Russia as a Great Power? A Case Study of Southeast Asia
Joshua Espeña & Don McLain Gill
Global Politics Review
Vol. 6, no. 1-2 (2020): 57-65.
DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.3871405
GPR ID: 2464-9929_v06_i1-2_p057
Received: February 29, 2020. Accepted: May 6, 2020. Published: June 8, 2020.
ABSTRACT: The great power concept has been widely used in the study of International Relations. However, its usage has often occurred in foreign policy analyses of a more rhetorical than empirical nature. Several scholars have tried to contribute to defining what a great power is. For the purpose of this study, Andrew Heywood’s great power framework provides a critical understanding of the concept of great powers and touches on the contributions made by other scholars as well. Russia has been usually labeled as a great power based on a common nostalgia of the former Soviet Union and the charisma seen from President Putin; however, before attributing the status of great power to Russia, it is important to look into empirical data, not merely rhetoric. Considering that a great power is global in reach, this paper employs Southeast Asia as a case study in analyzing Russia’s influence in the sub-region. This study claims that despite common perceptions, Russia has not yet achieved great power status based on the empirical data provided against the backdrop of Heywood’s conceptual framework.
Keywords: Great power, Russia, Southeast Asia, Andrew Heywood, international relations, Asia-Pacific.
Copyright by the Authors. This is an Open Access article licensed by Global Politics Review under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License 
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