title: The Double Headed Eagle: Looking East, Looking West. A Postcolonial Analysis of Russia’s relations vis-à-vis the EU
abstract: This thesis contends that previous attempts to theorise Russian foreign policy have been splintered by their failure to conceptualise the nuances of the Russian case, as a nation caught on the periphery of both Europe and Asia. These theoretical disparities stem from the inability of Western-oriented IR to transgress clear-cut boundaries, a discrepancy most profound in an analysis of Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea. Thus, in an attempt to resolve these deficits, this study argues that underst