO Primakov Institute of World Economy and International Relations,
Russian Academy of Sciences
IMRD Institute of International Workers’ Movement, Russian Academy of
Sciences
INION Institute of Scientific Information for Social Sciences, Russian
Academy of Sciences
IR International Relations
ISA International Studies Association
ISKAN Institute for the Study of the USA and Canada, Russian Academy of
Sciences
ITMO Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics
KFU Kazan Federal University
LGBT Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender
LSE London School of Economics and Political Science
MFA Ministry of Foreign Affairs
MGIMO Moscow State Institute of International Relations
MGU Moscow State University
MVD Ministry of Internal Affairs
MoD Ministry of Defence
OTEI Division of Technical-Economic Research
RANEPA Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public
Administration
