Professor Spotlight: Dr. Anatoly Reshetnikov

by Debora Aberastury

This spring World Dip is shining the spotlight on Dr. Anatoly Reshetnikov, an assistant professor who joined the International Relations Department at WVPU in December 2018. Dr. Reshetnikov’s research interests include: identity politics, critical and linguistic approaches to social analysis, and Russia’s international politics -- to name just a few. He recently received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the Central European University (Hungary) and holds an MA in International Relations and European Studies, also from the Central European University. Reshetnikov is currently teaching two BA courses on Methods of Political Inquiry and Key Concepts of Russian Foreign Policy. Next year he will be teaching a course on Eastern European Politics in addition to BA and MA-level courses on Research Methods. Debora Aberastury shares more.

Why did you choose to go into academia and teaching? 

After finishing my master’s I was not sure where to go. So, I was trying out different options. I worked in the business sector for a while. Then I realized that something was missing. I disliked the 9-to-5 routine and longed for a creative job in a creative place. I was quite good at academic writing and going back to academia seemed like a logical choice, so I decided to apply for a PhD program.

While doing my PhD, I gradually realized that the teaching of social sciences and humanities was, in fact, extremely important. It touches upon the most fundamental questions of human life: “How to live well together?” “How to handle the irreducible difference between individuals’ aspiration and desires?” “How to build peace that lasts?” These questions do not have easy answers, but it is only by constantly trying to find answers that we can hope to understand the roots of the most pressing social problems. University is the place where this discussion can proceed freely without concern for political stakes and sworn allegiances.

“It is only by constantly trying to find answers that we can hope to understand the roots of the most pressing social problems.”

Tell us about the current book you are working on: the evolution of Russian great power discourse from the XI Century until the present day.

I recently defended my PhD and now I am trying to turn my thesis into a book. In terms of its theme, my PhD project is a conceptual history of several Russian notions related to political greatness, superiority, international status, etc. It includes a thorough textual analysis of many primary sources through which Russia, as well as its predecessor polities spoke about greatness. In a nutshell, I am trying to go back in time to see where this great power discourse originated, how it changed throughout history, and how we ended up where we are today – at yet another moment of confrontation between Russia and the West. 

What other projects are you currently working on? 

I am working on several other projects. One project is an edited volume that aims to represent and engage with different historical conceptions of greatness as they developed in Russia, the US, Turkey, China, Brazil and other major powers. This June, my colleagues and I will have the first serious workshop on this topic in Krakow. 

Another project that I have been working on for a while with one of my co-authors is a series of articles (and hopefully a book) on the ‘trickster turn’ in Russian diplomacy. In that project, we are trying to understand the meaning of the recent ambivalent trends in Russia’s communication with the outside world. I am also working on an article with another colleague about the rhetorical foundations of political order and the anti-rhetorical bias of the current International Relations and social science as such.

Why did you choose Russia as your area of interest?

I started working on Russia because this was something I knew best, as a Russian national. I speak the language and possess cultural competence necessary to conduct in-depth analysis. Having lived outside Russia for more than eight years, I am also closely familiar with how Russia is represented in other countries. Studying Russia is also a way for me to reconnect with my country and culture of origin while living abroad.

Could you talk more about the 'trickster turn' in Russian foreign policy?

We draw on literature from the fields of literary studies and anthropology of religion to flesh out a distinct political role that Russia came to play in the current international system. This role is cognate to the role of the mythological trickster. In other words, Russia’s systemic position in the current configuration of the international order is similar to the position of Loki in Scandinavian folklore, of Prometheus and Coyote in Greek and North American mythologies respectively, and of Bart Simpson in “The Simpsons” universe. Tricksters are amoral, but not immoral. They are neither good nor evil; neither idealists, nor fools. They never have a secret plan to destroy humanity, but they always plot their little tricks. Even though they subvert the existing structures, they do not have any new structures to offer. They challenge their cultural systems from within by revealing and subverting their internal logic. 

“[tricksters] never have a secret plan to destroy humanity, but they always plot their little tricks.”

At the same time, tricksters are not total outcasts banned from socialization. They are well-established and familiar figures and are often welcomed into discussion. Tricksters are also hostages of their environment: They did not create it and have little control over it. They are incapable of transforming it radically. Yet they are also too seasoned to take it seriously. So, they always try to cut corners, but often end up being fooled, because they cannot account for all the complexities of their cultural and natural systems. 

We believe that this description fits Russia’s international politics very well. And if it does, this means that we now have a vast amount of cultural resources where we can find recipes of how to deal with tricksters. We can consult those resources trying to understand why they take up this systemic role and what their main grievances are. 

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Debora Aberastury is currently a graduate student in the international relations Department at Webster Vienna Private University. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree in international relations with a minor in Spanish from Webster University in St. Louis, MO.  Previously, she has studied abroad in Greece and England. Aberastury also writes for Pasquines and Voy Abroad, and has interned with the US State Department and the Missouri Coordinated Democratic campaign.

