On October 9, 2024, Mikhail Polianskii successfully defended his dissertation “Better Shared Than Dead? Russia's Dissociation from the post-Cold War European Security Order”.
Why did relations between Russia and the West take such a dramatic turn less than a generation after the end of the Cold War? Taking this question as his starting point, Mikhail Polianskii's doctoral project examines the alienation of Russian politics from the normative framework of European security. In doing so, he particularly considers the role of European institutions and argues that they are not only victims of the authoritarian turn of the Kremlin regime, but also causal for the Russian dissociation from the fundamental pillars of the European security architecture.
The cumulative dissertation is part of the project Drifting Apart (2019-2023), funded by the Leibniz Association, which examined the worldwide increase in state withdrawals from international organizations or agreements. The project showed that lasting tensions arise between the participating states in particular when the dissociation is perceived as an expression of a fundamental conflict of values. Mikhail Polianskii continues to work as a Researcher at PRIF’s project PATTERN: How Does the Past Matter? The Russian War of Aggression Against Ukraine and the Cold War, which aims to make learning experiences from the Cold War applicable to the antagonistic world politics of the present.
We warmly congratulate Mikhail on his successful graduation. The publications of his cumulative work are available via his profile page.