ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the domestic factors and describes the institutional and conceptual environment in which the foreign policy of the Russian Federation is being formulated. It demonstrates that Russian foreign policy emerges from the interaction of decision makers representing a variety of personal and institutional perspectives and involved in the simultaneous resolution of a large number of domestic and foreign issues. Since the creation of the executive presidency in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1990, and continuing in independent Russia, the office of the president has been the institutional centerpiece of Moscow's foreign policy decision making. In today's Russia, as in the preceding Soviet state, domestic factors constrain and help to determine foreign behavior in two ways. First, internal economic, social, and political plans and policies can rival foreign and defense policies as claimants on limited resources. Second, foreign policy decisions can be shaped by the contests for influence among groups and individuals.