No credible arms control without US cohesion on gun control

Ali Shahabi, WVPU international relations graduate student, shares his commentary on US and international arms control. 

By Alireza Shahabi Sirjani 

The unresolved debate

The internal unresolved debate of gun control in the United States could be affecting international arms control. US conservatives and gun lobbyists could find common ground with sovereign states and their calculus on international arms treaties in regard to the intrusive infringement by the federal state. Moreover, national security concerns of states as individual actors are not so different from a citizen’s granted rights and liberties. It could be said that by not acknowledging individual privileges, the full acknowledgment of the person may fall under question. 

This could possibly be because of the instinctive understanding of a basic read of the realistic nature of things, or perhaps the rebellious nature of a social beast’s fanatical will to live free with the ability to defend itself. It is a matter close to the hearts of all conservative nodes foreign and domestic to the United States. Even though the US identifies itself as a nation “of the people,” US conservatives are weary of their government curtailing freedoms, and there are most certainly parallels to be drawn between the weariness of (conservative leaning) US citizens and the global community: both wanting less meddling from Washington in their rights of self-defense. 

Gun control in the US

The topic of gun control in the United States is a highly charged and sensitive topic triggering emotional reports from opponents and proponents. This loaded matter cuts deep into the hearts of many Americans who value the right to defend against threats to their life, liberty and God given freedoms. Any debate that infringes upon a person’s right to bear arms is seen as an open challenge to their values and freedoms. 

In 2013 former President Barack Obama signed the international Arms Trade Treaty and passed it to the Senate for ratification. After which he received pushback from the American people as some believed the ATT would threaten their rights under the Second Amendment and subjugate them to “international rules and restrictions.”  

Speaking at the National Rifle Association's annual meeting on April 26, 2019 in Indianapolis, President Donald Trump stated “American citizens live by American laws and not the laws of foreign countries” and he will not allow foreign bureaucrats and the activities of misguided individuals to threaten the constitutionally guaranteed rights of Americans to bear arms under the Second Amendment. “Under my administration we will never surrender American sovereignty to anyone,” President Trump proclaimed. Making it very clear that he would not allow  “foreign bureaucrats to trample on [American] freedoms.”

In the past few years the global community has been shell shocked and numb with disbelief by the United States’ actions that decrease credibility and go contrary to international norms and standards it has labored to construct and sponsor. The United States’ unprecedented belligerent exceptionalism and political revisionism could be an emerging result of internal systemic side effects brought about by security concerns of a hegemon grappling with the contemplation of waning power and the unwillingness to share it.

Lead by example

There seems to be parallels between the decisions of certain sovereign states and their adherences to arms control treaties and argumentations put forward by conservative anti-gun control lobbyist in the United States. The indecisiveness of the country to commit to international self-drafted or suggested norms and the unwillingness to lead by example detracts from its soft power capability and self-touted leadership position, making the adoption or enforcement of international agreements even more difficult or unlikely.

A well thumped and repeated statement by anti-gun control opponents is: “first they take your guns, then they take your freedoms, your rights and then they kill you”. From their perspective there are compelling historical references that correlates with state-wide executions and violence against citizenry after the introduction of gun control laws. In Turkey, for example, 1.5 million Armenians were “purged” from 1915 - 1917, the Soviet Union “exterminated” 20 million between 1929 – 1953 and the Nazi Germans’ eradication of 17 million people. 

“first they take your guns, then they take your freedoms, your rights and then they kill you”

Defend life, liberty, and property

The schism raises from the fear that when the freedoms and right to defend oneself are taken away by an outside force, an imbalance is created leaving one party at the mercy of the other’s will, thus ultimately exaggerating asymmetric power and capacity. 

It is understandable that emotions become inflamed when an individual’s right to defend their life, liberty, and property are threatened. When “the security of a free state” is infringed upon, feelings of dread, helplessness and the need for self-preservation are induced. But where’s the middle ground between the two sides of this fiery debate? Universal background checks and the responsible possession and curtailing of certain automatic weapons could be a start.

Before a mass crowd of cheering onlookers at the NRA Indianapolis event, President Trump signed an order calling on “the Senate to discontinue the treaty ratification process and return the now rejected treaty” to him so that it can be disposed of. Under the ATT, states are to regulate the export and prohibit the transfer of arms “that would be contrary to international legal obligations, or where the state knows the arms would be used in the commission of genocide, crimes against humanity and certain war crimes.”

Gun control and global arms trade

If we were to take this big-red-button topic of US gun control and widen the lens to encompass the globe, there are parallels that can be drawn on the matter of gun control and the global arms trade. The topic of arms control weighs heavily in the thought processes of individual sovereign states, their relations, and interactions.

Technological advances could have helped inflate the problem of what might be considered as rational conventional weapons for self defense, in dimensional relation to the individual and the state. Is the position of heavy weaponry such as sub-automatic guns with armor-piercing bullets necessary for individual security? Would nuclear, biological or chemical tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles be needed to ensure national security? 

