Why do Russian foreign intelligence services repeatedly fall short of delivering the political and strategic outcomes expected by the Kremlin, a pattern made most visible in the 2022 invasion of Ukraine? This article argues that these shortcomings stem not from episodic misjudgments but from enduring operational and structural constraints that have shaped Soviet and Russian intelligence practice over several decades. Through a comparative analysis of three cases—the events leading up to Prague Spring (1968), the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan (1979), and Russian operations in Ukraine (2014–22)—this study demonstrates the persistence of three tendencies: fragmented organizational arrangements that undermine coordination and intensify inter-service competition, systematic misreadings of local political conditions within Moscow’s perceived spheres of influence, and a preference for confirmatory analysis that suppresses unwelcome assessments. Drawing on archival material, former practitioner accounts, leaked reporting, and contemporary investigations, the article shows how these recurrent patterns generate strategically consequential misperceptions and repeatedly force Moscow from intelligence-led strategies of low-cost control into prolonged military escalation. The findings challenge depictions of RIS omnipotence and highlight the historical continuity of structural limitations that constrain Russian intelligence effectiveness across disparate conflicts, periods, and technologies.
This study examines how individuals in the business and industrial sectors in Lithuania justified their actions during the post-socialist transformation. Applying justification theory to interviews with those who experienced the post-socialist transformation in Lithuania, this research analyzes how different social groups employ various “orders of worth” to legitimize their choices and experiences. The interviews represent memory narratives shaped by contemporary circumstances and are used to justify the position of the interviewee in the present. The findings reveal that while both entrepreneurs and industrial workers use market and domestic orders of worth, they combine and deploy these frameworks distinctively based on their specific situations. Entrepreneurs merge market and domestic orders to justify business success, while industrial workers navigate a transformation from industrial-domestic to industrial-market frameworks. The study demonstrates that both the strongest group identification and the most significant conflicts emerge when multiple orders of worth are either mutually reinforced or simultaneously violated. The emotional intensity of these disputes, particularly because they emerged during a period of regime change, becomes a major factor in shaping long-term (dis)trust in political institutions and the business sector.
The State of the Nation Addresses (SONA) are the most authoritative form of presidential communication in the Republic of Kazakhstan. They outline the president’s position on key national priorities and present the government’s medium-term policy agenda. This study analyses 28 SONAs delivered between 1997 and 2024 using structural topic modeling and sentiment analysis to examine the interplay between speech content, sentiment, and the country’s macroeconomic conditions. We identify nine core topics, with industrial development emerging as the most popular one, rising from under 1% in 1999 to over 42% in 2023. President Tokayev emphasizes reforms and democracy, while President Nazarbayev placed greater focus on national identity. We find that GDP is significantly associated with prevalence of multiple topics, suggesting that economic performance shapes rhetorical priorities. Sentiment analysis reveals a consistent positive–neutral–positive arc within speeches, with similar tones in the openings and conclusions. These findings are interpreted through the lens of spin dictator theory, suggesting that presidential rhetoric functions as a responsive instrument of authoritarian legitimation, calibrated to macroeconomic conditions. Our results suggest that changes in presidential rhetoric can serve as an early indicator of shifting policy priorities and regime responses to evolving socioeconomic conditions.
The rise of the Ukrainian oligarchy after independence in 1991 was both cause and effect of what Douglass North et al. call a limited access order, or a neo-patrimonial state. Informal practices inside a formal institutional order—particularly patronage networks and political technology—created and continued rent-seeking. Russia interacted with these networks in the pursuit of strategic corruption. The West has been more of an enabler of oligarchy. All of these factors are now in decline. Just as the material wealth of oligarchy can be shown to rise and fall, so can its political influence.
This article examines the moral dimensions of neoliberal economic thought in post-socialist Slovakia, focusing on how local economic experts and intellectuals appropriated Friedrich Hayek’s ideas to articulate a moral justification for market reforms during the transition from state socialism. Rather than framing the shift to capitalism in purely technical or economic terms, Slovak reformers—particularly those associated with the Public Against Violence (VPN) movement and its successor, the Civic Democratic Union (ODÚ)—argued for market liberalization as a means of societal moral renewal. Drawing on archival sources and writings by key figures such as Jozef Kučerák, Alica Kršáková, and Ivan Mikloš, this study explores how Hayekian thought was adapted to the Slovak context to present economic inequality, competition, and entrepreneurship as moral goods essential for democracy building. This article positions this moral discourse against dominant critiques of neoliberalism as amoral or technocratic, instead arguing that the Slovak case reveals a complex interplay of ideology, morality, and democratic aspiration and shows how these translated into political practice. It contends that neoliberalism’s local appeal stemmed not from foreign imposition but from the internal moral logic of post-socialist reformers seeking to build a new democratic order rooted in individual freedom and responsibility.
