The Problem of Political-Geographical Self-Identification of the Baltic States: the Historical Past vs the Objective Present

Today, the term "the Baltic states" is used, as a rule, as an umbrella-name for the three former Soviet republics - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The grounds to unify them into a single construct are, above all, their geographical location, as well as some parallels of state development, deeply rooted in the mass consciousness. However, the problem of whether these grounds are sufficient to speak of a single "Baltic identity" shared by three states, or whether its unifying potential is limited to providing an "umbrella term" convenient under certain circumstances, is still a matter of research interest. How relevant today is the idea of a unified "Baltic identity" of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and how does it correlate to other types of political and geographical identities of these countries

FORECASTING PRACTICES IN ACADEMIC IR: METHODOLOGICAL MAINSTREAM AND UNSOLVED PROBLEMS

The article is devoted to the analysis of research tools that are dominant in international relations forecasting. The study is based on quantitative description of 160 prognostic articles from leading journals on international relations for the period from 2006 to 2015. An innovative typology of prognostic studies is proposed and tested. The typology introduces a distinction between «weak prognoses» (probabilistic predictive statements that appear as extrapolations of deductive nomothetical theories) and «strong prognoses» («ideographic» predictions that are formulated as scenarios of possible future developments in specific situations and with specific sets of actors). The study shows that it is the weak prognoses that are the dominant type of forecasts in contemporary international studies. The dominance of the weak approach to forecasting remains total, despite the fact that it is almost two decades ago that its fundamental limitations were demonstrated and a “forward reasoning” approach suggested as an alternative. The methodology of Teaching, Research, and International Policy project was applied for a more detailed epistemological profiling of the field. It showed that academic forecasting in international relations is dominated by quantitative methods and positivist non-paradigmatic approaches. As to the traditional paradigms, it is liberalism that is the most common with Marxism being completely neglected. The described profile of the field follows the trends that are inherent in the discipline of international relations in general. The findings of the study can be interpreted from the perspective of possible tracks for the development of forecasting methods in the Russian school of international relations

Liberal Order «Free Riders»: International Development Agenda and the Symbolic Policies of the Rising Powers

The West is concerned over the crisis of the liberal world order attributing it to the conduct of emerging powers, such as China, India and Russia. Are its concerns legitimate? Drawing on social identity theory, the authors analyze the emerging powers’ stances on international development through the lens of status dynamics. In particular, three issue areas are investigated: the debate over the UN development agenda, which has revealed differences between Western and non-Western approaches, the changes in the membership of donor and recipient groups over the last decade and the discourse of emerging countries concerning science and technology, which betrays their self-image of a “developed” or “laggard” state.The key finding of the paper is that the crisis of the liberal world order as a set of institutions created by the US-led countries after WWII manifests itself in the distorting symbolic exchange between developed and developing countries. The emerging states are unwilling to recognize the authority of the West and its leadership in setting the direction of global development. Meanwhile, they are trying to gain the status of development front-runners using their own foreign aid programs and science and technology development strategies. However, the rising states are not uniform and consistent in posing a symbolic challenge to the liberal order – while the Russia is striving for a “developed non-western country” status (thereby copying the USSR’s image), India and China, though to different degrees, are positioning themselves both as developed industrial states and as developing countries which receive aid packages from richer members of the international community. What leads to the distortions in this symbolic exchange is the desire of some emerging powers to use the resources of the West and reap the benefits of the world order created by it while denying it a high status. Thus, a classic economic “free-rider problem” arises in international relations: while benefiting from the liberal order created by the West, the rising states do not recognize the status it ascribes itself ignoring the symbolic hierarchy which, as viewed by western countries, underlies this order.The authors declare the absence of conflict of interest