Misreading Russia
Journal: The Canadian Journal of European and Russian Studies
Year: 2024

A key part of the contemporary Russia challenge is the West’s tendency to misread that country, both its capacity for reform and the West’s own impact on the choices that have shaped its trajectory. Excess faith in the power of the market and the applicability of social science theories skewed Western policy toward Russia in the 1990s, fuelling the xenophobic and nationalistic narratives that laid the foundations of Putinism. Misreading Russia’s historical insecurities after the collapse of the