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Introduction: the crisis management cycle -- Risk assessment -- Prevention -- Preparedness -- Response -- Recovery -- Learning -- Conclusions

The Crisis Management Cycle is the first holistic, multidisciplinary introduction to the dynamic field of crisis management theory. By drawing together the different theories and concepts of crisis management literature and practice, this book develops a theoretical framework of analysis that can be used by both students and practitioners alike. Each stage of the crisis cycle is explored in turn: - Risk assessment - Prevention - Preparedness - Response - Recovery - Learning. Stretching across disciplines as diverse as safety studies, business studies, security studies, political science and behavioural science, The Crisis Management Cycle provides a robust grounding in crisis management that will be invaluable to both students and practitioners worldwide. Christer Pursiainen is Professor of Societal Safety at the Arctic University of Norway (UiT), Tromsø, Norway. He has published widely on a variety of themes such as crisis decision-making, critical infrastructure protection and resilience, international relations theory, foreign policy analysis, regional cooperation and integration, and comparative politics.

"An original and challenging examination of how to transform post-Sovietological study of Soviet and Russian foreign policy into a more integrated part of the Social Sciences and International Relations Theory. This book represents the first detailed and sustained synthesis international relations theory and Soviet/Russian foreign and security policy in academic literature."--Provided by publisher.

This volume takes a comparative approach to understand general tendencies in post-Communist transition in Russia and China. Bringing together perspectives from Political Science, Sociology and IR, it analyses three arenas of social change: socio-economic systems, political systems, and foreign policies

Over the past two or three decades, Russia and China have both experienced extensive socio-economic and political transformation, as well as foreign policy reorientation. However, this transformation has not followed one pattern, but rather has taken two specific routes. How do their strategies differ, and how are they interrelated? When -- and at what junctures -- were the crucial choices made? What are the strategic choices that have yet to be made by Russia and China? What are the alternatives, how are they constructed and what are the internal and external settings that constrain the choices between different policy lines? This book provides the first structured comparison of Russia's and China's post-communist modernisation paths from the perspective of three interrelated arenas of social change: political system, socio-economic system, and foreign policies.

Cover -- Half Title -- Dedication -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- Acknowledgements -- 1 The Problem and the Argument -- From Area Studies to a Social Science and Beyond -- Scope and Structure of the Present Study -- 2 How to Evaluate Theories? -- Facts and Theories -- Comparison of Theories and the Incommensurability Thesis -- Summing Up the Philosophical Premises -- 3 The Heritage of Soviet Foreign Policy Studies -- The Growth of the Field -- From Early Studies to Single-Factor Theories -- Traditionalism vs. Science -- Towards the Third/Fourth Debate in Russian Foreign Policy Studies -- Theoretical Dimensions of Change and Continuity -- History, Geopolitics, and National Interest -- From Ideology to Identity -- The Nature of the Political System -- External Context of Foreign Policy -- Looking Beneath the Surface of Sovietology -- Sovietology and Scientific Development -- Understanding and Explaining -- Levels, Agents, and Structures -- 4 Russia and the International System -- Two Sets of Test Questions from Three Perspectives -- Subsystem Dominance or Power of Structure? -- Structure and Units -- Realists as Pessimists and Optimists -- Interdependence, Issue Areas, and Regimes -- From Interdependence to Regime Theory -- Institutionalisation as a Variable -- Constructing Interests, Identity, and Norms -- The Continuum of International Systems -- Reproducing and Producing International Norms and Rules -- Making Theoretical Choices -- Beyond Incommensurability in International Relations Theory? -- The Uses and Abuses of Lakatos -- The Heuristic and Instrumental Value of an Approach -- 5 Russian Foreign Policy Decision-Making -- Actors and Action Principle -- The Preferences of a Rational State -- The Limits of Bureaucratic Politics -- Rationality of a Decision-Maker -- How to Deal with the 'Realities' of Decision-Making?

AbstractThe article is an analytical state-of-the-art review of the Russian Federation's critical infrastructure policy, starting from the 1990s but zooming in on the current situation. The article discusses what does critical infrastructure mean in the Russian context. It explores the country's threat scenarios in this field, and asks what part is played by cyber security threats in this context. Further, the article elaborates the issue whether Russia's policy is focused on critical infrastructure protection, or has the country adopted the more recent concept of resilience that puts emphasis on adaptive measures and recovery. Finally, it is considered who are the actors in Russian critical infrastructure policy and, in particular, how does Russia deal with the fact that the respective infrastructure operators even in Russia usually are not directly state-owned entities, but private companies.

In very general terms, this report deals with the prospect of Russia becoming more closely integrated into Europe and into the world economy more generally. In a more restricted sense, it tries to illustrate some of the central issues of this theme by briefly reviewing three sectors of economic activity in Russia, namely international road transport, ports, and forestry. The report focuses in particular on Russian strategies, policies and decision-making in these fields, having Northwest Russia (and its borders with the EU Member States Finland and the Baltic States) as a particular point of territorial reference. In the conclusions, the focus is placed squarely on the implications of this analysis for the whole European Union (EU), Member States and EU-based companies. It is argued here that while Russia's declared goal is to enhance integration, at the same time its policies are clearly characterized by state-regulated protectionism. In order to understand or explain Russia's rather ambiguous behaviour along this integration vs. protectionism axis, two basic approaches are presented: geopolitics and geoeconomics.