Benevolent hegemon,neighborhood bully,or regional security provider? Russia’s efforts to promote regional integration after the 2013–2014 Ukraine crisis

Russia has tried to use economic incentives and shared historical and cultural legacies to entice post-Soviet states to join its regional integration efforts. The Ukraine crisis exposed the weaknesses of this strategy, forcing Russia to fall back on coercive means to keep Kiev from moving closer to the West. Having realized the limits of its economic and soft power, will Russia now try to coerce post-Soviet states back into its sphere of influence? Fears of such an outcome overestimate Russia’s ability to use coercion and underestimate post-Soviet states capacity to resist. Rather than emerging as a regional bully, Russia is trying to push Eurasian integration forward by becoming a regional security provider. The article relates these efforts to the larger literature on regional integration and security hierarchies – bridging the two bodies of theory by arguing that regional leaders can use the provision of security to promote economic integration. Despite initial signs of success, we believe that the new strategy will ultimately fail. Eurasian integration will continue to stagnate as long as Russia’s economic and soft power remain weak because Russia will be unable to address the economic and social problems that are at the root of the region’s security problems.     

On the influence of climatic factors on the ratio between the cosmogenic isotope 14C and total carbon in the atmosphere in the past

Radiocarbon ¹⁴C is a cosmogenic isotope, which is most extensively used by scientists from a wide variety of fields. Its rate of generation in the atmosphere depends on solar modulation and thus, studying ¹⁴C concentration in natural archives, one can reconstruct solar activity level in the past. The paper shows results of box-model calculations of generation of the ¹⁴C isotope in the atmosphere and its relative abundance during the time interval 1389–1800 AD, taking into account influence of changing climate. This interval includes the deep minimum of solar activity and period of significant change in atmospheric concentration of CO₂ and global temperature. The performed analysis showed that concentration of ¹⁴C in the atmosphere reflects not only variations of the galactic cosmic rays intensity but as well changes of temperature and atmospheric CO₂ concentration. It is shown that the decrease in CO₂ concentration in the atmosphere during 1550–1600 can be connected with absorption of CO₂ by the ocean surface layer. Thus, taking into account the climatic changes is an important condition for the reconstruction of solar activity in the past using data based on cosmogenic isotopes.     

Competition or cooperation? Jewish day schools,synagogues and the (re)construction of young people’s Jewish identities in England

Diasporic synagogues have historically provided a number of educational and social functions. However, the growing popularity of state-funded Jewish schools in England necessitates analysis of these institutions’ changing roles and their implications for performances of Jewishness. Drawing upon interviews with rabbis, and interviews and focus groups with parents and students at a Jewish school, this article demonstrates three challenges for synagogues associated with the recent growth in Jewish day schooling: the instigation of instrumental attendance at services in order to secure a school place; and the co-option of synagogues’ traditional functions as both education and social centres. In the process, it illustrates how conceptualisations of Jewish identity are contested, resulting in discrepant attitudes towards Jewish education. Consequently, the article contributes to understandings of the spaces in which young people practise their Jewishness, and highlights the challenges for community leaders in ensuring that Jewish schools and synagogues cooperate rather than compete.