Melting pot

The United States as a “melting pot” is a fantastic subject for day-to-day conversation and scholarly study because of its central position in global affairs and the ramification of its internal conversation and external action on the lives of billions of people globally. From its inception, the United States has been a beacon for revolutionaries and idealistic thought, whose internal debates and path of self-identification has helped others question their own trajectory, norms and morals. Arguably though, the States’ immense wealth in soft power could outpace its massive coercive hard power capability. Even so, it has demonstrated how it is ready and capable of wielding its soft power as an indiscriminate blunt weapon with a high potential for collateral damage.

The US has served as a prominent architectural actor in building and securing global norms after the devastation of the World Wars, yet today we are witnesses to the fractioning of these very global norms. If the United States wants to see greater global adherents to norms it helped establish, it might need to settle the divide at home first. The US Federal Government is the largest and most influential dispenser of arms worldwide and has the prerogative to deny its services to any state it wishes. The US competence to certify whether its citizens have the right to bear arms and to what capacity, is a privilege that doesn’t carry externally and would be hard to justify if the US views itself as an exemption among equals. Otherwise states will continue to project or declare similar responses like that of former NRA President Charlton Heston, in response to gun control lobbyists, “from my cold, dead hands.”

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Alireza Shahabi Sirjani studied his BA in International Relations at Webster Vienna Private University where he is currently studying his MA in the same field. Prior to studying IR at WVPU, he studied Architecture at the Technical University of Vienna. He has interned in a number of architectural offices as well as international organizations such as the International Atomic Energy Agency. He is a member of the CTBT Youth Group and his interests in the field of international relations fall mainly in the area of arms control.

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For more on this topic see: 

FOX 10 Phoenix. (n.d.). NRA CONVENTION: President Trump FULL Speech.

Parker, Kim. (2017) Among gun owners, NRA members have a unique set of views and experiences. Pew Research Center. 

Woolcott, P. (n.d.). The Arms Trade Treaty.

Strasser, M. R. (2008). Second Amendment. 

Yanker, J. (n.d.). From my Cold Dead Hands: the role of the NRA in the lack of gun reform in the United States from 1996-2014. 86.

The Austrian Integration Test: Humiliating and Exclusionary?

By Laleh  Ashrafi

April 2019

As a part of Austria’s immigration law,  non-EU/EEA immigrants are required to take the so-called integration test to prove a level of German language proficiency and knowledge of “basic values of Austria’s legal and social order” when applying for permanent residency. Some of the rather absurd questions applicants are required to answer include: Is a single woman allowed to live alone in Austria? What does a dentist do? And, only women are allowed to work in hospitals, true or false?

One might ask: how are these questions even relevant to integrating into Vienna -- a city that’s been dubbed the “most livable city in the world?” It could also be argued: are these questions meant to purposely exclude foreigners from residing in Austria? How can integration even be tested through a questionnaire?

The nature of the integration test is greatly discriminatory towards non-EU citizens. The fact that EU citizens -- regardless of nationality, religion, and language -- settling in Austria are not required to go through the integration test poses a paradox between the ongoing immigration laws and the integration test that requires basic knowledge of Austrian values and social order.

Categorizing immigrants into EU and non-EU citizens is bad enough, but it appears even worse when one becomes integrated simply by answering a set of absurd questions. Irrespective of some of the integration test questions that point out cultural and religious differences, the relevance of other questions to the integration process is highly doubted. Also, such an arguably ridiculous questionnaire used as a scale of integration suggests that integrating into Austrian society is taking on an Austrian identity and abandoning one’s own.

Moreover, other questions referring to the exact date of World War ll or the Third Reich, although informative, are not helpful. Could this be contributing to feelings of humiliation and isolation? One could argue that these very “integration tests” correlate to opposite effects of integration by causing many to feel isolated, as though they have to abandon their own set of values and beliefs in order to “integrate” into Austrian society.

The integration test is a symptom of sick Austrian immigration laws that bring the following questions to light: Does Austria actually want immigrants to be integrated? Are these integration questions a part of a bigger problem that are more deeply rooted in nationalistic ideologies? Are Austrian immigration laws becoming a threat to human rights?

The Austrian government’s anti-immigration and arguably Islamophobic politics have been heavily criticized as discriminatory, and this is just the latest example of nonsensical migration policy that certainly proves the point. The government has made the occasional half-hearted attempt to retain a semblance of non-racism, but the legislation does not lie. The integration test serves as a prime example of the government’s openly hostile and absurd policies on migration, and should only encourage us to question other laws put in place since the ÖVP-FPÖ coalition took office in 2017.

Laleh Ashrafi, the founder of World Dip magazine, is an international relations graduate student at Webster Vienna Private University with a background in linguistics and literature. Her passion for learning the German language in addition to Farsi and Russian brought her to Vienna. Having a rich involvement in humanitarian activities in different countries, including Afghanistan, lends her a wide perspective on immigration and war studies which are her main research interests.