Introduction

This chapter introduces the research topic and its goals. It starts with a brief presentation of the current academic discussion on Russia’s foreign policy (RFP), pointing to the shortcomings of the existing explanations. Consequently, it speaks about the need to strengthen the analytical component through the application of role theory. The following section introduces a theoretical discussion on foreign policy change and explains that the four analysed upheavals are ideal cases to examine the shifts in RFP because, representing Moscow’s various reactions to two, apparently similar sets of events, they are highly comparable. The last section talks about the empirical goal of explaining Russia’s divergent reactions to the upheavals as well as the book’s broader aims of enriching literature on RFP, role theory, and, more generally, the foreign policy of non-democratic states.