The Russia Policy Conundrum

The Russia Policy Conundrum

Author: Hugo Klijn

Publisher:

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 6

ISBN-13:

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On 28 September the Netherlands’ Russia policy was debated in Parliament. This policy (updated most recently in the government’s ‘Russia letter’ of December 2019) boils down to a twin-track approach of, on the one hand, exerting pressure through EU sanctions and NATO deterrence and, on the other hand, identifying commonground dossiers and engaging in people-to-people contacts. To date, this longstanding policy has not led to satisfactory outcomes. The debate took place against the backdrop of a Clingendael opinion poll indicating that the Dutch public has different threat perceptions of Russia. Anyway, the debate was rather uneventful and lawmakers focused mostly on topical issues such as the ongoing MH17 trial, Belarus,developments around Nagorno-Karabakh and the poisoning of Alexey Navalny. It maybe a source of comfort that the Netherlands is not the only country struggling with its Russia policy. The list of accusations and grievances against Russia is growing,but its leadership flatly denies all wrongdoing and does not seem much impressed by Western responses which have not resulted in a change of behaviour. Under a veneer of unity, European countries are divided on Russia and the debate often hovers between two, typically Russian, eternal questions: kto vinovat (who’s to blame) andchto delat’ (what to do).


Sophie's World

Sophie's World

Author: Jostein Gaarder

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Published: 2007-03-20

Total Pages: 735

ISBN-13: 1466804270

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A page-turning novel that is also an exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought, Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World has fired the imagination of readers all over the world, with more than twenty million copies in print. One day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning—but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined.


How to Rig an Election

How to Rig an Election

Author: Nic Cheeseman

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2024-07-23

Total Pages: 343

ISBN-13: 0300280831

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An engrossing analysis of the pseudo-democratic methods employed by despots around the world to retain control Contrary to what is commonly believed, authoritarian leaders who agree to hold elections are generally able to remain in power longer than autocrats who refuse to allow the populace to vote. In this engaging and provocative book, Nic Cheeseman and Brian Klaas expose the limitations of national elections as a means of promoting democratization, and reveal the six essential strategies that dictators use to undermine the electoral process in order to guarantee victory for themselves. Based on their firsthand experiences as election watchers and their hundreds of interviews with presidents, prime ministers, diplomats, election officials, and conspirators, Cheeseman and Klaas document instances of election rigging from Argentina to Zimbabwe, including notable examples from Brazil, India, Nigeria, Russia, and the United States—touching on the 2016 election. This eye-opening study offers a sobering overview of corrupted professional politics, while providing fertile intellectual ground for the development of new solutions for protecting democracy from authoritarian subversion.


Russian Tattoo

Russian Tattoo

Author: Elena Gorokhova

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2015-01-06

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 1451689845

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Finalist for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing From the bestselling author of A Mountain of Crumbs, a “brilliant and illuminating” (BookPage) portrait of mothers and daughters that reaches from Cold War Russia to modern-day New Jersey to show how the ties that hold you back can also teach you how to start over. Elena Gorokhova moves to the US in her twenties to join her American husband and to break away from her mother, a mirror image of her Soviet Motherland: overbearing, protective, and difficult to leave. Before the birth of Elena’s daughter, her mother comes to help care for the baby and stays for twenty-four years, ordering everyone to eat soup and wear a hat, just as she did in Leningrad. Russian Tattoo is the story of a unique balancing act and a family struggle: three generations of strong women with very different cultural values, all living under the same roof and battling for control. As Elena strives to bridge the gap between the cultures of her past and present and find her place in a new world, she comes to love the fierce resilience of her Soviet mother when she recognizes it in her American daughter. “Gorokhova writes about her life with a novelist’s gift,” says The New York Times, and her second memoir is filled with empathy, insight, and humor.


Thinking about Nuclear Weapons

Thinking about Nuclear Weapons

Author: Michael Quinlan

Publisher: Royal United Services Institute (RUSI)

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 94

ISBN-13:

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En studie vedr. kernevåbens betydning og indflydelse på sikkerhedspolitik og magtbalance


My Fine Feathered Friend

My Fine Feathered Friend

Author: William Grimes

Publisher: North Point Press

Published: 2002-03-25

Total Pages: 59

ISBN-13: 1466822139

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Boy Meets Bird. Boy Gets Bird. Boy Loses Bird An Urban Folktale. One day in the dead of winter, New York Times restaurant critic William Grimes looked out the window into his backyard in Queens and saw a chicken, jet black with a crimson comb. Wherever it had come from, it showed no sign of leaving, and it quickly made a place for itself among the society of resident stray cats. Before long, the chicken became the Chicken, and it began to arouse not only Grimes's protective impulses but also his curiosity. He discovered that chickens were domesticated first as fighters, not food; that egg-laying is triggered by exposure to light; that chickens were a fashion statement in Victorian days. He began to probe the mysteries of gallinaceous behavior, learning to distinguish a dust bath from a death dance and how to cater to his guest's eclectic palate. And when the Chicken began to repay his hospitality with five or six custom-laid eggs per week, Grimes had an answer to the age-old conundrum of which came first: the Chicken. And then one day, obeying some bird-brained logic of its own -- or perhaps the victim of fowl play -- the Chicken vanished, leaving Grimes eggless but with this funny, enlightening, and heartwarming tale to tell.


Nuclear Deterrence in the 21st Century

Nuclear Deterrence in the 21st Century

Author: Thérèse Delpech

Publisher: Rand Corporation

Published: 2012-03-28

Total Pages: 197

ISBN-13: 0833059440

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Deterrence remains a primary doctrine for dealing with the threat of nuclear weapons in the 21st century. The author reviews the history of nuclear deterrence and calls for a renewed intellectual effort to address the relevance of concepts such as first strike, escalation, extended deterrence, and other Cold War-era strategies in today's complex world of additional superpowers, smaller nuclear powers, and nonstate actors.


Science And Human Behavior

Science And Human Behavior

Author: B.F Skinner

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2012-12-18

Total Pages: 484

ISBN-13: 1476716153

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The psychology classic—a detailed study of scientific theories of human nature and the possible ways in which human behavior can be predicted and controlled—from one of the most influential behaviorists of the twentieth century and the author of Walden Two. “This is an important book, exceptionally well written, and logically consistent with the basic premise of the unitary nature of science. Many students of society and culture would take violent issue with most of the things that Skinner has to say, but even those who disagree most will find this a stimulating book.” —Samuel M. Strong, The American Journal of Sociology “This is a remarkable book—remarkable in that it presents a strong, consistent, and all but exhaustive case for a natural science of human behavior…It ought to be…valuable for those whose preferences lie with, as well as those whose preferences stand against, a behavioristic approach to human activity.” —Harry Prosch, Ethics